Criticism of atheism
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Criticism of atheism is made chiefly by theistic sources, though some forms of atheism also receive criticism from nontheistic sources. There are several specific kinds of arguments which are commonly used against atheism, including assessments of its validity, the consequences of not believing, and the actions of those who are atheists.
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[edit] Denial of the existence of God and gods
The primary criticism of atheism is that it rejects belief in any supreme being, commonly known as God or gods, for which, in the view of theist and deist critics,[1] there is a variety of long-established arguments, even if atheists regard these as unconvincing.[2] An early example of such criticism is found in the Bible: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'",[3] while a more recent example is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion".[4]
Criticism of atheism in its strong form also comes from agnostics, who contend that there is insufficient reason to assert authoritatively that any supreme being does not exist.[5]
[edit] Effects of atheism on the individual
Philosopher Blaise Pascal claimed that without God, people would only be able to create obstacles and overcome them in an attempt to escape boredom. These token victories would ultimately become meaningless, since people would eventually die, and this was good enough reason not to become an atheist.[6] A number of religions also suggest that atheism has highly negative effects on the individuals after death: a point taken up by Pascal in Pascal's Wager (see picture and caption).
Christian author Alister McGrath has criticized atheism, citing studies he interprets as suggesting religion and belief in God are correlated with improved individual health, happiness and life expectancy.[7] However, health[8] and life expectancy[9] and other factors of wealth are generally higher in countries with many atheists than in more religious countries.
[edit] Morality
- Further information: Euthyphro dilemma
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It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article entitled Theism and morality. (Discuss) |
Many world religions teach that morality is derived from or expressed by the dictates or commandments of a particular deity, and that acknowledgment of God or the gods is a major factor in motivating people towards moral behavior. Consequently, atheists have frequently been accused of holding no rational basis for acting morally. For example, for many years in the United States, atheists were not allowed to testify in court because it was believed that an atheist would have no reason to tell the truth.[10]
Atheists almost uniformly reject the above view and many have argued that no religious basis is necessary for one to live an ethical life.[11] They assert that atheists are as or more motivated towards moral behavior as anyone. Many atheists are drawn towards views like secular humanism, empiricism, objectivism, or utilitarianism, which provide moral frameworks that are not founded on faith in deities.[citation needed] Atheists such as Richard Dawkins have proposed that our morality is a result of our evolutionary history. He proposes that the Moral Zeitgeist helps describe how morality evolves from biological and cultural origins and evolves with time.[12]
Many among theists and atheists do not believe that theism, or lack of it, has any pronounced effect on whether a person behaves morally or not. For instance, the Dalai Lama has said that compassion and affection are human values independent of religion: We need these human values. I call these secular ethics, secular beliefs. There’s no relationship with any particular religion. Even without religion, even as nonbelievers, we have the capacity to promote these things.[13] Others state that religion may heighten a person's moral sense without denying that atheists can have a reasonable ethic. Roy Hattersley, though himself an atheist, concedes that religious believers, such as those in the Salvation Army and the Little Sisters of the Poor, possess "moral imperatives" that may make them "morally superior to atheists" like himself.[14]
The notion that atheists are able to live ethical lives may be supported by the traditional Christian concept of natural law. The Catholic Church teaches that human reason inclines people to seek the good and avoid sin, and that people would therefore still be prone to moral behavior even without knowledge of a revealed divine law. This natural law would provide the foundation on which humans can build moral rules to guide its choices and regulate society.[15] Other Christian groups adopt similar reasoning.[16]
[edit] Atheism as faith
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The claim that atheism requires faith or unproven assumptions is a common argument levelled against atheists of all types. In this form of argument, critics of atheism typically employ the term "faith" in the sense often employed by atheists themselves, meaning a "blind" or unwarranted belief. Faith, often taken to mean, "religious faith", does not inherently involve religion; i.e having faith in the colour of the sky, or the word of a weather-reporter is not religious.
At times, this argument consists of laying the burden of proof on atheism, or in the case of agnostics and weak atheists, laying it on both strong atheism and theism. However, laying the burden of proof on atheism may be difficult because it is impossible to prove a universal negative existential claim unless what is claimed to exist cannot logically be. While it might be theoretically possible to one day find reasonably persuasive evidence of the existence of a deity, it is impossible to find evidence of any thing's nonexistence. As such, arguments for strong atheism consist primarily of arguments against theism, which is in keeping with claims that atheism in general is only the lack of a belief rather than a belief itself. Some strong atheists argue that, since they see the burden of proof as being upon theism, they are under no obligation to offer arguments that seek to actively disprove theism. Instead, strong atheism is a default position, like disbelief in Santa Claus, that they feel ought to be held unless and until that burden of proof is shouldered. However, weak atheists and agnostics feel that neither theism nor strong atheism are a proper default position to be taken and hence labelling both theism's and strong atheism's calls for proof to be argumentum ad ignoratiam.
