As a large brained mammal, human beings have the capacity to think beyond the instinct driven survival mechanism that is still an important part of how our brains operate. This capacity has led to the ability to create complex tools modelled on the natural world around us and the ability to inquisitively ponder how and why we are here as well as rumination over life beyond our own existence.
Every civilization has created ways to codify that meaning of life in the forms of philosophy and theologies, with different theologies taking centre stage with the passing of and expansion of such civilisations.
The secularisation of modernity
In my lifetime the anglosphere has moved from a society underpinned by theological societies to more secular systems of belief although I’m starting to observe more social commentators questioning the wisdom behind the degradation of Abrahamic belief systems in the western world.
I noticed in the mid-2010s that a form of pious atheism was taking hold. Instead of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, new secular beliefs in socialism and other similar ideological beliefs were taking over and despite being agnostic, I could see that the vacuum left by organised religion was being replaced by nouveau religions that lacked some of the underpinning positive values that religious faiths had in common.
“Religion causes war?”
Some atheists would make arguments such as “if there were no religions, there would be no wars”. As someone with a fascination for history, I knew that this was a fallacious argument. You need only look at the Second World War with Mussolini’s fascist national socialism and Hitler’s racial national socialism, both very secular of mindset, squaring up against the Soviet Union’s class based socialism as well as non-secular states such as the Christian underpinned United Kingdom and the United States.
Conflict between human colonies predates modern religion. War has always been a competition for resources, of course there have been wars fought under the justification of religion but if you peek beneath the thin veneer of religious intolerance lies a deeper truth about not just human beings but the nature of survival itself.
Indeed, the most tyrannical regimes known to modern man have been secular affairs. There is no viable justification for non-theists to claim moral supremacy in terms of capacity for harm to other human beings.
“I don’t believe in anything?”
Another exception I have taken to atheist claims is that there identity is based on an absence of belief. Some of those same atheists that have claimed that they do not believe in something, have interests in phenomena such as astrology, alien life forms or the supernatural.
My conclusion that believing in things for which we do not have evidence is very much part of the human experience. We can acknowledge the things that we believe without reason or we can pretend that our beliefs are based on some special knowledge that only those that share our views have critical access to, however, in my view that in of itself is a denial of the large brained mammal that we are.
The value of faith
Whether or not you believe in an omniscient deity or not, I think there is a good argument for the value of having such a belief system that can be beneficial to those that hold that faith.
Even if it is simply a placebo effect, we can note that those with faith are more likely to recover from serious injuries rather than dissolve into a nihilistic abyss of hopelessness.
Perhaps the moral messages codified by religious texts can be beneficial in terms of the way religious followers might sometimes treat each other better? Perhaps those faiths can give meaning to events that would otherwise seem random and chaotic?
Perhaps religion can provide comfort to those that are bereaved? I remember going to the funeral service of a friend that sadly passed long before his time was due and how difficult it was to console his family with words of comfort without that common framework of hope for something beyond decaying of the flesh.
Despite my own agnosticism,, at the passing of a beloved aunty, their catholic faith and belief in a reconciliation of loved ones passed was still a comfort.
The difference between agnosticism and atheism
I should probably explain what I mean by agnosticism as it can be easily confused as a synonym for atheism when in actuality it is different.
Agnosticism is the belief that “human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist.”
My spin on it is that I believe the existence of a literal deity is of low probability but it is not something that science can discount conclusively.
How would one prove the existence of a mythical creature sure as the Loch Ness monster? Well, by finding said creature. How do you disprove the existence of the creature? You would need to drain the Loch, which would upset quite a lot of Scottish people. It is easier to prove the existence of something than the lack of existence. You only need to find something once then you can stop looking, disproving something that is meant to be omniscient and omnipresent is nigh on impossible.
That’s not to say that I believe that Nessie is in the water, or that God exists, but it is beyond our capacity to disprove something that represents that which is unknown. I’m starting to feel a little Donald Rumsfeld coming on with his famous speech.
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.
Donald Rumsfeld, 2002
Atheism is different, it is a belief that deities do not exist.
I know some atheists will reject this definition because I’ve called it a belief and they believe that it is the absence of a belief but I’ve already explained why I believe that the notion of a lack of belief is untenable.
