On Evangelical Atheism: Is Atheism Too Inhumane?

by Bill Creasy

When WASH was founded, the founding members intentionally chose to start a secular humanist group, rather than an atheist group. Secular humanism carries a meaning of positive ethics based on human beings, rather than simply opposition to theism. As atheism is gaining more attention with recent best-selling books, we need to ask, is atheism too inhumane?

Recent books by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Harris have brought new attention to atheist and humanist ideas, but they have also raised discussion among humanists: How aggressive should atheists be in criticizing religion? In this time of Muslim suicide bombers, is religious criticism making fundamentalists angrier, or is criticism necessary to defeat extremism? And what does it mean to "defeat" it?

Sam Harris wrote,

My correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world--specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith. On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right. [Sam Harris, "Head-In-The-Sand Liberals," American Atheist, Nov./Dec. 2006, 5-6.]

An even more difficult idea was considered by Robert Price. He considered whether genocide could be justified as warfare between two groups that seem to single-mindedly hate each other. "

Your implacable foe will have left you no choice but genocide or suicide... We must try somehow to avert it before it gets to that point. ["Toward a Humanist Doctrine of the Just War," Secular Nation, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2006, 8-9].

There has been a lot of discussion among atheists about whether Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others, are being too "evangelical" about their atheism. Personally, I don't think that publishing a book or magazine article can be too evangelical. People can choose what they read or don't read. If they choose to read a book by an atheist author, they should be prepared to see the most convincing arguments that the author can find, even if they are potentially insulting to their beliefs. To consider the reverse case, for example, if I read a book by Ann Coulter, I would fully expect to be insulted.

However, when I read the previous statements by Harris and by Price, they seemed fundamentally wrong, unhumanistic, and deeply inhumane. I'm not criticizing Harris or Price as ethical people, but these ideas seem unacceptable for humanism. A humanist can't advocate setting fundamentalist Christians to fight against fundamentalist Muslims, hoping they kill each other. Price suggests that some people are implacable enemies, with no hope of changing minds or finding peace, short of extermination of the enemy. Isn't there a moderate approach? Can't we all try to get along (if you'll excuse the expression)?

It is tempting to say that extremism has to be met with more extremism, and that claims of absolute truth from one religion can only be counteracted by more absolute truth. Are liberals and moderates so devoid of truth that they can't participate in this kind of discussion?

Isn't there a moderate approach? As humanists, we have to believe that people are similar enough that a peaceful negotiation is possible between enemies who make a sincere effort to come to a compromise, even if we don't know how to convince them to agree. Granted, some people are thugs who only seem to understand force, and they must be met with force.

(This "thug" problem is a problem with humanism for discussion at another time. Some might argue that whole cultures, like Nazi Germany or the Communist Soviet Union, are basically built on only use of force. But every functional civilization needs cooperation and trust, or it won't work. This observation implies that thugs are a specialized subgroup trained by leaders to follow orders and destroy dissidents. A society can't consist only of thugs. The question remains of how to deal with such inhumanistic humans.)

Perhaps it is necessary to examine the properties of absolute idealism. Are claims of absolute truth by any ideology worth anything in the real world? Don't we always need a pragmatic, realistic approach to problems? There are few decisions with simple, life-or-death answers, but many more that need a slower, complex effort to try to get along with people who we may not completely agree with.

Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation presents a thorough, rational argument for rejecting religion based on supernaturalism. The book is well written and makes many good points. He fails to address a key problem: if religion is so irrational in so many ways, why are there so many religious people? If so many people are basically irrational, what hope is there to convince them by using rational means?

There could be many reasons for people's religious beliefs that don't depend on religion being rational. Many people consider their religion to be part of their culture and identity. Many people like to belong to a religious community of others that they know and trust. For some people, it makes them feel good to think that "someone up there likes them." Some think that religions gives them a sense of purpose, although usually theists don't seem to have a better idea of what they are supposed to do with their lives than atheists do.

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, discussed several explanations why religion may be evolutionarily favorable, or how it could happen as a byproduct of something else. For example, Dawkins discusses that religion may be caused, in part, as a byproduct of the human adaptation to fall in love with one significant other person. This adaptation to form a couple has the advantage of having two adults who are strongly committed to provide child care and support. He wrote,

Certainly, religious faith has something of the same character as falling in love.... The misfiring byproduct [to romantic love with one member of the opposite sex] is falling in love with Yahweh (or with the Virgin Mary, or with the wafer, or with Allah) and performing irrational acts motivated by such love. (The God Delusion, pp 185-186)

He discusses other sources for religious beliefs that don't depend on religion being justified by rational arguments.

If religion is based on mental states that are as primal as the emotion of love, is there any hope of expecting most people to try to completely eliminate it? If not, then we need to find out how to co-exist with religious people. But we will need to try to "tame" religion so it is as undestructive as possible.

