NOTE: This essay was written for Atheism is Dead (True Freethinker‘s predecessor) by someone who was simply pseudonymed “M”—part 2 was never posted.
It has been a few years now since Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett began their ideological war against Theism. Those on the defense have already attempted their responses and some of them have been the height of excellent thinking, though many Atheists have claimed these rebuttals as mere annoyances and attempts at earning a quick buck off of their ideologues successes. The aspirations of these unholy prophets is to one day usher in a new utopia where religion is regarded as mere superstition, those who follow it as irrational fools, and science establishing itself as the foundation of truth and moral order with those who possess degrees in biology as its arbiters. In order for this goal to come about, however, it was first incumbent that revolutionary thinkers step into this world of ignorance and help guide the intellectually shallow sheep to the proper path of enlightenment. These men, who feel called to express what they consider new or forgotten ideas of brilliance are satirically called “New Atheists” and rightfully so; for they display not only old ideas, but further reason why they shouldn’t be listened to. Perhaps, a more formal label for these individuals would be “Anti-Theists” or “Anti-Supernaturalists”, but it might be too generous and rather insulting to my fellow philosophers out there if I were to make them similar.
In this article I wish to express all the things I find wrong with the New Atheist’s ideas by exposing them as mere myths and unsubstantiated claims. Being a theist and a philosopher and not an atheist and a scientist will most likely be justification enough for many of my intellectual opponents to regard me as someone not authoritative in speaking about issues of reality or logical arguments; I am, in fact, just a player of words who believes in a big invisible man in the sky who resembles the likes of fairies and gnomes. In the least case, I am a mere “flea” deriving some sort of fame from the true thinkers and successors of academia or fearful of their great influence on the few hundred or so high school students they are able to convert each year; pardon me for my insolent defiance. The myths I wish to expose are listed below by section. It is my aspiration to destroy this dream of a godless utopia and clarify exactly why the arguments being proposed by the New Atheists are no real arguments at all, but mere assertions of wishful thinking promoted, at best, by subjective negative experiences.
Myth #1: Atheism Is Not a Position
Perhaps the biggest confusion among this new band of outspoken Atheists who think they are on a mission to save the world is how they define exactly what they are. Among many of these new converts to rationality are their inability to agree (much less understand) on a definition of what atheism is or the purpose for the word to begin with. Atheism was typically viewed as a “rejection of belief in God”, but since this definition entails a sort of knowledge of whether or not God exist and Atheists do not wish to be as ignorant or stupid as their theistic cousins, they interpret atheism now as more a lack of belief. Now, while many people would simply view this as Agnosticism there is more to this claim than meets the eye. Rather than merely being a lack of belief, it is an affirmation of accepting that there is no God because it is more rational to do so. In order to understand this claim more in depth we need to understand the background to how Atheism has been argued within formal circles of philosophy.
There are two positions of Atheism: Positive and Negative [1]. In more popular terms these are called “Strong” and “Weak” Atheism. Positive/Strong Atheism is a claim that rests on positive ontological and epistemological grounds (thus the name) in reference to a supreme being. The position is that there is evidence to suggests that no God exist. The other position known as Negative/Weak Atheism rest on negative ontological, but positive epistemological grounds, which means there is no knowledge of whether there is a God, but since there is a lack of substantial evidence to prove that one exist it is more rational to believe that it doesn’t. The Negative/Weak position differs from Agnosticism insomuch as it makes a secondary move by assuming that it is more rational to adopt that God does not exist on the basis that there lacks evidence. Contrary to misconceptions of these terms, “positive” and “negative” do not automatically mean that one position is a positive claim and the other a negative claim; all that is mentioned in either of these contexts is whether one has knowledge to the existence of said thing.
Most Atheists today fall within the camp of Negative/Weak, preferring to be on the defensive all the while claiming that their lack of knowledge in whether or not a God exist justifies their criticisms of those who believe otherwise. The position that is usually held against Theists is that there is no evidence for their beliefs, but this claim rests on the positive assumption of what constitutes as evidence, much less if it is there or not.
Understanding the background to both these positions, we can now understand a little better what the New Atheist is proposing and how they go about doing it. The claim that “Atheism is merely a lack of belief in God” is false, insomuch as both sorts of Atheists carry a positive affirmation of something in regards to their rejection of a belief. Many Atheists today, taking after their idols who like to make rather silly examples, state that Atheism should not even be a word, much less a definition for anything at all. They reason that the lack of belief in God is the same as the lack of belief in such things as fairies, gnomes, invisible pink unicorns, and the satirical flying spaghetti monster. “We do not have terms for these beliefs, so why do we need one for Atheism”, they say. The common reason they are labeled as such is because they are the minority position. Besides that, the comparison between these common child-like inventions and the concept of God are completely different, other than the similarity that Atheists claim regarding the lack of evidences for both. Other examples (which they claim to be factual) refer to such things as people who reject racism or sexism. We as a society do not go around calling ourselves “non-racist” or “non-sexist” as a norm, but the reason for this is because we have no practical reason to do so. The New Atheists believe that by simply referring to their position as a “lack of belief” and mentioning child hood fairy-tales along side them as similarities, they will have redefined the term “Atheist” as “normal” regardless of the fact that they are still the minority position in the world. This disregards what normal means to begin with, much less how it is earned. Further, they seem to want to qualify the term “Atheist” as referring strictly to people who think or are scientists, as though the belief should hold a special status granted over those of a lesser mindset. This is the same tactic (though not as explicit) used by those who label themselves “brights” or “freethinkers”; they try to define their way into normalcy and intelligence rather than earning the title.
