Militant atheism is a religion
If you feel uncomfortable over the way militant atheists talk you aren’t alone — and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Even if I were to grant you that they were correct about their beliefs, which they’re not, that’s not how you talk to people. Even if they were right, which they’re not, who are they going to convince? An unnamed member of “The Four Horsemen” has literally converted only one person from Islam to his viewpoint — I don’t think the others have exceeded that record. But are you surprised?
That’s not how you talk to people
Let’s just assume they are correct in their view that religion is an antiquated mode by which to live a life and one that has no bearing in a modern, scientific and progressive world. Let’s imagine they lived in the Middle Ages and they cried that it is the Sun, instead of the Earth, that is in the centre of our “Solar system” and they lived in a world where everyone still stubbornly believes the opposite, no matter what they are shown or told. Even if that were the case, they’re still not very persuasive.
How would you feel if, in the process of being shown you were wrong, you were belittled, embarrassed and humiliated? Would you feel upset, resentful, angry? Not surprising. This is Psychology 101. Who doesn’t know that people harbour resentment for literally their entire lives!? They go to their deathbeds not changing their minds about something just out of spite. Well, actually loads of people act in unconvincing, mean ways, making others feel small, and in the process create toxic relationships or burn bridges altogether.
That’s the case for loads of ordinary people. But many of the famous militant atheists I’m referring to are bona fide geniuses. I don’t even dare to assume what the psychology behind their attitude is, but the fact of the matter is that the way they treat people makes them feel angry and sad. And the majority of these “others” are perfectly nice people. They go to church with their families or by themselves and derive a huge benefit from the sense of community and togetherness you can find in any group. What would you have all religious people do? Go to yoga and meditation retreats?
We are not machines
One of the things it all boils down to is the worldview these militant atheists hold that everything in the Universe is purely mechanistic. According to this view, we are merely meat bags with a biological computer. All our thoughts, feelings and objectives can, in principle, be reduced to algorithms and a deterministic view of operation. Also according to this viewpoint, we don’t have free will, we are simply subject to chemical reactions and influences that are all out of our control.
I’m not trying to say that that view is incorrect — although I strongly suspect that it is. The thing is that even if they are correct, given the state of the evidence to support their views, they are just as religious about their views, if not even more so, than an Anglican priest. We simply do not know much at all about where memories are stored and why we see the things that we see when we meditate for 8 hours a day or take psychedelics. But the thing that really bothers me about their free will arguments has to do with how smug they sound when they explain that the only reason they do well in life has to do with how good they are at taking exams and how lucky they are to have been gifted with their extraordinary intelligence. All this of course has been bestowed on them completely at random, from an imperceivable web of influences and chance molecular interactions. Don’t get me wrong, our minds and all the interactions between them may indeed be too complicated to comprehend. But if that’s the extent of the value of having a consciousness, then we might as well be zombies.