Many people consider their religion to be part of their culture. They are not committed enough to their religious ideology to kill or die for it. We may even take some comfort that they don't think about religion enough to realize it is irrational and contradictory.

Is there any point in antagonizing this kind of religious people? They take a criticism of religion as an insult to their culture or community, not as a rational search for truth.

The goal of humanism is to make a better life for people. As humanists, we think that liberals and moderates who are good, reasonable people make an effort to get along with each other and make a better life. For the most part, religious people will agree with this approach, and we should try to find common ground with them.

Ronald Aronson wrote in an article, “The New Atheists” in The Nation wrote,

The surprising response to the New Atheist offensive should thus inspire us to think politically as well as philosophically. As a first step this demands creating a coalition between unbelievers and their natural allies, secular-minded believers. I am speaking first about many millions of Americans who nominally belong to a religion but effectively live without any active relationship either to it or to God, or belong to a church and attend services but are "tacit atheists," living day in and day out with only token reference to God. And I also include the many believers who accept the principle of America as a secular society. These include members of the liberal Jewish and Christian denominations, who have long practice in accommodating themselves to science and the modern world and who, as the National Council of Churches website tells us, may remain inspired by Genesis while not needing to take it in "literal, factual terms." Many of these turned up in the most significant finding of the Baylor survey, namely that more than one in four American "believers" does not mean by this a personal God at all but a distant God who has little or nothing to do with the world or themselves. This sounds very much like the deist God of "unbelievers" Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. ...Although Harris and Dawkins castigate all believers for sharing the premises of conservative Christians, the fact is that many believers could easily be working with out-and-out atheists and agnostics on key issues.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote about the relationship of Muslims and Westerners in A Caged Virgin. She said,

The primary task of both Muslims and non-Muslims is to face the malicious extremism manifest in the attacks of September 11. [They] should stand together in their shared rejection of fanaticism, instead of blaming each other and cultivating mutual distrust.... [Western non-Muslims] must assist [Muslims] in our pursuit of reason.

That doesn't mean we will agree with the religious about everything. But WASH discussions have shown that humanists and even close friends can disagree. The goal is to disagree in an amiable way, so that we don't make enemies from people who are well meaning.

There isn't a clear line that shows when to argue. It depends on the people, the situation, and the topic. If a fundamentalist insists that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, there won't be any way to avoid annoying them.

For example, telling the truth is an important humanist value. Daniel Dennett wrote, in a review of Dawkins's book, The God Delusion,

Sometimes, [Dawkins] just cannot conceal his mounting impatience with the arguments he has obligated himself to consider, and when his disrespect, or even contempt, shows through in spite of his strenuous efforts...he must surely lose many readers.... Dawkins might even add that when ideas are contemptible, to conceal one's contempt is dishonest." [Daniel Dennett, "Off Come the Gloves" (a review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins), Free Inquiry, Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007, 64-66.]

But a better tactic for advancing secular thinking may be to focus on smaller issues for which secular humanists and liberal religious can find common ground. These groups can agree intuitively on good and evil actions. Almost everyone can agree that suicide bombing is an immoral practice. Genocide of religious minorities is wrong. Teaching children religious dogma that turns them into fanatics with no useful social or economic skills is destructive to social order.

Humanists can contribute by formulating specific, convincing arguments against these actions. As we know, religious people can find arguments for or against many actions in scripture like the Bible or the Qur'an. For example, Muslims have a big problem with the meaning of the word "jihad." This word can mean anything from an internal struggle to be a good person, to a violent military conflict to intentionally kill infidels, even civilian women and children. Jihad is one of the five pillars of Islam, but there is no universal agreement about what it really means. Does the peaceful introvert go to heaven, or is it the suicide bomber? Or do they both go to heaven and argue about it once they get there? Shouldn't there be agreement on such a basic issue?

These tactical arguments will show that humanists and atheists are ethical without alienating moderate religious people. It doesn't put us in the position of trying to eliminate religion. In fact, modern advertising probably does a much more effective job at discouraging religion than we could ever do using rational arguments.

Greg Paul wrote,

In modern societies, Darwinian evolutionary processes have shifted from crude DNA-driven reproduction to cultural selection based on information exchange. People are not absolutely locked into the belief systems into which they are born. A significant number can and do change their minds... Because mass conversion from faith to rationalism occurs spontaneously, large-scale dedicated organizations are not required." He continued to point out that much of big business in America is implicitly hostile to religion by promoting consumerism and materialism, and advertising with sex and violence. [Gregory Paul, "Foreign Policy's Faux Pas," Free Inquiry, Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007, 41-44.]

Humanists can oppose specific immoral actions that seem to be based on religion. Arguing against religion in general is not really necessary. Modern scientific progress and corporate advertising should be very effective for decreasing religious faith in the long term.

