"Why I Am An Atheist"

I AM AN ATHEIST. There, I said it. Are you happy, all you atheists out there who have remonstrated with me for adopting the agnostic moniker? If “atheist” means someone who does not believe in God, then an atheist is what I am.

But I detest all such labels. Call me what you like — humanist, secular humanist, agnostic, nonbeliever, nontheist, freethinker, heretic, or even bright. I prefer skeptic. Still, all such labels are just a form of cognitive economy, a shortcut into pigeonholing our fellow primates into tidy categories that supplant the deeper probing of what someone actually thinks and says. (continues)

-Michael Shermer (originally published in Science and Spirit)

lucky us

Christopher Hitchens was on the Daily Show last night. He gave a good and positive accounting of himself, I thought, much in keeping with the epigraph he chose for his memoir-- We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born...-- read here by its author.

So long

When you're tired of final report presentations you're tired of life. I don't want them to end. Yesterday's were outstanding, again. 


Miso's latest interview reinforced our darkest fears about Islamic intransigence and opacity, but I'm clinging to the hope implicit in Greg Mortenson's humane vision: educate the women, and eventually the young men-- their sons-- will stop incinerating themselves and our world. Meanwhile, let's see what we can do about those pick-ups with their confederate flags and their blustery Know-Nothing patriotism.


Elizabeth and Miranda tried to share The Secret with us. I admit, I'm not the most open and receptive audience for that. I've tried, especially at home; but I'm too pragmatic to think that a wishing-cap world is more than a pipe-dream. I do agree that positive thinking is good, when it motivates positive action.


Kyle and Matt gave us their version of the atheism-spirituality synthesis. There was nothing in it to dispute, so far as I'm concerned. Once again my boy Dewey got a shout-out. Spirituality is all about human connectedness across time and space, "the continuous human community" etc. That's what I've been talkin' about!


And then Dean graced us with a poem, the last stanza of which provides a perfect coda:

So rest my friend this final day,

 Your body's all that's gone.

Your Spirit lives in memories,

For now, Old Friend, "So long."

I'm so glad we had this time together... 

But "There is no conclusion. What has concluded, that we might conclude in regard to it? There are no fortunes to be told, and there is no advice to be given.--Farewell!"


Sapere aude!

walking and spirituality

Nietzsche said the best thoughts come while walking. That's my single point of unequivocal agreement with him.

In Turin and elsewhere Nietzsche often wrote in his head while out walking, believing that 'a philosopher [is] a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his own thoughts as if from without...Nietzsche in Turin

 Andre Comte-Sponville is drawn to Nietzsche's walking side too, in his Little Book of Atheist Spirituality. Walkers are affirmers and accepters, participants in "the innocence of becoming," lovers of fate and what is. Amor fati, not because the universe and reality are uniformly good but simply because "nothing else exists." Take it or leave it? "Wise men take it." This is Nietzsche's cosmic optimism.


Spinoza was another who took it all, but he disagreed with Nietzsche's revaluation program. We're part and parcel of all that is, and our values are too. We should not deny them, much less overturn them. This is where Spinoza diverges from Nietzsche, and of course Spinoza is right. This is acceptance. It has nothing to do with optimism. "Nothing?" Now that's going a bit far. "Acceptance" has at least as much to do with optimism as living with purpose and sanity have to do with it.

William James was a walker too, and-- as we were saying in class yesterday-- he rejected the cosmic pessimism of Henry Adams. But he also preferred not to call himself an optimist. Wise meliorists "take" some parts and resist others.  That's not "seeing the bright side of everything," it's just seeing and bringing brightness where we can. 


That's the spirit that can open us up to the world. It's the spirit of walking.

"Poetic Atheism"

Jennifer Hecht's latest contribution to a new blog called Unreasonable Faith*: 

...I don’t believe in anything supernatural. I don’t think the universe can think. I don’t believe there is some special being that is separate from the universe and knows about us and cares about us and made us. All of that is the imaginative fantasy of one group of animals on planet Earth... 

What comes into being when matter and energy fall into such patterns that they look up and say hi and write symphonies? Art happens. It’s very strange and wonderful.

The truth may be real but it is not “matter of fact.” What in fact we have here is a billion fantastically sexy weird interesting stories all going on at once in a great cacophony of experience. How do we make sense of what it is to be human, to be this thing, this sentient matter?

Well I certainly don’t think the magic of consciousness should be considered evidence for something hidden, something else. The magic of consciousness is magic enough. Nothing is gained by adding fantastical imaginative inventions to the wonders that actually are.

But the truth, the what actually is is very strange and overloaded and wondrous indeed...

