A while back, after New Atheism took hold, I remember somewhat of a backlash, mostly directed at the atheistic books of Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett (they could also, with the possible exception of Dennett’s book be called anti-theistic). The New Atheists, so the plaint went, were angry and wanted to take away people’s toys, i.e., the comforts of faith.
In fact, this criticism mistook passion and argumentation for anger, as rarely did any of the Horsemen lose their temper. This “anger” trope was so pervasive that there were tons of such articles criticizing New Atheism, many written by atheists who nevertheless saw religion as beneficial as a sort of “social glue”. These people were called “atheist butters”, because of their arguments that included “I am an atheist, but . . . ” or, as Dennett called them, exponents of “belief in belief.” (Dennett also felt that free will, like religion, was a belief necessary for social cohesion.)
A counterargument for religion, one I have made, is that you can have perfectly well-functioning societies without religion and its detriments (e.g., divisiveness, proselytizing, terrorizing of children, and of course the trope of faith—the idea that one doesn’t need evidence for what one sees as true). There’s no doubt that Judaism and Christianity are disappearing from the West, as we see from the rise of “nones”—and yet the world is morally and materially better off than a century ago, much less five centuries ago. Here’s a new tweet from Pinker documenting it (and read his two big books on the subject):
Believers, especially Christians, respond to this progress by saying, “Well, Western values were taken from and built on Christianity, so even atheists have benefited from religion.” But Western values are built on Enlightenment and humanistic values, which come from the rejection of religion. But we don’t have the controlled experiment of seeing what the world would be like had religion not arisen. Still, we do have an experiment, at least in the West, of seeing what countries would be like when they lose religion, and the answer does not support the societal benefits of faith. (I do agree that the lives of some people are improved by their faith. I’m talking about the net societal benefits, or lack thereof, of the institution of religion.)
In the end, religion, as opposed to other ideologies and superstitions, including Marxism and flat-earth-ism, still seems relatively untouchable, as if criticizing it is somehow distasteful. You can’t take away other people’s toys! (Hitchens’s response to that was “it’s okay if you play with your toys, but don’t try to make me play with your toys.”) I’m not sure why it’s considered as “angry” to criticize the tenets of faith (and faith itself); perhaps it’s because, for believers, religion has more far-reaching implications for their lives than does any other ideology.
But I digress. The article below, from Quillette, was written by Kushal Mehra, who was brought up as a Hindu in India. He’s identified as “host of the Cārvāka Podcast”, and has new book, Nastik: Why I Am Not an Atheist.
Mehra is a non-believer, but is still exploring religion. Yet he can’t comport the sacred texts of the Bible and Qur’an with their supposed message of love. Below he also gets in a lick at those Angry Atheists:
I felt a sense of bewilderment, as I struggled to reconcile the image of a benevolent, loving deity with the wrathful God that emerged from the pages of both books. God was constantly exhibiting rage, jealousy, and vengeance. For a while, I became one of those angry young atheists we all sometimes encounter on social media.
As I continued to explore and question, however, I sought out alternative interpretations of these texts, hoping to find a way to reconcile the conflicting images of God they presented. Growing up as a Hindu child, I was raised with a different understanding of the divine. Most schools of Hinduism, with their vast pantheon of gods (devatas) and goddesses (devis), and emphasis on the interconnectedness of all things, presented a more inclusive and tolerant worldview than I encountered in the Bible or the Quran.
So much for Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s claim that the message of Christianity is “love”! It may have morphed into that after going through the liberal theological sausage grinder, but remember that the message of secular humanism is also love, and was from the get-to. No sausage grinder needed!
Here are few more licks at the Angry Atheists from Mehra, who seems to see himself as superior because he’s “questioning and introspective”, something, he says, that comes from “India’s ancient cultural traditional of religious tolerance.” (Well, Modi’s getting rid of that!):
Without getting into all of the interactions I had in these spaces, I will report that I am one of the few people (I know of) who’s been banned from atheist forums for not being sufficiently angry at religion. I’d believed that atheists were my people, but, in fact, our perspectives diverged—as their intolerance toward non-atheists seemed to mirror that of religious puritans.
And here’s his familiar argument of why atheism is bad because it provides no substitute for religion, leaving that famous “god-shaped hole.” As Mehra sees it, that hole was filled by wokeness (bolding is mine):
By focusing on these Indian approaches to expressing religious doubt, I hope to make readers aware of the limitations of the “neo-atheism” movement that emerged over the last two decades, thanks largely to the influence of prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. While the movement has become popular, it also has created a vacuum of meaning and purpose in society. And since nature abhors a vacuum, it isn’t surprising that the resulting void has been filled by political and ideological trends that function as ersatz religious movements (such as the fanatical form of social-justice advocacy known as “wokeism”).