One atheistic response is to emphasize that (weak) atheism is a rejection or lack of belief, not a belief in itself. This argument is often summarized by reference to Don Hirschberg's famous saying, "calling atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."[17]
Another atheistic response to this argument is to state that the word "faith" in this context, as asserted with respect to theist "belief" versus atheist "belief," means something very different in the two contexts. Faith can mean 'complete confidence in a person or plan, etc.' Faith can also mean 'Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence'. When a theist speaks of his faith, it is argued, he refers to the latter definitions. When he wishes to assert that "atheists have faith, too", the only definition that fits is the first, but his argument implies the latter definitions, nonetheless (see equivocation).
Some people have, in response to this argument, drawn the analogy of Russell's teapot.
[edit] Atheism and totalitarian regimes
- See also: State atheism
A common criticism of atheism is the contention that it caused or contributed to repression of religion and persecution of the religious by totalitarian regimes like those of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot.
Christian writer Dinesh D'Souza writes that "The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth."[19] He also contends "And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a 'new man' and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist."[20]
In response to such criticism, Sam Harris writes "The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable."[21] Richard Dawkins has stated that Stalin's atrocites were influenced not by atheism but by their dogmatic Marxism,[12] and while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds in the name of atheism. [22]
[edit] Atheists and religious groups
Atheists are sometimes criticized for a perceived unnecessarily harsh, or even prejudicial, way some of them deal with people holding theistic world views. When discussing atheism and morality at infidels.org,[11] the atheist Mark I. Vuletic questions why many theists still see atheists as stereotypically "morally corrupt". He suggests that part of the problem lies in the demonization of disbelief by religious groups, but he also mentions another issue:
| “ | Atheism has a comparatively small public voice, but it is a voice that many believers hear. However, when they listen to this voice, they often hear little more than slurs and insults. When interacting with atheists, believers are frequently met with the same arrogance and condescension, the same hatred and vitriol, the same bigotry and prejudice, as atheists so often receive from believers. In short, believers tend to encounter in atheists exactly what they have been taught to expect. | ” |
As a theistic religion, Christianity necessarily rejects atheism on these grounds. The Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies atheism as a violation of the First Commandment, calling it "a sin against the virtue of religion", it is careful to acknowledge that atheism may be motivated by virtuous or moral considerations, and admonishes the followers of Roman Catholicism to focus on their own role in encouraging atheism by their religious or moral shortcomings:
- (2125) [...] The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances. "Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion."true nature of God and of religion."[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ See e.g. Alvin Plantinga, who suggests that belief in God is like belief in other minds in this respect, in his God and Other Minds, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967; rev. ed., 1990. ISBN 0-8014-9735-3
- ^ See e.g. Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Ch.3: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-618-68000-4. and Harris, Sam (2005). The End of Faith. W.W. Norton.
- ^ Psalms 14:1 and 53:1
- ^ a b Catechism of the Catholic Church, English version, section 3.2.1.1.3
- ^ Anthony Kenny What I Believe see esp. Ch. 3 "Why I am not an atheist"
- ^ Blaise Pascal Pensées
- ^ The Dawkins Delusion? by Alister McGrath, citing, eg, David Myers, “The Funds, Friends and Faith of Happy People.” American Psychologist 55 (2000): 56-67; Harold G. Koenig and Harvey J. Cohen, The link between religion and health : psychoneuroimmunology and the faith factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; Marc Galanter, Spirituality and the healthy mind : science, therapy, and the need for personal meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
- ^ Paul, Gregory. 2002. The Secular Revolution of the West, Free Inquiry, Summer: 28-34 and Michael Martin (Editor), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy), Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (October 30, 2006)
- ^ Michael Martin (Editor), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy), Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (October 30, 2006)
- ^ See, e.g., United States v. Miller, 236 F. 798, 799 (W.D. Wash., N.D. 1916) (citing Thurston v. Whitney et al., 2 Cush. (Mass.) 104; Jones on Evidence, Blue Book, vol. 4, §§ 712, 713) ("Under the common-law rule a person who does not believe in a God who is the rewarder of truth and the avenger of falsehood cannot be permitted to testify.")
- ^ a b Is Atheism Consistent With Morality? (2001). Retrieved on 2006-10-14.
- ^ a b Dawkins, Richard (2006-09-18). The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin, Ch. 7. ISBN 978-0618680009.
- ^ The Dalai Lama Interview | The Progressive Magazine since 1909
- ^ 'Faith does breed charity', The Guardian Sept. 12, 2005
- ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part III, Section I, Chapter 03. Retrieved on 2006-10-13.
- ^ Can Atheists be ethical?. Retrieved on 2006-10-13.
- ^ Quotations : Atheism, Atheist. Quotes of Asimov, Allen, Buchan, Chesterton, Crisp, Goldman, Roberts, Rossetti, Santayana, Sartre, Vidal
- ^ Religions attacked in the USSR (Beyond the Pale)
- ^ Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history Dinesh D'Souza
- ^ Answering Atheist’s Arguments Dinesh D'Souza
- ^ 10 myths and 10 truths about Atheism Sam Harris
- ^ Interview with Richard Dawkins conducted by Stephen Sackur for BBC News 24’s HardTalk programme, July 24th 2007. [1]
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