==

*owned by former evangelical Christian Daniel Florien, who explains what made him a skeptic:

1. I read widely outside of evangelical Christianity with an open mind. Just reading isn’t good enough — without an open mind, everything confirms your own beliefs. I decided truth was more important than my current beliefs. I was warned this was dangerous. It was indeed.
2. I studied science with an open mind. I came to believe in an old earth, then finally evolution. This was a long process of removing layer after layer of propaganda.
3. I looked for evidence for many of the claims I believed and realized that there was no reputable evidence at all. I could believe Jesus was resurrected, or that Moses parted the Red Sea, but there was no evidence outside oral stories recorded by unknown biased authors many decades (or, as with Moses, many centuries) after the fact.
4. I researched the history and authorship of the Bible from a secular perspective. After I realized the messy history of the Bible, and saw all the contradictions and absurdities, I could not believe in inspiration much less infallibility, and any faith I still had crashed down.
5. I learned to think critically and, with much trepidation, finally applied it to my own religion. After years of struggling, I finally accepted I was in a cult called evangelical Christianity.
6. I asked hard questions and got tired of the final answers being “it’s a mystery,” which really meant, “it doesn’t make any sense to me either, but that’s what the Bible says.”
7. I learned about probability. Things I thought could not happen without divine intervention ended up being within the laws of probability. Coincidence really exists.

count on doubt

We come at last today to the end of our reading, in A&S, of Jennifer Hecht's Doubt. What an impressive assemblage of insight and inspiration for all of us who don't line up on matters "spiritual" with 90+ % of our countrymen, but who nonetheless find life challenging but meaningful and well worth living.

It is fitting that she brings Tom Jefferson back, at the end, to remind us: "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason than of blindfolded fear."


And:

Accept that we are animals, but ones with special problems, and that the world is natural, but natural is just an idea that we animals have in our heads. Devote yourself to wisdom, self-knowledge, friends, family, and give some attention to community, money, politics, and pleasure. Know that none of it brings happiness all that consistently. It's best to stay agile, to keep an open mind... the one thing you can really count on is doubt. Expect change. Accept death. Enjoy life. In that order. Repeat...

"Looking Backward"

Jennifer Hecht didn't leave much out of Doubt: A History. But might there have been a place for Edward Bellamy, whose Looking Backward inspired many late-19th century social utopians to translate their religious doubt into a political faith-- a faith that was supposed to have been redeemed by now, in Bellamy's dream? (Check out the new Google "clip" function.)

Godbothering

Ophelia Benson points out that 


Jerry Coyne points out another outbreak of godbothering from Francis Collins - which is all the more inappropriate (the apt word, for a change) now that Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health. (The outbreak is inappropriate, not the pointing it out.) The publisher does not omit to get in the obligatory slap at those god damn pesky impertinent inappropriate noisy New Atheists:

“Is there a God?” is the most central and profound question that humans ask. With the New Atheists gaining a loud voice in today’s world, it is time to revisit the long-standing intellectual tradition on the side of faith.

'Is there a god?' is not the most central and profound question that humans ask; far from it; at this stage of the game it could better be called the most futile time-wasting childish infatuated question that humans ask. The voice the 'New Atheists' have gained, if they have gained one, is really not all that loud compared to the voice the Old Theists have had and continue to have for the last however many thousands of years, so I really don't see why so many people feel compelled to pitch such a huge fit about a few atheists finally plucking up the nerve to say atheist things aloud instead of under their breath in a closet when no one is home. I really don't. I really don't see why so many people are so god damn truculent about having to share a minuscule corner of the discourse with atheists. I don't see why our 'gaining a voice' is treated as some kind of foul presumption...

belief in belief

That's not a stutter, it's Dan Dennett's thesis that some non-believers think (some) others should believe, for the sake of social stability or moral rectitude or psychological comfort or whatever. He (unlike William James, possibly unlike Fyodor Dostoevsky) thinks that's condescending and an error. He told the Guardian:

I am confident that those who believe in belief are wrong. That is, we no more need to preserve the myth of God in order to preserve a just and stable society than we needed to cling to the Gold Standard to keep our currency sound. It was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it. Denmark, according to a recent study, is the sanest, healthiest, happiest, most crime-free nation in the world, and by and large the Danes simply ignore the God issue. We should certainly hope that those who believe in belief are wrong, because belief is waning fast, and the props are beginning to buckle.

A national study by evangelicals in the United States predicted that only 4% of their children would grow up to be "Bible-believing" adults. The Southern Baptists are baptising about as many today as they were in 1950, when the population was half what it is today. At what point should those who just believe in belief throw in the towel and stop trying to get their children and neighbours to cling to what they themselves no longer need? How about now?

spirited atheist

At least one New Atheist rejects the "kinder, gentler" label. My bad? Susan Jacoby does not want to belong to that particular club if it will have someone like her for a member...


For the record, though, my "kinder, gentler" list is not exclusively distaff. James, Sagan, Gould, and-- among the living-- Ruse, Shermer, even (arguably) Dennett in some contexts. 


Also for the record: Dennett did not "coin the term 'Bright'..." He did endorse it, but he really says lots of respectful things about religion as a form of life.


