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Fellow Witanagemot member, L’Ombre de l’Olivier has bought to my attention a debate taking place in the Washington Post between Michael Gerson and our old friend Christopher Hitchens on the nature of atheism. I am not about to quote any of these articles but they are all worth a read.
What really rankles with me is this old hogwash perpetually pedalled by the religiously inclined that an atheist cannot possibly have a strong set of moral values and that only an adherence to a religious faith can provide the moral platform, teaching and structure that we all need to live a peaceful, law-abiding and productive life. Far too many people implicitly believe this bullshit and far more are taken in by it and are ready to shout ‘I believe’ to show the world they are grounded in religion and therefore must be ‘good’. And compared to those people I am more honest. I am an atheist. It’s not something I am proud of and it’s not something I preach – I just am.
I am an atheist on two counts. The first, and the major reason, is that I have never been presented with any compelling argument to believe in what Hitchens calls the ‘Heavenly Dictatorship’ whereas I have been consistently presented with arguments that make common sense, have scientific evidence to back them up and that do not rely on a far-fetched belief in the supernatural or ethereal. And I feel in absolutely no way diminished by this stance. The second reason, of course, is having been bought up in a predominantly Christian tradition, any research into the history of this established religion makes it obvious to me that it is not a club I wish to belong to. It is, in short, morally corrupt. It is, in fact, more corrupt than any atheist I have ever met.
In the last week alone we have seen the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Church payout $660 million dollars to the victims of priestly abuse and a wave of Christian protest because a Hindu chaplain said a prayer at the opening of the US Senate session. Abuse, lies, violence and intolerance. And these people have the nerve to be critical of atheism. We all know that if Jesus turned up in Bible Belt America he wouldn’t last five minutes before, at the best, being run out of town but at the worse seriously assaulted and probably shot. And Christians are not, of course, alone. Muslims slaughtering fellow Muslims is daily news around the world.
Groucho Marx once famously quipped that he’d rather not belong to any club that would have him as a member. In the opposite way, I don’t want to be a member of any club that has those Los Angeles and Boston priests – or the repressed bible thumpers – claiming the moral high ground because I’d pitch my own set of moral values against theirs any day.
If you have not done so already, I would highly recommend Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, for an extremely good argument about the source of moral values (needless to say, they dont come from a religious background).
I actually bought it a couple of weeks ago.. it just awaits it’s turn. I’ll promote it
Hi Andy,
I’m one of those who does believe in God and have in my heart always done so I think. I’ve often wondered whether we are inclined one way or another from the start, which of course poses interesting philosophical questions about why if there is a God why we arent all born with the same inclinations. Without elaborating my own personal convictions, I have rationalised with the idea of a God that can on paper at least be mostly explained away by science, and I am still quite happy with the idea that he exists. Christianity in my experience has as many wonderful, quiet, peaceful people as the more publicly visible raging dogmatists, the power hungry and those who live double lives. Like any institution, the religion is open to abuse, and it is abused. Like you say, if Jesus walked through some of the mid western towns in the US (let alone Manchester, London or most places this side of the pond) he would have a fit. None of that invalidates the idea of faith in a God or the teachings of Jesus. It is possible to hold these quite simple things in your life as sacred, for whatever reason you personally hold things as such, and call yourself Christian without necessarily feeling weighed down by all the quag and gas bubbling up in other parts of the religion.
I do think the institutionalisation of Christianity has a lot to answer for, rather than the faith itself.
Eric – nice to see you here again
I cannot, of course, disagree with any of your comments. There are the great and the good in all religious faiths and outside of them. And yes, if I think of the ‘leadership’ as a ‘fringe’ and, in so many cases somewhat extremist, we are left with good, ordinary people. Perhaps it is just the old chestnut of power corrupting!
The worth of the simple teaching and message of Jesus cannot be denied but let’s be honest, that message was corrupted the moment it was institutionalised and I suspect this is true of other faiths as well. Constantine very much saw Christianity as a tool for uniting his empire and for exerting control and the leadership has followed that example with an iron fist and disregard for humanity ever since.