There’s no doubt that if someone gave up a faith that comforted them, and had no community of like-minded believers to fill their need for a social group, they would feel bereft. And it may be true that, for some, part of that lacuna was filled by wokeness. After all, John McWhorter’s book was called Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.
But I’m not going to pin wokeness on atheism. The arguments of New Atheism didn’t include a plan to replace religion with a new system of belief. Rather, they were arguments showing that the tenets of religion, which are foundational beliefs, were not only empirically unsupportable, but generally harmful. They were meant to show that faith—belief without evidence—is not a good way to deal with life, especially when there can potentially be evidence supporting one’s belief. As the late Victor Stenger argued, the absence of evidence is evidence for absence if that evidence should be there. And for religion, that evidence is simply not there.
And Mehra’s rationale for why religion is a net good:
Religion has long been a source of both solace and strife for humanity. And any discussion of its role in society—including a discussion among non-believers—should be informed by its status as a cornerstone of human culture, art, literature, and morality. Yes, religion has been used to justify wars, persecution, and discrimination, as well as the suppression of scientific progress and critical thinking. But it also promotes altruism and compassion, and gives people a framework for coping with life’s challenges and the inevitability of death. Scientific studies suggest that the religious impulse is deeply encoded in our evolutionary upbringing. It cannot be purged from our collective history simply by browbeating believers in books or YouTube videos, or by mocking them with clever memes or slogans.
First, I’ll reject the idea that “the religious impulse”—I’ll take “religion” to mean, as Dennett did, “social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent whose approval is to be sought”—is “deeply encoded in our evolutionary upbringing”. To me this means that human DNA contains genes directly promoting belief in supernatural agents. I know of no such genes. Yes, religion could be a byproduct of other evolved traits, like our tendency to obey authorities or look for agency, but that’s not the same thing.
Beyond that, we again have no evidence that religion is necessary for good and cohesive societies. My argument has but four words: “Northern Europe and Scandinavia”. Also, as religion vanishes from the West, our well being and morality increases. As Pinker argues, religious belief was simply an impediment to societal well being, and the Enlightenment simply shoved it aside.
I’m not denying that humans benefit from social interaction with others. We are, after all, social animals who evolved in small groups, and I’m pretty sure that this is why people get lonely and even depressed without other people around. It is also why people do tend to become part of groups, like book clubs, soccer fans, and yes, woke-ism. It is something that escaped Richard Dawkins when he argued with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
What I argue is two things. First, that religion is not the best form of “social glue”. It is divisive, harmful to children, something that often demands to be forced upon others through proselytizing, and has many other detrimental effects you can see in the books of the Horsemen. I’d argue that secular humanism, if it’s really acted on by society and informed by data and reason, is the best form of social glue.
Second, I claim that people usually don’t seek an explicit “meaning and purpose” for their lives. Rather, they seek what they find fulfilling and like to do: having families, reading books, having a fulfilling job, and so on. Then, post facto, you confect these into your “meaning and purpose”. If you’ve been brought up as an evangelical Christian or fundamentalism Muslim, then that becomes your “meaning and purpose. ” If you’ve been brought up without religion, but in a big family that makes you family-oriented, then having your own family becomes part of your “meaning and purpose.” If you love to read and learn, then reading and learning become part of your “meaning and purpose.” Or, if you’re like me, you could answer the question of “what’s the purpose and meaning of your life?”, with “I don’t have one that I’m aware of.”
I’ve written two posts on this topic that you can see here and here. In the second link, 373 comments were addressed to this topic:
If a friend asked you these questions, how would you answer them?
1.) What do you consider the purpose of your life?
2.) What do you see as the meaning of your life?
I won’t go through all the comments, but, as I recall, few if any of the answers involved religion.
I don’t feel at all angry as I write this. The question of the value of religion is an intellectual question, but one with huge societal implications, and I find it absorbing. It’s foolish to dismiss atheism, New or Old, because its proponents are angry, and even more foolish to dismiss it because it doesn’t come with alternatives to religion. Atheism is simply the belief that there’s no evidence for supernatural beings that we must worship and brown-nose. Once we give up unevidenced beliefs, then we can figure out whether (or how) we need to fill that “God-shaped hole.” My own view is that, under secular humanism, the hole is self-filling.