We would like to help promote the process of secularization of society. But if we do it too overtly and aggressively, we may end up producing an angry reaction by fundamentalists. That would be counterproductive. Ultimately, people must make up their own minds about what they choose to believe, and we can't change their minds for them.

The point of this essay is not to describe one foolproof method for handling religious people. Instead, it is to point out that it is intellectually and rationally defensible to adopt a moderate, balanced, pragmatic approach to religion. I'm sure that Sam Harris would like his book to change the minds of every religious person in the world. We should applaud the success and attention that he has gotten, and perhaps he has changed a lot of minds. But in previous centuries, many books have critiqued religion, including some by Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersol, Mark Twain, and H.L. Menchen, to name a few. But religion is still with us. A long-term strategy seems to be warranted. Patience is still a virtue.

A significant negative perception of atheism is the presentation, or the "sales pitch." We can use arguments going back to the ancient Greeks that belief in supernatural gods is unrational and inconsistent with observations about reality. The problem is that this kind of argument directly implies that believers are irrational people. No matter how hard we try to explain that we are criticizing beliefs or ideas, it comes out sounding like an insult to believers as people. As a sales pitch, this is not a winning approach.

For example, suppose you tried to sell a car with the same approach. You could say, "This is the best car. It is rational to buy this car. You don't want to be an idiot, do you? So you have to buy this car." You probably wouldn't sell many cars, not because the car is bad, but because the prospective customers are being insulted. It sounds like they don't have a choice but to buy the specific car. Of course, they probably won't believe that.

Atheists have to find a good way to appeal to people who are in the middle between theism and atheism. Many people don't think about religion much, and don't really care to. They may accept atheism as easily as theism. But if the case for atheism is based on a statement that all believers are irrational idiots, then these potential recruits will see the potential insult to every believer that they know, as well as their religious culture, and decide that they can't agree with that kind of statement.

Atheists need a polite, "politically correct" explanation for why so many religious people and religious cultural traditions exist. The explanation must find a good purpose for religion to explain why people aren't complete idiots for having beliefs. Then, once we accord them some measure of respect, we can proceed to explain why humanism is a better, more realistic, more scientific, more modern way to live.

We can agree that religion has some advantages for encouraging social bonds within groups. The bonds help the people within the group to cooperate for common goals. In earlier ages, perhaps even religious fundamentalism had advantages. In times of warfare between small groups, a religious certainty and conviction could motivate warriors to fight harder to gain more territory and resources. They could rationalize killing their enemies to gain territory.

But in the modern age, with modern weapons and global communications, religious fundamentalism is a cultural disadvantage. Modern weapons make wars of conquest so destructive that there isn't anything left after the war that is worth having, aside from destroyed cities and mobs of refugees. The current status of the Middle Eastern countries of Iraq and Lebanon are evidence. Global communications make extremist countries look dangerous and inaccessible for business, leaving their people in poverty, without access to modern technology, and left out of the modern world that they see on television or in the movies.

Moderate religion may still act as a social advantage, but only as long as it allows coexistence and cooperation with people of other beliefs. This may be the important distinction between moderates, or pluralists, and fundamentalists. Moderates can accept that they must live with people of different beliefs.

But coexistence can't proceed to the complete uncritical acceptance of multiculturalism. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in her book A Caged Virgin, denounces the practice that she has seen in the Netherlands to uncritically accept Islam. She writes,

Politicians and policy makers, as well as intellectuals, have been afraid confront Muslims about opinions, customs, and practices arising from their religion that severely damage Muslims themselves and society.... [The mayor of Amsterdam] seemed to be making an appeal to the Dutch people to adopt an unreflexive, unexamined tolerance of Islamic communities and their activities. With this 'appeal,' however, he blatantly ignored the desperate situation of Muslim women in his own city. And he seemed to believe—mistakenly—that this 'benevolent' sentiment and attitude would help the integration of Muslims into Dutch society. It will not. It does the exact opposite: it makes a virtual institution of Muslim self-segregation and isolation.

There are secular laws that religious people must follow, even if the laws contradict a strict interpretation of their dogma. There is certainly going to be some dissonance and conflict with their religious principles. But many aspects of modern life generate dissonance, for everyone. This conflict is not an acceptable excuse for violent antisocial behavior.

Moderates find a way to accept and abide by secular laws, in order to function in a civilized society. If they can't, then their option is to withdraw into a closed society based on religion and cut off from modern interactions. The Amish sect of Christianity has been able to do this while peacefully coexisting with their neighbors. Fundamentalism Muslims can make the same decision, but they must accept that they won't be able to conquer the world.

Moderate religion can give rise to fundamentalism, like cancer cells in the body politic. This fundamentalism must be guarded against. But that doesn't mean moderate people should be rejected as allies.

Bill Creasy is president of the Washington Area Secular Humanists. Parts of this essay were published in the July issue of WASHline.