Another way that New Atheists abuse this definition is when it comes to defending themselves in arguments. Because Atheism is merely a “lack of belief” as they claim, the burden of proof rests on those that have positive claims; and since the definition of Theism automatically includes a positive affirmation for Gods existence they inherit the burden of proof. In this sharp move, all that is left for an Atheist to do is sit back and relax asking questions and saying “nu-uh” till he or she has nothing more to do other than go to their local community and brag about how they defeated another stupid Theist in a debate. These “debates”, however are nothing more than games of intellectual laziness based on ignorance and the abuse of definitions to suit that ignorance. Imagine going to a debate between an Atheist and a Theist and watching the Theist give their opening remarks. After this has happened and everyone claps, the Atheist pulls up a lounge chair, reclines and says “prove it” into the mic, only commenting when he or she pleases. It would seem silly to even call this a debate at all, much less a discussion. What is an Atheist doing going to a debate formatted by academia where both sides must defend their positions if he or she doesn’t believe there is one to defend? Even moreso, what is the point for Atheists writing books against Theists or badgering them about how irrational they are if there are no positive claims to make? As noted before, Atheists are not without their own positive claims, regardless if they choose to be Negative/Weak or not. Contrary to the comfortable definition that the New Atheists have created for themselves so that they need not have to do anything and can be perceived as the norm, the claim that it is more rational to believe there is no God based on lack of evidence is a positive position. First, we have a claim to what is regarded as “evidence”. Most New Atheists seem to be Core Empiricists of some sort and therefore see evidence as only that which can be observed by sensory experience (or that which can be verified by such). Many theists hold to Empiricism as well, but often fall more within a Concept Empiricists camp (a more balanced view that only states that concepts are derived from the material world rather than strictly being of the material world). Most Theists, it seems, are of the Rationalists sect of Epistemology and therefore have even more differing views of what constitutes as evidence. While I will not go into complete detail over what real evidence is since that is not the point of this particular section, I will state that it seems that most New Atheists do not notice that this claim is a positive one and that it must equally be defended within rational discourse. Similarly, the claim that there is a “lack of evidence” for the existence of X is another positive claim, as well as the assertion that people are irrational for believing in X even if there is no evidence to back that belief. Many Pragmatists would have a bone to pick with the last assertion.
While it may be fun and games for many New Atheists to go about finding Theists so as to scorn them for their beliefs and challenging them to discussions while doing nothing at all to add to the dialogue, this is clearly ridiculous and contrary to what is to be understood of definitions and philosophical claims. Further, the claims that Atheism is the default position does nothing more than raise the question (note the difference between begging the question, which is fancy way of saying “circular”) as to why this is the case. The common basis for this assumption is that because babies don’t believe in God (can’t for that matter) therefore we are born with this lack of belief first and therefore this is the basis from which we must work off. This is clearly ridiculous as well if we consider what is being said. A child is conditionally atheistic on the basis that they lack knowledge of the concept to begin with, much less if there is reason to reject it or not. There is a difference between being conditionally ignorant and willfully so; we make the distinction everyday. Similarly, if an Atheist wishes to use this argument they may as well claim that the lack of knowledge in mathematics, reading, writing, speaking, etc. are all similarly “default positions” and therefore more rational because babies do not possess them.
The final way that this redefining of Atheism as a mere “lack of belief” is used is in context to particular individuals that are claimed to have not been motivated by their Atheism to commit particular atrocious acts in history. Take for instance, Stalin, who killed millions. This claim is also absurd if we go back and examine what “Atheism” actually entails. We must remember that the rejection of something does not leave us with simply a rejection, but a reason or position behind that rejection (a positive claim). As another example, being a Theist I do not simply define my position as a “lack of belief in metaphysical naturalism”. While this is part of the definition it is not the whole story. It seems that when a New Atheist claims that “Stalin did not kill because of his atheism” he may very well be right, but not on the assumption that this is the case because Atheism is not a position. Stalin could have very well been a Positive/Strong Atheist going around thinking that Theists were inferior because they were too stupid to see the truth of this belief. He could have also been very much a Negative/Weak Atheist who believed that Theists were too irrational to live.
We even see today a group of atheist “activists” who use their negative atheism in such a way as to degrade and dehumanize their opposition. They’re called the Rational Response Squad and based on their epistemological beliefs regarding evidence and such evidence for God, they consider Theists to be mentally inadequate or mentally unstable.
To conclude, the first myth that New Atheists try to promote for their new found enthusiasm for anti-theism is simply an illogical and incoherent misunderstanding of clever rhetoric guised as intelligent discourse. The hypocrisy is that while many New Atheists like to blame Theists for being “conversation stoppers” when they pull out the faith card, they similarly are conversation stoppers when they try to redefine Atheism in this manner.
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[1] Martin, Michael. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge University Press. 2006.