The religion of atheism
There is one tremendous and widespread mistake about atheism: that is, that it is not a religion - that it somehow even opposes religion. Many of us, including many Christians, accept this claim implicitly, using the nouns "atheism" and "religion" as opposites.( Read more... )
Do you admit that, unlike purple galaxies, any entity defineable as God is certainly a part of such a picture? (Purple galaxies may or may not exist without great alteration to the picture of existence as such; the existence and qualities of God, on the other hand, are surely inevitably and immediately relevant to it.)
Do you admit that the motivating principle behind all honest religious practice is the idea the religion has of existence?
Do you admit that, therefore, the motivating core, the thing without which religion could not exist, is not the ritual, the practice, but the philosophy of existence?
Do you admit that monistic materialism (to give it its philosophical name) is a perfectly valid philosophy of existence, that can be taken as credible, defended in argument, and even used as a base for action?
Finally, do you understand what I mean when I say that the job of defamation carried out by early Christians against competing religions when they called them "village practices" ("paganism") is the same in kind as that carried out by atheists when they claim to oppose "atheism" to "religon"?
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I suspect that even less intelligent human beings have a philosophy of existence, even if they remain mostly unaware of it, but essentially, yes.
Do you admit that, unlike purple galaxies, any entity defineable as God is certainly a part of such a picture? (Purple galaxies may or may not exist without great alteration to the picture of existence as such; the existence and qualities of God, on the other hand, are surely inevitably and immediately relevant to it.)
With qualification; inasmuch as any reasonably complete philosophy of existence has to include a physics as well as a metaphysics, the existence of something so very contradictory to physics as we know it should be part of such a picture, but that's quibbling, really, especially over a throwaway example. Your underlying point here I certainly admit.
Do you admit that the motivating principle behind all honest religious practice is the idea the religion has of existence?
I agree.
Do you admit that, therefore, the motivating core, the thing without which religion could not exist, is not the ritual, the practice, but the philosophy of existence?
I agree.
Do you admit that monistic materialism (to give it its philosophical name) is a perfectly valid philosophy of existence, that can be taken as credible, defended in argument, and even used as a base for action?
It is. I would, however, stipulate that not all atheism is monistic materialism.
Finally, do you understand what I mean when I say that the job of defamation carried out by early Christians against competing religions when they called them "village practices" ("paganism") is the same in kind as that carried out by atheists when they claim to oppose "atheism" to "religon"?
I believe so, yes. However, I think this conflates two different positions both of which could be described as opposition. A firm adherent to monistic materialism is, in effect, taking up a position equal and opposite to that of theism in asserting that the evidence demonstrates that his philosophy of existence, which includes no God, is correct. I would admit that that can be considered a 'religious' position, although really I think what's called for is a word that describes faith-based/unprovable positions so asserted that includes both it and theistic religions to properly describe both; given the origin and use of the word "religion", I don't think it fits the purpose very well. But in this case, I would agree that this is defamation in that sense and kind.
The other position, which is mine and I believe that of many other atheists, is that while I believe my philosophy of existence is as close to correct as I can make it, given the evidence available on which to base it, the evidence available to me is finite and non-conclusive in many areas, and thus the resulting philosophy is necessarily also incomplete and non-conclusive. This isn't the same as the agnostic position, because I have no reason to judge the question unknowable, but the current evidence also is insufficient to judge the question either way. I consider this an atheist position, because the rules of logic require me not to assume existence without evidence, but it's also, I would say, opposed to both religion, in its common sense, and to the type of atheism described above; both of them are making assertions about the concept of God that are unprovable by the evidence. I would describe that, effectively, as a middle position between the two beliefs.