But, it's great to see Jacoby joining the ranks with her new Washington Post column. An excerpt from the first edition:


Speaking only for myself, I find that awareness of my inevitable extinction enhances rather than diminishes my life. This awareness makes me want to leave something behind, if only a piece of scholarship that will be useful to some seeker of knowledge in a library of the future. I will admit that I am deeply disturbed by the possibility that libraries may become extinct, although the digital world offers a kind of eternal life that neither an atheist nor a religious believer could have predicted when I was a child. The novelist Milan Kundera has written about a number of developments the Creator never imagined--among them surgery and humans' relationship with their dogs. To that I would add the internet. The digital world, because it is a product of human intelligence, is a part of the nature (for better and for worse) of which men and women also comprise a finite part. To fill our portion of the universe with the best achievements possible, through our love and our work, is purpose enough for a lifetime and requires no transcendence of nature and no afterlife.

"Shadows of Doubt"

Jonathan Miller's "Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief"-- a nice complement to Hecht's Doubt: a history. 


I don't suppose our friend the ranting hellfire-spouting evangelist, spotted out in the rain in front of our student center for a curtain call earlier today, has seen it. (Yup, he's back.) Didn't get a chance to ask him, last time he graced us with his inspired presence here in October. (Neither did Rabbi Rami...) 


Poor guy's still lost in the woods.

quiz

We've focused a lot on New Atheists in A&S so far, but we're about to take up a fairly extensive survey of Old Atheists-- brought to us by Christopher Hitchens' Portable Atheists anthology , and by Jennifer Michael Hecht in Doubt: A History (The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus* to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson). Yes, "doubt" here is a publisher-prompted euphemism, not Ms. Hecht's idea (as she told D.J. Grothe ). But a rose is a rose...

Hecht's introduction is highlighted by the Scale of Doubt Quiz . Take it, see what it tells you.


*Did you know that Jesus was a radical secular humanist ?

absurd and important

Although all the special manifestations of religion may have been absurd (I mean its creeds and theories), yet the life of it as a whole is mankind’s most important function... William James





"An integrative musing inspired by three books, 'When God is Gone Everything is Holy' (by Chet Raymo), 'The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality' (by Andre Comte-Sponville), and 'The God Delusion' (by Richard Dawkins)." Lucretius40"

thoughts from Opening Day

Still sifting the data from the info sheets I always collect from students on Opening Day. A few representative remarks from A&S students, asked for an indication of their present stance towards atheism:


* "The society I come from had a civil war based purely on religious differences... theism in my opinion has caused the majority of conflict in our world... Sam Harris is my favorite [atheist] because he confronts Islam..."


* "I love nature, and science, astronomy [especially]... the further my world is explained, the greater the 'miracle' becomes for me... my 'God' has no limitations and is only underestimated, misinterpreted, and territorialized by free & fallible-- and fully accountable-- human beings. Like me."


* "I believe atheists are honest and earnest in their beliefs, as are religious individuals, but are fundamentally misled... I call myself a thoughtful agnostic... I harbor no negative sentiments towards theists or atheists... Favorite atheist: Christopher Hitchens."


* "I am a Christian but I hold no prejudices or hostility toward atheists... My favorite atheist of today might be Hitchens for his wit and clever style... I also like the writing of Ayn Rand... Carl Sagan is also a favorite. Least favorite? Seth MacFarlene because Family Guy is in poor taste."


* "I consider myself an agnostic [&] a spiritual person... I am opposed to closed-mindedness overall, and atheists can certainly be just as closed minded as any believer..."


* "...one hopes to learn much from those who consider themselves atheists."


* "I know a few atheists and they're some of the nicest people I know... I feel more like an atheist as the days go by."


* "I do believe there to be a consistent 'order' that maintains all things. This can be thought of as God or nothing more than the pattern the world goes with. It is immature to write off explanations of the universe simply because they're not visible, like radio waves and electricity."


* "I have considered myself an atheist for about three years. Before that I considered myself to  be agnostic... I have never liked organized religion. I was forced to go to church my whole childhood and hated it... I am very accepting of other people's ideas and beliefs. I feel that there is some higher force in play but not a specific deity. I guess I could be a naturalist... as an atheist I always strive to show the utmost respect for other people's beliefs."


* "If we created morality, it is pointless... who cares if there is no ultimate meaning to society? However, I have found most secular humanists to be what I would consider 'better human beings' than a lot of religious people I know... My least favorite atheist is Richard Dawkins... I find his argument weak in that it operates under the assumption that there is no such thing as the supernatural... My favorite atheist is Albert Camus."


Lots to talk about. More later...

prayer and sacrifice

Theists sometimes claim that any problem with the concept of God can be fixed by downgrading His divine attributes. Here's how some atheists react to the idea of a non-omniscient Deity:

But seriously... I heard Tom Ashbrook sign off from his radio discussion of the Haiti tragedy yesterday with "Say a prayer for Haiti." Now really, if that was going to work would there have been a magnitude 7 quake in such a pathetic, impoverished backwater in the first place? What, you have to say the magic words if you want to incur divine favor?


I know, it's mostly rhetorical. People don't know what else to say. But as Dan Dennett asked, when well-meaning friends offered to pray for his damaged aorta, would they also offer to sacrifice a goat? Point is, those who reject the power of prayer need a new vocabulary of concern. Instead of praying for Haiti, what should we say? (We already know what we should do.)

Marcus Brigstocke is another Brit with some thoughts about all this: