No Evangelicals in Foxholes

Strange the mentality of religious believers who refer to atheism as a "religion". It is akin to the same people who refer to evolutionary theory as "Darwinism" and who talk about a "belief" in evolution, and evolution as religion (but more of that another day).

So why is it so? Well, because the religious believers cannot conceive of people who have no religious belief. If atheism itself is a religion then that is understandable -- after all they accept that there are a number of religions (although only one of them, their own, is actually true). They think indeed that the proposition that all humans believe is a validation of their own religious beliefs. But if they understood that atheists simply don't believe then this might throw into doubt their whole basis for belief. Rather in the way that Chavez and Castro have to be rejected because capitalism is the only possible economic belief.

But more, if they fully understood that atheism means "no god(s)" then the belief in a particular god or gods stands exposed as a willfully blind acceptance of a set of beliefs for which there is no evidence. Why, in a world chock full of facts, would you choose to base your life on something which is fact free?

And the charge is a sign of the effectiveness of Dawkins and Dennett, Harris and Horton, in combating the unfounded belief system that is religion. If we atheists just have a different belief system, if atheism is a "religion" (merely to write the phrase shows the absurdity), then, as the schoolyard chant goes, "You're an idiot", "You are and you don't know you are, so there".

So atheism is a religion? No, I'm afraid not, no more than being completely healthy is just another kind of disease. But believing it is so must be a comfort in a foxhole, or in the cold hours of doubt at 3am. And the evangelicals would rather vote for someone with the screwy set of beliefs that is Mormonism (can Tom Cruise, seeing Mitt's success, be far from a political career?) than for an atheist.

Like Shelley, the Watermelon Blog believes "The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting on the cause".

Comments

[moderationsmuse]

"[T]he religious believers cannot conceive of people who have no religious belief."
You over simplify things. I think historians or psychologists might have difficulty conceiving of people (plural) who have no religious belief. Religious belief, it should be noted first off, is not a creation of individuals. Religious doctrines (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Confusius-ism, Hinduism, etc.) are cultural artifacts. They represent accumulations of many longings and aspirations to say the very least. They embody the philosophical worldviews, the ordinary expectations, the collective unconscious of whole societies -- of more -- of the accumulated wave of societal effects. Christianity, to mention only the one that you're probably in particular hung up about, is a religion that pulls along 20 centuries of intellect and emotion in its wake.
So to suggest that it is incredulous that human beings should be WITHOUT religion is hardly a stunning observation. It is blantantly fact. Every human society ever discovered has had a religious world view. Point out to us the culture that we have overlooked, the one that was without religion and we'll have the exception that proves the rule. But you cannot point to one. Even the officially atheistic Soviet Union of yore had its ancient churches everywhere, its religious dissenters in hiding everywhere -- and even its "atheism" was (and is) loaded with the baggage of faith rejected.
That various individual humans should claim to have no belief in God, SHOULD therefore strike us as prima facie evidence of error. That the individual is unaware of his/her hidden faith is a more likely case than that the person actually lacks religious impulses. One can make a strong argument for the person's not recognizing their own reliance upon religious ideas in their society that they adopt without even being aware or that they embrace their own presumed "atheism" with religious fervor.

[David Horton - Huffpost Blogger]

See David Horton's Profile

Hullo everyone - I am delighted this post resulted in so many interesting responses - glad you all liked it. Interesting to see the second last post, as Sir Real points out, comes back to the very point I was making. Pandu should write on Bart's blackboard, a thousand times, "Atheists don't have to prove a negative".

Anyhoo, thank you to all the posters who have responded to my blogs in 2007. I hope you will all continue in 2008.

Oh, and have a great new year!

[derik]

I decided to do some research and find that all the evangelical tribes, yes tribes, all disagree on many things. Obviously when such issues arise they end up twisting words (lets face, we have the same word for things that mean many things). It is somehwhat a valid strategy that confuses and promotes anxiety and fear. Call it Fear, uncertainty and Doubt or FUD. From my viewpoint, if we destroy this mythological world such e people live in, we could upset the harmony of nature. Obviously, in entropy, such harmony could be equated to chaos which could thus be harmony. So, now and then, we could sit back and call these e people a bunch idiots. Then, they go into a state of "we are under attack". Heck, even CNN will cover that. ahh, life is good and I not even sure I am an atheist since I am more concerned with the price of coal anyhow.

[Pandu]

Religion is often seen as a kind of faith, and atheism seems like a religion because of the leap of faith required to embrace it. No one can prove there is no God; yet atheists hold this belief due to their ridiculous faith in their ability to know everything by sense perception and mental speculation.

[wondering]

David, great article.

However, a mini-debate I am having with another commenter under a different article on Huffpo has got me thinking about this very subject. You are more than certainly correct about some religionists: they fail to accept that any human being can be without "faith". But I think most of the time accusing atheists of being fundamentalist has a more nefarious intent.

Choosing to call atheists fundamentalists (i.e., calling atheism a religion), when you know otherwise, serves two purposes:

First, it is done in the hopes of confusing the argument. If you can successfully define your opponents as being no different from yourself, you disarm them. It's like a member of the KKK trying to justify their extreme position by pointing out that some blacks hate whites.

Second, it is a thinly veiled attempt to anger atheists. What better way to goad your opponents than to accuse them of being the very thing they most despise. The Republicans are notorious for this - for example, accusing the Dems who want to bring the troops home and out of harm's way of not supporting the troops.

And like Republicans, True Believers are not very good at thinking for themselves. When one of them comes up with what they think is a devastating sound-bite, like calling atheists fundamentalist, the rest parrot that comment without being able to justify it. No surprise that Republicans love True Believers.

[DemandTruth]

My evengelical-lite uncle is one of the most gentle, sweet, loving, funny people I've ever met! But he cornered me once and asked me all sorts of uncomfortable, combative questions about whether or not I believed in "God" and why not? I got so flustered, (we were at a reunion and in front of many family members) I just ended up saying no. No, I don't believe in God. And I don't really want to talk about it anymore. Then I went to bed, embarassed and angry.

I've grown in the last few years and this is what I'd say to him now. I DO believe in some sort of cosmic, unifying subatomic quantum physical energy that runs throughout everything in this universe that we know and everything in the universes we don't know. And I believe it is astonishing and wondrous and miraculous. But I do not call it a "Him" and I do not name it "God".

[HeevenSteven]

Yes, the believers just have to fill the vacuum. "We don't know" or "We can't know" just doesn't work for them.

It's that "ISM" on the end. It makes it sound like a philosophy. "ISM" sounds like an affirmation of something rather than a rejection.

I prefer Non-believer, Free thinker, Non-theist, etc.

[rabun666]

very good

[charon]

David, I think you are absolutely right about how the extreme religious fundies conceive of atheism--their only frame of reference is religious. And the reasons they don't like atheism and feel threatened by it.

I think, though, that there is also some clever political strategy at work here. By claiming atheism a religion, they can claim that the laws that prohibit state promotion of religion are following the atheists religion, and thus favoring the religion of atheism over other religion. That's the intent of calling those who favor keeping religion out of government secular humanists, as if one religion is keeping all others from being heard.

Their argument then follows the line that Christians should have equal time with secularists, creationism with evolution, etc.
Absurd, but clever.

[sparkandy]

then there's spirituality, which accomodates belief in something bigger than we are, and repudiates religion. religion is divisive; spirituality is uniting. and even atheists can be spiritual.

[flanardiente]

I had a friend many years ago who had a theory that God was an antibody generated by the universe to deal with planetary viruses. If the virus resonated with the antibody's message of harmony with its environment it survived. If it didn't it ate itself up. Either way the planet survived.

This actually makes sense.