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However, I disagree with you that there is a difference between your assumption of atheism on the evidence - changeable on the production of more evidence - and faith. Faith does not mean believing the impossible - the proper word for that is "moronism". Faith means overcoming the doubt that is an inevitable concomitant when dealing with ultimate matters; a doubt which is first and foremost a doubt "of the instrument", that is of our own ability to properly assess such things and come to credible conclusions. How could such things as you or I comprehend the meaning of existence? Nonetheless, the question asks itself to us in a hundred different ways each day, and we make our decision based on our best possible understanding. Speaking as a historian, the evidence for Christianity is overwhelming, better than that for almost any historical event before the invention of the press. And if we trusted evidence implicitly, we would all accept the narratives that bring it to us. However, many of us do not; not for the failed nineteenth-century attempts to deny the historicity of the New Testament, but out of something much more basic of which the school of Tubingen is nothing but a modern outgrowth. It is not radical disbelief in God either. Nobody who is not a complete fool would deny that, assuming such a being as God, all sorts of supernatural oddities are perfectly possible, and that, on its own assumptions, the New Testament narrative can make sense. What really defies belief is that the narrators should really have meant what they said. The first recorded opponent of the Gospel narrative, Celsus, did not actually declare that the Gospels were an imposture or a legend; he challenged the witnesses. A Roman court, in his time, would never have accepted the testimony of a bunch of women (he relies pretty heavily on his contempt for female testimony), and it is pretty clear that it was the hysterical stories of the women that set off a firework of delusion and possibly deception among the disciples, deprived as they were of their leader. What this means is that to accept the Gospels as a historical source, as I do because of my work, is not enough: you also have to accept that that source speaks - what we call "Gospel truth". And that means relying on the testimony of other human beings like yourself. It is a "doubt of the instrument".
Oh, and with reference to my original first point - by "decently intelligent", I meant "anyone above the level of a vegetable".
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That is an excellent and key question in this topic. While we may find agreement that, as philosophies of existence, religion and atheism may co-exist in isolation, we must not ignore the cultural dynamics. The comparison between, for example, Sagan and Dawkins is an excellent point on which to focus. We (general) often focus on the egregious violence committed against the early Christians by the Roman government, but it must be emphasized that the punishments were for the crime of refusing to acknowledge and participate in the rituals of the state religion. History is rife with similar examples of religious violence. We should not be surprised that Dawkinsesque rhetoric is taken in that light.
The conflict I see is in the unconscious comparison between acquired and revealed. Christianity starts as a revealed (holy text, catechism, etc.) belief system; modern paganisms start as acquired (i.e. experiential) belief systems. Again, consider: one does not discover on one's own that a person named Jesus was the son of God, preached a radically new message for his time, and was executed-resurrected-ascended to heaven on behalf of humanity, then suddenly meet others who have the same belief. At some point well beyond our lifetimes, Wicca may morph into a revealed belief system, and arguably is already somewhat down that path. But, as a subset member of "paganism", it remains a belief system that one can at least to a certain point discover for one's self.
Another point of conflict is mythos. Christianity (and other belief systems) have established mythos that define the belief system in a sort of feedback loop. Wicca has a short list of core beliefs, but no unifying mythos. From where I sit, you are making the mythos mistake: you see unification structure in some religions, and failing to find it in paganism make the fallacious comparison underlying your (unfortuante, grin) usage of "religious masturbation". I would expect pagan reconstructionists to recognize this, since their effort is primarily focused on learning the original mythos and attempting to work it into contemporary contexts.
My rebuttal would look something like this: You expect a religion to partake in an established, revealed mythos that provides easily recognized structure and continuity. Modern pagans approach mythos as individuals, discover like-minded fellows with whom to form community and joint exploration, and acquire their beliefs as part of their journey.
That there are exceptions to my generalizations is stipulated. I do not believe they necessarily invalidate the abstract level of my argument.
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Criticizing a belief system in terms of one's own belief system is invalid. It becomes a projection of one's beliefs onto the mythos of the "target", giving utterly predictable, false results like "modern pagans don't have a unified creation myth, therefore they are not a religion."
I don't mean to put words in your mouth. I do mean to reject the notion that Christian apologia has much credibility when it criticizes other belief systems. I apply the same standard to my fellow pagans when they engage in Christian bashing, and I reject the same from Dawkins and his "talking snake" snark.
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