Anti-Theist?
I am more than an atheist. I am an anti-theist.
Last week, I made a short post on a Sam Harris LA Times op-ed made during the aftermath of the outing of Congressman Pete Stark as a non-theist. The article related mainly to liberal and moderate theists sheltering fundamentalists and dominionists from criticism by holding to the same holy books, which is a viewpoint I agree with completely. I suppose this view makes me an anti-theist, and it is a label I will accept, with a lot of qualifications.
I think the main thing that makes me an anti-theist is that I feel that religion no longer serves any purpose. Many people may say that it should be fine if other people believe, but I feel that religion is, in fact, detrimental to our advancement as a society and as a species. We don't need it to define our morals, we don't need it to show us our place in the universe, and we no longer need it to explain our world.
Steven Jay Gould called religion and science "non-overlapping magisteria" in that they occupy different domains of teaching and therefore should never be considered in conflict. As much respect as I have for Dr Gould's work, this is one area in which I completely disagree. The ultimate goal of religion is to explain why the world is as it is. This is very centrally the same goal as science, only where science deals in empiricism, religion deals in emotion. Many great scientific findings of the past have rocked the foundations of various religions, and many lines of scientific research are difficult or impossible to pursue today, due exclusively to the influence of religion. Promising research that could ultimately save the lives of millions is prohibited based on a religious objection.
People still hold strong to many old ideas of morality that are solely religious in nature; ideas which make no sense in an age of reason. We even have a Presidential office that makes charity grant decisions based on the concept of religious faith, rather the effectiveness of the charity.
All of this must change for our society to continue its progress. I'm not calling for a banning or outlawing of religion. Atheists have a prime opportunity in the modern era for education and outreach. Already, religion is on the decline, especially amongst the young. According to the Pew Research Center, a full 19% of adult Americans born since the year 1977 profess to have no religion, and the total for the entire US population is now 12%, a 4% gain in the last 20 years. This is an encouraging trend, and one which will only improve with time. I dream of a time when someone is as cautious about declaring themselves religious as someone is today about declaring atheism; a day when religion is something that we can tell our disbelieving children, "yes, grandma really does believe in an invisible guy in the sky, but a lot of old people have crazy beliefs like that." A wind of change is blowing, and based on this latest data, this day may come faster than anyone can imagine.
So, yes, I am an anti-theist, but I think an approach of calm education is by far preferable to in-your-face evangelism.
posted by Godless Geek @ 1:06 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
"A wind of change is blowing, and based on this latest data, this day may come faster than anyone can imagine."
This is based on observation rather than any statistical data (so please tell me if you've observed otherwise), but deconversion seems to be mostly one way. I've heard of dozens and dozens of ex-theists, but just two or three ex-atheists.
This is very good news, I think. Our numbers will only get better and better -- at an exponentially-derived rate. I wrote a post recently discussing Trickle-Up atheism which covers similar statistics. I theorized that the tipping point between atheism and theism might be in the next 2-3 generations. Maybe even as soon as one hundred years from now, we might be looking at a statistical inversion. One can only hope....
I've heard of dozens and dozens of ex-theists, but just two or three ex-atheists.
This has been my experience as well, and it seems that those who go from atheism to theism tended to not be very grounded in any real reasons for their disbelief. I point to Kirk Cameron as a prime example of this. He has actually said that the reason that he converted to Christianity from atheism is because he thought, "what if I'm wrong?" That can barely even be considered a watered down version of Pascal's Wager, yet he says it with such conviction as though he actually thinks it's an unanswerable argument. In reality, it is only an indication that he had never really thought about religion. He may have been an atheist in practice, but he never knew anything about what that really means.
In the other direction, those who convert from theism to atheism tend to be very well versed in the common arguments for god and know the failures of each and every one. When you already have the skeptical mindset, logically fallacious arguments tend to bounce right off, even if you've never heard them before, which is probably why you don't see many people going the other direction.
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