[Tellmethetruth]

Biden Campaign: Biden hits Bush on veto and his failed Iraq policy
12/28/2007

CONTACT:
Mark Paustenbach - 515-440-2008
[e-mail]

Waverly, IA (December 28, 2007) - Today, Sen. Joe Biden criticized President Bush for his veto of the Defense Authorization Conference Report and called on him to immediately begin implementing the Biden-Brownback Resolution and Senator Biden"s comprehensive exit plan for Iraq which is contained in the bill.

In calling for the President to act on the bill"s key components, Sen. Biden stated, "Yesterday"s tragic events in Pakistan underscore the sobering effects of our failed policy in Iraq. As I"ve said, when President Bush abandoned Afghanistan to go to war in Iraq, it sent a message to Musharraf that the U.S. might not be there to protect him.

"Ending the war in Iraq would allow us to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and assist the Pakistani moderates in taking control of their country. And it would allow us to get our sons and daughters out of the middle of Iraq"s civil war," said Biden.

"Just moving to enact the Biden-Brownback resolution would bring the international community into the cause of long-term peace in the region. And we would further stabilize the region by committing to the bill"s provision that the U.S. foreswear any long-term military bases in Iraq," added Biden.

"This war must end and the Biden-Brownback resolution is the key to that endgame," said Biden. "It is essential that the President sign this provision as soon as possible and help the Iraqis implement the federal system called for in their Constitution."
http://www.iowapolitics.com/printerfriendly.iml?Article=114244

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

the purpose of religion is to be able to live in a world of unending suffering with a mind of comfort and ease while remaining totally aware -- when we want it.

Buddhism for example offers this.

what does nihilistic materialism offer? rat race, infantalism, consumerism, narcotics, pharmaceuticals.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Speaking as a demographically marginalized (AND uncompensated, where's MY 3 billion dollar 'foundation', dammit!?!?!)heathen-american, I'd just like to say, 'god, save me
from your FAN CLUB'. I no longer own ANY kind
of religious literature, and that's not by
accident. That's 'cause I washed my hands of
any religious affiliation after I met 'buddy'.
I won't go into too many details, because I'm
pretty sure that 'buddy' might end up reading
this, he's pretty crafty, anyway, 'buddy'
represented himself to me as a minister. Then,
'buddy' tried to mooch me for 300 bucks.
Thanks, Buddy! Actually, REALLY thanks, because
it opened my eyes to an instance of deliberate
deception traveling under the Cloth. Ever since
I met 'buddy', I've got a whole new outlook
on religion in general, especially and specifically organized religion. Audit! Question! Refuse to participate! Bye, Buddy!

[SirReal1]

I'm not sure I entirely agree with ALL that David (or wldnswmmr for that matter) says in this post.

If he is speaking specifically to "evangelist's", as the title implies, then, perhaps I would find his statements more credible. He speaks of a world "chock full of facts" and then lays out a case that is decidedly NOT fact based.

In many parts of the world, Atheism is most definitely NOT viewed as a Religion. Many "educated" religious believers understand the distinction, and assuredly DO NOT consider Atheism a religion.

Nor would I agree with the implication that ALL Atheist's live in a "fact based" world. I'm sure there must be Atheist's who wouldn't know a fact if it smacked them in the face, just as there are religious people with equally weak intellects.

I agree that in this time of "intellectual dishonesty" and, on the other side "intellectual laziness", religion is to be viewed with skepticism and distrust, but to view the "religious" as utterly ignorant is to provide them with a decided advantage in the debate.

(cont)

[MellowDrama]

Come on, David. These are extraordinarily immature sentiments. You are a follower of rationalism. You regard reason as supreme; it is your God, so to speak. But reason itself, which is a projection of your own mind as much as mythological belief systems are projections of other minds, is obviously limited, which you do not seem to understand.

