Forum Discussion: Atheism Requires a Better Person?
Wednesday October 15, 2008
Sometimes believers ask what "atheism has to offer" and what atheism can do for people, clearly implying that theistic religion does offer something that atheism can't. Perhaps, though, it's not so much that atheism has anything to offer (since it's not a philosophy or ideology, it can't) but rather than it has expectations. Rather than making you a better person, perhaps atheism requires that you already be a better person.
Recently, it dawned to me that it is not easy to be an atheist. It takes a mentally strong person to overcome self-denial, delusion of grandeur, societal pressure and accept the harshness of reality and deal with situations knowing that only you and/or your fellow man can help humanity. ... It is all too easy to use God as the answer to "life, the universe and everything"; Whenever we don't understand why something works or why some people behave the way they do, it is much simpler to attribute nature as the work of supernatural entities and perceive forces of good and evil constantly battling each other for control of the human soul. ...
Secondly, most people, if not all, would like to think that they are all somebody significant, that the world revolves around them and/or that they have some grand scheme in life bestowed upon them by a higher power. ... Thirdly, it is also very difficult for someone to resist the pervasiveness and dominance of religion in a society. People like to fit into their surroundings, feel accepted by the society and their peers even if it require them to uphold an abstract idea that cannot be objectively, empirically and/or logically verified. ...
I think that maybe atheism is the stage where people have matured mentally and not many people can achieve this stage of 'enlightenment'.
People come to atheism from all sorts of different directions and it's a mistake to suggest that the above describes the process or situation for all atheists. Treating atheists as if they were inherently and necessarily intellectually superior is little more than bigotry and not much different from a believer saying that religious theists are necessarily more moral.
On the other hand, it is true that some atheists will go through the above in order to shed theistic religion. Is it possible, then, that the process of losing religion and becoming an atheist does require a better person, at least in some cases? join the ongoing discussion in the forum.
Comments
By sheer human nature it is easier for one to be god of their life than to submit to a higher authority. It is much easier to believe in nothing and believe we are enlightened; therefore we do not need God to comfort us. The cushion of our inflated ego should be sufficient.
Your post is a string of myths…
By sheer human nature it is easier for one to be god of their life than to submit to a higher authority. It is much easier to believe in nothing and believe we are enlightened; therefore we do not need God to comfort us. The cushion of our inflated ego should be sufficient.
I’m assuming the author of the extract is American. If he lived where I do (the UK) he’d have a different point of view. I live in a largely secular country where Christians are in the minority, so there is no “societal pressure” on me to believe in a one true God. I don’t use God as a comfortable answer to “life, the universe and everything”. I would argue that it is much harder to accept that events you cannot explain occur because of the will of a being whose motive you cannot explain, than it is to believe it is simply random chance. If you believe it’s all an accident, then that gives you an answer. As a Christian I have forgone the right to claim answers during my life on Earth, something which, for a scientifically-minded individual such as myself, is very difficult, but in God I trust.
Oh, and just to deal with that boring old argument of “God isn’t real because you can’t see Him”. You never try to prove a theory. The practise is to theorise, and then attempt to DISPROVE your theory over and over. If you can’t disprove your theory, you might just be right. After centuries of effort from atheists, the only evidence disproving God’s existence is that you can’t see Him. I can’t see oxygen either, yet I know it’s there because I’d be dead without it. I’d be just as dead without God
Joel,
You’re wrong, theories don’t win by default, they need supporting evidence. So, why don’t you to provide a coherent definition for God and a testable (and potentially falsifiable) hypothesis. If you can’t do that then you’re claim above is based purely on faith and you’re argument becomes invalid.
Angel, if it’s so easy to be an atheist, why are the vast majority of people God-believers?
Joel, an atheist can (but doesn’t necessarily) accept that ‘why?’ doesn’t apply to chance occurance, but nearly all theists cling to the belief that there is an ultimate reason for everything that happens because it’s all part of a plan that will make perfect sense once we’re dead. It’s a comfort in the face of uncertainty. It’s hard to imagine anything much easier than grasping for comfort when confronted with existential mystery.
Also, I have a theory that gravity is actually the work of undetectable angels. Is this something you would believe if no one succeeds in disproving it? –Never mind, my bad, it isn’t actually a theory (doesn’t provide an actual explanation for the evidence, just a speculation), merely an unsubstantiated claim.
Joel, if it’s difficult to be a Christian in the UK, I sympathize, and I don’t belittle your struggle, but your courage is in following your own path when it isn’t a popular one, not in being brave enough to believe bad things happen for a good reason and you won’t really die.
Wow, I’m not sure how ‘a cushion of your inflated ego’ happens without god. On the contrary, I think believing in god shows an inflated ego - I mean, that he dies just for you, and you’re gonna live forever. How self-important is that? I know I’m just a very small speck of dust floating in an infinite universe.
When I was attempting to be Christian, I was rather embarrassed about it too - I thought being religious was odd. Ironically now that I’m staunchly atheist, I find religious people everywhere stomping on any hint of rational discussion.
Discussing their belief is fine; discussing non belief is disrespectful… ?!
I wonder if it depends on your immediate social circle to some extent. If you aren’t butting up against Christians on a daily basis….
I’m trying not to take the moral high ground on it, because people I love and respect are Christian; even brilliant scientists and philosophers can hold erroneous theories… they’re probably more willing to suffer abuse for their lack of faith than I am for my lack of it… so they are probably better than me.
Atheists are unique like everyone else. But, they are not special. Most of them see through the common theistic con jobs and arguments. But most of them still serve the “Gods” of love money, power, status, and virtue like everyone else.
It’s not that complicated. All it takes to be an atheist is that one not believe in any gods.