I think the interesting philosphical question you pose is that we are all born without any belief in a God whatsoever. That is our natural state as I see it. God is a learnt dimension which far too many do not even seem to question. And too many, I believe, accept it with relief as it saves them having to ponder the really big questions and gives them a comfortable feeling of purpose. It allows them to rationalise lifes reward of death. Which is not a criticism, merely an observation.
I have no argument with any person who believes in a God. I merely wish they would accept that not to believe in a God does not make a person morally impure. After all, I don’t believe in Satan either.
I agree with what you say about morality. Most of my friends aren’t religious at all and some of those closest to me I respect and look up to for their moral clarity. A deist would probably argue that we’re all born with a bit of God inside us, and so this morality is part of our soul, and why as a species we are capable of acts of selflessness and altruism and have a ’super ego’ so untypical within nature – Dawkins deals with this I know – and then there’s all the bad stuff to explain obviously. John Polkinghorne writes with aplomb in the same area Dawkins writes about and is certainly worth a read if you want the cosmology/science stuff from a deists perspective. As an observation it’s interesting that there are more believers at the cosmology/physics end of science than biology/anthropology.
PS Glad to be back
For some reason this doesn’t surprise me although I am not totally sure why. Or perhaps it’s that feeling that if I had to equate ‘God’ with anything, it might just be the living. breathing universe itself…
And when you do, let me know what it’s like; I’ve increasingly been getting the impression that Dawkins is just as rabid and psychotic – and annoying – an atheist as the theists he hates so much. Which is kind of frustrating. I’ve enjoyed his writing when he sticks to science, but of late he seems to have become more and more evangelical… :/
And as it goes, I can kind of see the point the no-morals-without-religion people are trying to uphold. I mean… moral values are constructs of faith, essentially; we believe that – to pick an obvious example – swearing is ‘wrong’ by nothing other than force of societal will, there is no real way in which swearing negatively affects the human race or the individual any more than any other words. The fact that moral ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ differ from culture to culture is probably enough evidence on its own that they’re really just made up, they’re not universal truths on the order of the laws of thermodynamics. (I dislike faith more than I dislike theism, but I can’t find a reasonable way to avoid it for this purpose alone.)
The problem, it seems to me, is that the ultrareligious set who make these ridiculous claims are too heavily invested in their ‘one God, one religion’ crap that they don’t really understand the concept that people might have faith in something else… or, perhaps, they understand fine but cynically try and promote their agenda by making such statements…
Andy, you believe what you were taught to believe.
Religious people believe, what they were taught to believe.
Your believe (NO GOD) is not different than religious believe (GOD EXISTS)
It is BELIEVE.
Believe is uncertainty which tends to cover our hope or knowledge.
I don’t believe that there is God.
I know that there is God.
Do I sound crazy to you?
I know that I do sound crazy for most of the people but that’s ok with me.
It doesn’t change me.
Yes, atheists can have high moral values, but what is “moral value”?
It is social rule.
Where the rules come from?
Christians rules come from Jesus.
You as an atheist are following the rules left by Jesus or Moses.
The same rules are following Jews.
Then the rules of Buddha, Mohamed, Zoroaster and all the rest that established the moral rules on the Earth.
Following rules does not make one to be righteous.
You are not your deeds but your desires.
The world is lead by desires and the deeds stay in shade or are presented in manipulative way.
Which desire is better: to know God or to rule the world?
We can start arguing about it, but Jesus simply refused to become king of Judea.
My comment became too long and to put it in few words I would say:
both religious and atheists are wrong in their arguments.
I know that no one can be taught to Love (the highest moral value).
It is something that you either have or you don’t have.
It is even wrong to say it that way.
Love is something that you are or you are not.
GOD EAT GOD
MY GOD IS BETTER THAN YOUR GOD
MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN YOUR GOD
the bullet has no eye for beauty
it does its duty
the bomb has no respect for art
it does its part
from london to dresden
from saigon to tehran
MY GOD IS BETTER THAN YOUR GOD
from the vatican to jerusalem
from the taliban to the pentagon
MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN YOUR GOD
this ain’t about who’s right or wrong
so figure out whose side you’re on
this ain’t about who’s wrong or right
just pick a side and join the FIGHT!