Reason is the search for causes as in, "THIS is the reason for THAT." But you are unable to find a first cause, though you blindly seem to believe that you have done so or that someone else will do so eventually. Foolishly, you say that a "big bang" is the cause of all this, but obfuscate the truth that you know not what is the cause of the big bang nor the cause of that cause.

Your big bang is only an arbitrary point in time, and analyzing on that basis you can only possibly arrive at arbitrary conclusions. These are by no means "the explanation for everything," and to the degree you believe you are in possession of such an explanation you are as much a cretin as any evangelical nutjob.

Evolution is as insufficient an explanation for life and consciousness as anything else. At least some religion posits the true nature of reality in toto, a mystery for which it is right that we feel reverence and humility, and does not take the idiot, triumphalist, rationalist's attitude that "it's all in my grasp because my brain registers a thought, a burp, and two farts."

[Doofus]

It would be worthwhile to consider an opinion piece
by physicist Paul Davies, and an article on his
opinion by Dennis Overbye, in the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/science/18law.html

Davies is a very informed agnostic (I would say) physicist
who has come to be troubled about the underlying
*basis* for 'everything'. Is there a basis or not?

He's caused quite a ruckus. At some point, even
an atheist may question the notion that things
simply 'are'.

[desmirl]

The problem with religion is that it requires a certain level of unquestioning credulity. Electing a Bush to high office requires a certain level of unquestioning credulity. Hmmm. I may be on to something here.

[wldnswmmr]

Brilliantly simple analysis. Atheism is what is left after one has dispensed with the mythology of religion. That does not make atheism a religion. A religion is accepted on the basis of belief in the absence of empirical evidence. Atheism proceeds on the basis that empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that deism is mythology. Atheism is rational; religion is ipso facto irrational. Two horses of decidedly different colors.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

the belief that there are no good or bad actions and no continuation of the mind after death is called "nihilistic materialism" in Buddhism.

nihilistic materialism is definitely a religion.

[ThomasDoubting]

Evolution is a fact! Almost anyone who is exposed to it, would agree. Those who question evolution, do so for religious reasons. It is a science question that requires a science answer. Evolution has nothing, whatsoever to do with a translation of a story, that was written thousands of years ago, allegedly based on an oral tradition that goes back thousands of years further. If a person chooses to believe that story, rather than acknowledge evidence of evolution, there is not much society can do about it. We as Americans accept all sorts of religions and superstitions, and somehow give more credence to the most popular groups. Belief in any of the myths should be treated equally. While there may be truths in many of them, I believe that they are equally wrong.

[Jude2004]

As a religiously-educated atheist, I find it interesting to live with two teenagers--one of them an angry atheist who doesn't know what he's talking about--and my second son, who is exploring religion and may end up getting baptized at some point. I learned decades ago not to argue about religion. When I told my Mormon uncle that I was an atheist, he responded, "You just said that you are *NOTHING*! NOTHING!" "Huh?" was the only response I could come up with. Unlike the mostly forgiving Christians of my youth (one told me, sadly, that faith was a gift, which I obviously hadn't received), I find myself occasionally persecuted as an atheist by Christians. I find that funny, because when I attended church as a non-believing teen, the Christians I knew longed to be martyrs. Instead, when devout Christians are in power, they create martyrs out of us, the non-believers. Hey, guys, we're all just human beings.

[usna73]

"Foxholes" are usually inhabited by more than one. Human beings need to reflect and remember that when the chips are down, it is far more important to rely on one another, than upon your beliefs.

The escapism that we call "religion" can only distract us from doing the deeds we must.

We are all here on earth to help one another get through this thing we call life.

[mommadona]

Well, when I know stating I'm a traditional witch will stop the conversation, and the question of 'and where do YOU go to church?' comes up, I politely state:

"Oh, I'm a spiritual person. I don't believe in organized religion."

Short, sweet and to the point.

[SamThornton]

Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Thanks to Daily Irreverence (http://stupac2.blogspot.com).