Hank,
doesn’t the worship of money, power or status keep a person from virtue. Isn’t the idea to keep things simple by obtaining what is need to survive and prosper without worshiping any one of them?
Oh, and just to deal with that boring old argument of “God isn’t real because you can’t see Him”. — Joel on October 15, 2008 at 9:54 am
It is a boring argument, and a silly one as well, which is probably why no atheist that I have ever met uses it. I do hear it a lot from theists who are busy building a straw man.
You never try to prove a theory. The practise is to theorise, and then attempt to DISPROVE your theory over and over.
You are discribing in a half-baked way what statisticians call “disproving the null hypothesis,” but you have it backward. The null hypothesis in the present instance is that no gods exist, and the burden of any theist is to disprove it.
After centuries of effort, they are no closer than when they began. I guess that’s why they so frequently resort to shallow, dishonest characterizations of atheists and atheism.
Is it possible, then, that the process of losing religion and becoming an atheist does require a better person, at least in some cases? — Austin Cline
Any difficult effort presents the opportunity for personal growth, I suppose. The psychologist Erik Erickson argues that life is essentially one crisis after another — trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, and so on. Personality development, in his view, depends upon how we resolve these various crises.
In Huckleberry Finn, Huck helps the slave Jim escape to freedom, in spite of the conviction that assisting a runaway slave will condemn him to the fires of hell. Huck famously responds, “All right, then, I’ll go to Hell!”
Modern readers often fail to appreciate that Huck really, sincerely does expect to go the hell for helping Jim — the lake of fire, the worm that never dies, the wailing and gnashing of teeth — that hell. He helps Jim anyway, because decency and friendship demand it.
It does take a certain amount of personal courage to go wherever your search for truth takes you, and this is perhaps especially the case if at some points en route you believe your efforts are opposed by a wrathful and all-powerful God.
reply to - (3) Joel says:
I agree with what Joel says, I also live in the UK and we don’t have this ‘you need to believe in the existence of God to be good’ belief drilled into us.
I find no difficulty in not believing in GOD, it’s as easy for me as not believing in the Tooth Fairy and the Mother Goose.
I only need to think about it for about 2 seconds to 2 minutes to 2 hours to conclude that it is a ‘fucktarded’ idea.
I dismissed it as untrue when I was about 5 or 6 years of age. As I grew older also saw that religions were the cause of much trouble, grief, division and strife in the world.
reply to - (3) Joel says:
I agree with what Joel says, I also live in the UK and we don’t have this ‘you need to believe in the existence of God to be good’ belief drilled into us.
I find no difficulty in not believing in GOD, it’s as easy for me as not believing in the Tooth Fairy and the Mother Goose.
I only need to think about it for about 2 seconds to 2 minutes to 2 hours to conclude that it is a dumb idea.
I dismissed it as untrue when I was about 5 or 6 years of age. As I grew older also saw that religions were the cause of much trouble, grief, division and strife in the world.
Pardon me, I disagree with Joel (reply 3)
and Angel.
I am no Christian I am atheist.
I believe in everything that is real, I believe in REALITY.
Theists believe in the Devil and his legions of demons, hell, purgatory, paradise, Heavin, God and his Archangels and army of angels….
to put it shortly they believe in no-things, completely non-existent no-things, the things that are imaginery and not REAL.
Atheists, however, believe in EVERYTHING and not NOTHING, everything that is REAL, not NO-THINGS.
this is a case of wording.
the term “better” connotes arrogance in a way.
but better in this case is perhaps more suitable for our current environment.
today i read a small article about the roots of dressing up for halloween being Celtic end of year celebrations and warding off evil, calming spirits etc.
at that time, having a ceremony to help people feel less threatened about the coming cold and darkness of winter was necessary for morale.
now, we have easily heated homes, heated transportation, safe food stocks etc. we do not require the same morale boost.
the same seems true for atheism in general.
while it is definitely not required that all people abandon religion, it seems that society is headed that way (check out yesnogod.com, while not “scientific”, surprising nonetheless).
however, similar to how we still “celebrate” halloween, out of custom and not warding/scaring away evil spirits, religion’s necessity, influence and hold on us is lessening.
but that’s just my opinion. it’s not meant as a threat, but rather as a natural progression as our level of technology and understanding of the world around us improves.
as my brother reminds me, throughout the years of human civilization, god as a concept has always represented what we cannot explain yet. as we learn more and more, we find that there is less and less room for the concept of god.
the idea that atheism calls for a more mature/advanced mindset in a person is scandalous, and yet i can’t help but see the logic behind it.
religion really should get with the times. instead of railing against easily demonstrated scientific facts, it should invent new ways that god might be alive (say our foray into the tiniest - the quantum world). THAT i could get behind and at least not immediately dismiss as archaic.
angel:
“By sheer human nature it is easier for one to be god of their life than to submit to a higher authority.”
It is psychologically demonstrated that most people wish to fit in socially. Also, our ability and desire to be a god unto ourselves has been bred out of us by millenia of terrifying events such as the crusades.
“It is much easier to believe in nothing and believe we are enlightened; therefore we do not need God to comfort us.”
It is never easier to believe in nothing. All atheists would then be nihilists of a sort. Atheists believe in all sorts of varied idea, none of them happen to be that a god exists though. I reject the idea that I should believe in a god simply because most people, who don’t seem to search at all believe in this. It would be foolish for me to go against all my instincts and logic for a large group of people who have mostly blindly accepted a concept without verifying or truly considering it for themselves.
I don’t need a god to comfort me because, even when I was a part of the religious masses, the idea of god didn’t comfort even then.
“The cushion of our inflated ego should be sufficient.”
I would rather have an inflated ego than a dulled intellect and a lack of desire to even look into the hugest questions that surround: who we are, how we got here, where we are headed, what is our place in this world.