Pascals Wager
Then there’s the Pascal’s wager argument. If I believe in a deity and I am wrong, I have lost nothing. I may have benefited from comfort and a foundation to base my life around during my lifetime. If I believe in such a deity and I am correct, I have gained the fruits such faith promised.
If I have no such faith, there is no winning position, the prize for being correct is decay. Perhaps you could say that I might utilised more of my life on things that matter to me, but I’m not sure hedonism is a virtue I’d aspire to.
Can you control what you believe?
There is certainly a case for the value of theism. However, despite being able to recognise the benefits of such beliefs, that does not mean that it is possible to believe something that you do not believe.
People do change their minds, particularly when exposed to new information but I am slightly sceptical about the convenience of changing of beliefs as a way to deal with cognitive dissonance or discomfort.
Moral superiority?
Additionally, whilst I see the benefits of faith and have disdain for those that would mock another person for having such beliefs, I also disagree that theists have moral superiority either. If you only treat other human beings empathetically and with compassion out of fear of a punishment, is that really morality at all? Nobody has a monopoly on kindness, and in fact, the message of redemption and forgiveness can be used as a get out of hell free card after committing atrocities against another person.
No human being is perfect and I see human being very much in terms of complex input-output machines. Our beliefs are the culmination of both our experiences and our biology. In fact, it’s a bi-directional feedback system with our environmental decisions (sexual selection for example) feeding back into our biology and our biology feeding into our environment (natural selection). I see the human brain as a complex computer with hormones and electrical circuitry that we have learned to mimic. We have become our own Gods of silicon children.
What is God?
If you ask me if God exists, I would tell you yes, but if you ask me what God is, my response would be different to a theist. I see God as a kind of metaphor to explain the things which we do not understand, an acknowledgement of the incompleteness of our knowledge and scientific capability. I wonder whether the stories contained within the great religious books of time were meant to be read with the understanding that they are a combination of historical counts of the latter days of the Roman Empire as well as stories passed on from one generation to the other that are not meant to be taken as literal but as a representation of what man has learnt from existence. Story telling is a powerful and uniquely human trait.
The questions that vex me around death and Christian faith
When I think about the consequences in terms of my beliefs without theism, it does lead me to some uncomfortable taboo questions about death.
If I take the Christian faith of my parents and more specifically the belief in heaven and a reunification of loved ones based on a common acceptance of the forgiveness of Jesus, what is meant to happen should they pass with faith and I pass without meeting the necessary entry requirements for such a utopia?
Are they expected to be happily reunited with only a selection of those whom they have lost? Is the permanent loss of a closed loved one not a punishment for them? Do I get a pass on the basis of their acceptance? Is there a version of whatever my soul is meant to be that they get to keep, and another version of me made to suffer for not signing on the dotted lines?
Is forgiveness of sins really forgiveness if it comes with acceptance criteria? What of those that have committed heinous acts in their lifetime but have signed on the dotted line? Will they live in harmony in this utopia? I simply can’t find a logical way to square the complexities in a satisfying way.
Nihilism isn’t the answer
My own belief that when life expires, it expires is no more satisfying. Given that there has been life of earth for a length of time I cannot even conceive of, and the number of homo-sapiens that have lived and died over that course of time, it makes a single life, even a great one that lives on through stories passed from one generation to the next, somewhat meaningless.
Against the entirety of time, does it really matter if a person lives for one year or one hundred years? It’s still insignificant, meaningless and forgotten. How can I reach a conclusion that life has value and that suffering should be endured when it is so fleeting? Without meaning, what is the point? Upon what rock can I cast an anchor to sure me against the turbulent waves? How does one escape the clutches of nihilism if one cannot in intelligent conscience lay a path that makes sense of the senseless? I can neither compel my mind to believe in a theologically driven raison d’être, nor can I escape the futility of a life without meaning.
Perhaps this is the depression talking or perhaps the depression is the result of the crisis of meaning. I yearn for a simpler existence without the intellect driving the unquenchable thirst for comprehending the world around me. Ignorance, is indeed blissful. Or if not that intelligence beyond the meagre rations slopped out in my bowl at the canteen of life leaving me entirely unsated.