MIGHT is RIGHT
if you don’t agree with me
you must be the enemy
if you don’t see what i see
you must be the enemy
GOD EAT GOD
from belfast to belgrade
GOD EAT GOD
from beruit to baghdad
MY GOD IS BETTER THAN YOUR GOD
MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN YOUR GOD
i have a dream
no being is supreme
i have a vision
a world without religion
every day i hope and pray
all these gods will go away
DOG eat DOGMA
from kuta to kenya
DOG eat DOGMA
from mecca to hiroshima
Well, I heard someone (was it Dawkins?) say that religion of any sort shouldn’t be imparted onto children at least until the age of 12. Children are biologically/mentally programmed to believe what you say (it’s a safety feature). "Don’t jump off that cliff Johnny. Johnny??". So I totally agree (and would even if I weren’t an atheist). Let the children decide when they have the mental capacity to do so, otherwise it’s just brainswashing them… which Christianity and Islam especially have perfected.
I think in ancient history when there were few solid laws and even fewer ways of enforcing them, that religion was a good thing ™ and had it’s place. It soon got corrupted and twisted beyond reason though, and alot of what it stood for at the time is very much outdated. Some morals are still good (and always will be) from the religions… timeless and common sense ones, like be nice to people. Others though, like not eating Pork, are just throwbacks to when it was dangerous to eat Pork (as unless it was cooked extremely well it contains bacteria which could kill in a world without decent medicine). So all you Jews and Muslims…. you can eat Pork now… just cook it properly.
If there were just one religion, it would have been much easier for me to accept. As it is, there are legion, and even the ones from the same doctrines kill each other (except for the Cathars, who were just mercilessly hunted down and killed by Catholocism). Anyway, why should anyone from the ‘modern’ religions believe theirs are any more valid than the religions of ancient Greece, Rome, Nubia, the Aztec, the Norse etc? All those people believed totally in their religions, probably more so than people today, and (apparently) they were all wrong (insert buzzer sound here).
Sorry people, it’s a nice arrogant idea that we could live forever in different ethereal forms, but it just isn’t true. It’s always been propoganda, and it’s gotten out of hand the last 1500 years. Islam is today, where Christianity was 800 years ago…. just killing each other for the sake of power, and treating women like shit.
We live. We die. That’s it. The only living forever part is in the memories of other people. So be nice to your family
Join the Church of Reality.
The Cathars are an interesting example of the panic the established (Christian) church get’s into when it’s authority is sidelined. Sadly this may be history but I don’t think it’s past… I tend to think it’s just resting. The cycle goes round and round. There is much more slaughter to come. People dependent upon religious doctrine to get through life seem to love a bit of slaughter.
I read these kinds of things, and I just don’t see
that science has ever refuted the exsistance of God.
what I do see is that the scientific and religious both have their own form of dogma. their egotistical and neurotic need to feel they know all there is to know in their little world of “knowledge” is what keeps them from seeing the compatability of both science and God.
I haven’t seen the bible disproven by science as much as I have seen it’s interpreters silenced. and well they should be, because alot of them are ignorant and read it without thinking, then say stupid things.
then those who are religiously devoted to science smuggly sit by and say, “see, there is no God but science itself.” meanwhile in the grand scheme of things they know very little, and the little they do know, they only understand it enough to be mystified by it. they believe in the exsistance of smaller particles they can’t exactly proove exsist, they rely on mathematics, to demonstrate a belief in something such as multiple dimensions, but can they produce visible evidence? no. what a mysterious, intricute, miraculas universe we live in, and even more miraculas is the idea that we, being born from it now sit and contimplate it and ourselves.
how then can there be no room for God? how has he been disproven? how can you, with your limited knowledge, tell us that there is no such thing as God? it’s best to be silent on such matters, and not be so dogmatic. you may believe differently one day. then you might feel alittle silly.
@david: Well let’s be fair here. I didn’t once say, I believe, that there is ‘no such thing as a God’. I said that I, personally, do not believe there is a God. I also don’t believe that any science has ‘disproven’ the existence of a God – I also didn’t say that.
This item was a personal piece and I can state there is no such thing as a God just as easily as you can state the opposite as that is what you have done yet complain about what I have done.
And by the way – if one day I come to believe in a God I will not feel at all silly. Surprised yes, but not silly.