The curious case of ones own mortality
Alas, I’m left to ponder my own mortality and the fact that one day I will no longer exist, as will all living things. I’ve only ever known existence. It’s a very strange thought that one day you will not exist. Maybe some of your atoms will become part of another sentient creature but the thoughts flying across the synapses of your neural highway will be no more. Every thought, every feeling, every achievement, every memory – gone forever except in the passivity of second hand recall in the minds of those that remembered you, until the process completes again and there is nothing let but the carbon building blocks that make up all life on earth.
I am reminded of the 2017 film, A ghost story. Perhaps it is in art that we can expand our lifetimes beyond our particular grain of human experience? Perhaps these words will be the only thing left behind when the inevitable process of decay occurs? Or perhaps more likely, I won’t even be yesterday’s chip paper. I became as nothing, I will leave as nothing. No children to pass on my DNA in the relay of life, the line stops here and perhaps that is a good thing?
Rant Over 
you seem to be using the typical false christian claim that somehow atheism caused Stalinism, Nazism, etc. Unfortunately, those were caused by lunatics with megalomania, and in some cases quite aided and abetted by Christianity. What we do konw is that religion has constantly caused harm, since it depends on the lie of “we” are good and “they” aren’t.
The lack of believe in a god has done nothing on its own, considering that theists are mostly, if not all, atheists too.
You also try the common theist attempt to lie that atheism equals nihilism. Happily, no one needs faith in the imaginary, aka baseless, claims of theists. Hope in what will never happen ends up in disappointment and often victim blaming when those promoting the “faith” demand that it has to be the victim’s fault, not the lack of existence of their object of “faith”.
As for Pascal’s Wager, you ignore the waste of time and resources belief in something that doesn’t exist causes. Nothing about not believing in some god causes “decay”. This is the typical baseless claim that a theist uses to gin up fear to convince people to agree with their imaginary deities.
I do agree, nihilism isn’t what humans need. And us humans have created purpose for ourselves and others since we’ve existed. No need for imaginary gods at all.
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No, you’ve got that the complete opposite way around. What I’m saying is that the idea that Religion is the cause of conflict is not true and is provable because conflict existed before Religion. I have not said atheism causes conflict, I’ve said that nature itself is a competition between different life forms for survival and therefore conflict occurs because of that competition for resources and survival.
You really need to re-read what has been said. You’re not arguing against points that I have made but a strawman version that can only exist by ignoring paragraphs where I have actually addresses the things you have said.
I can prove it with verbatim quotes.
You say “You also try the common theist attempt to lie that atheism equals nihilism.”
I said “I also disagree that theists have moral superiority either. If you only treat other human beings empathetically and with compassion out of fear of a punishment, is that really morality at all? Nobody has a monopoly on kindness, and in fact, the message of redemption and forgiveness can be used as a get out of hell free card after committing atrocities against another person.”
You say “Happily, no one needs faith in the imaginary, aka baseless, claims of theists.”
Where you are going wrong is the assumption that your own ideas are any less baseless. You’re replacing one religious belief system with others and pretending that they are more rational.
A good example of this is people using phrases like “follow the science”. Science is not and has never been about consensus. Climate panic is the sort of religion that replaces the old ones.
You said “As for Pascal’s Wager, you ignore the waste of time and resources belief in something that doesn’t exist causes.”
No, I specifically made that point – “Perhaps you could say that I might utilised more of my life on things that matter to me, but I’m not sure hedonism is a virtue I’d aspire to.”
You say “Nothing about not believing in some god causes “decay”.
Again, that’s a strawman. Nowhere have I said that believing in the non-existence of a deity causes decay.
What I said was “If I have no such faith, there is no winning position, the prize for being correct is decay.”
Are you now trying to tell me that a corpse does not decay? That your flesh will not be broken down by bacteria once you have passed away?
Perhaps I should have said “only decay”. The point is if you believe that there isn’t a soul, and that everything you think and feel is as part of being a living organism then if you are right then there is nothing beyond the rotting of your corpse. If the theists are right then there is something beyond the physical that may carry on.
There are theist zealots and there are atheist zealots, you fit into the latter category. There are also theists that are not zealots and atheists that are not zealots.
It’s the intolerance of other beliefs and the failure to recognise that your beliefs are no less devoid of evidence that I cannot stand.
I will leave you with a definition of an expert. An expert is not someone that knows all the answers on a given domain. An expert is someone who knows the limitations of their own knowledge. Self professed experts rarely fit into that category and instead declare certainty beyond that which can be reasonably claimed!
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