For this essay, I've expounded on the themes in the last story I posted. It's tempting, as an author, to keep my personal beliefs private, thereby leaving my writing open to interpretation. However, there's also merit in intellectual honesty. People will find their own meanings regardless, that's just how language works, particularly in it's written form.
I came to atheism thru Christianity and a flirtation with Buddhism. Altho it's perfectly accurate, there is a fundamental flaw in that statement, which might undermine my arguments if I don't point it out. This flaw being, that it appears I've put atheism on the same plain as religion, when Naturalism is the equal of religion.
Still, it was Christianity and Buddhism that led me to atheism, which in turn led me to Naturalism. This is more than quibbling over semantics, Naturalism is a belief in a natural origin of the universe and life; it is the foundation of scientific thought. Atheism is a stance on a si
ngle subject (god) which does not address the fundamental of the universe and does not eliminate spiritual or supernatural perspectives on reality. And I, personally, wrestled with concepts of god, before I gave in to a Naturalistic perspective.
I was born into a christian society, which means I was infected with the notion of a god who was God and whose son was Jesus, whom was also God himself, and the God/Child came to Earth, to die and live again, in order to save us from our sins, if only we believed in him and lived according to his rules. Sin, of course, is disobeying the arbitrary rules of that same God.
I don't mean to set Christianity up as a “strawman,” I'm just trying to communicate the gist of the religion so I can move on. Still, the essence of why I don't believe in a Christian faith, is that the entirety of the religion falls over under the weight of reason; it is by, nature a strawman staked upon ontological arguments and continually re-stuffed by apologists.
Honestly, even in my early childhood, I don't know that I ever believed in god, though I tried. It's hard not to accept the word of adults, altho those same adults do tend to squash skepticism, should it appear in young children. I remember going to church, listening to sermons, going to Burger King afterward and spending the rest of the day playing. We belonged to the Salvation Army, until we moved to Corvallis and it became inconvenient to attend services.
I went through phases, during which I tried desperately hard to be a good Christian and to believe, attending youth groups after school, riding along with friend's to their Sunday services. Underneath it all, I worried about my black soul and possibilities of demonic possession. It's not that magic or demons existed in a real sense, it's that I saw issues with literal interpretations of the Bible and part of the Christian Infection is the notion that reason is a tool of the devil, while God requires faith.
Still, there were a lot of intelligent people in my life, who believed in god and these people sent me down the path of apologism. So, maybe the Bible wasn't literally true, maybe the Earth was created in “seven of God's days” which were obviously on a different scale than a day from our perspective. Maybe God wasn't even a singular entity, but a force or the universe as a whole or love. The important thing was that god is and I believe. By this point, I was a teenager and truly an agnostic, constantly justifying why I wasn't atheist, redefining god to work with the world I lived in.
It's imperative to understand that atheism is broadly considered to be a moral defect in the U.S.A. Agnosticism is begrudgingly accepted, I guess because arguments for agnosticism come from a place of seeming humility, while atheism seems to come from the arrogance of claimed knowledge. Although, atheism also engenders accusations of amorality and nihilism, thus admitting to atheism is a risk.
For me, that's where the struggle lay. Being honest (with even myself) about my atheism, meant I was some sort of monster, I was in some way defective, I could never be a good human being. I still haven't come out to everyone, elderly family members, very religious friends, there is a real threat in doing so, not of pain or violence, but of losing the relationship.
So, I claimed to be an agnostic in my early adulthood. I hid in the safety of relativism; there are so many conceptualizations of god, I thought, how can I choose one. This gave way to Buddhism, as I struggled to explain agnosticism to the people I know. The beauty of Buddhism is that it's not especially theistic, it's a philosophy as much as a religion, but saying I was a Buddhist got people off my back, even garnered a certain respect with some. Eventually, I felt the burden of mysticism and revealed wisdom.
Throughout that, I didn't draw my sense of right or wrong from religion and I never felt a sense of purpose from either Christianity or Buddhism. If anything during that time, I felt a greater sense of nihilism, stemming from the frustration of having to choose faith over reason. The drive to rebel from and destroy the system only exists while you're within the system.
As for right and wrong, we could talk of social contracts or whatever else, but I simply equate them with beneficence and harm. That which benefits is good, that which harms is bad: that which maximizes benefit and minimizes harm is right, that which minimizes benefit and maximizes harm is wrong. There is a level of relativism involved, but it's qualitative relativism, so long as the evaluation is honest there is no ambiguity. Slavery, for instance, in many forms is wrong, there are solutions where to problem of needing labor that don't infringe on the sovereign rights of another individual, however there are consensual forms of “slavery” which are entirely acceptable and right.
At some point, I came to the conclusion that I had to be honest. I was a deeply principled person, a fact which would not change if I gave up the pretense of spirituality. I also realized that atheism forces thought, which is why the statement “atheists are immoral” is true: atheists come to their notions of right and wrong thru careful consideration of evidence and experience, not as lessons from parables or bronze age codices. On some level, both a principled atheist and a moral christian are following an arbitrary set of rules, the difference being that an atheist is personally accountable for their notions of right and wrong, as both sets of rules are more or less arbitrary but the christian believes their rules come from divine revelation.
The god I would believe in prefers a self-accountable atheist to a pandering christian. Which, returns me to the fact that I can contrive a god I could believe in. It's not hard, I can do it entirely within a biblical context. However, that god is a product of my mind, the end result of apologism, it's not the god any person has ever tried to sell me, not the god literally described by the bible. Is it not vanity to worship my own contrived notions of divinity? Is that not a violation of scripture even? Is it possible to worship a god that isn't false? This is the basis Judeo-Christian for my atheism.
Still, the god I could believe is good and just, there would be evidence beyond what exists. More likely, the god I would believe in isn't concerned with faith or belief, which seem truly petty concepts for a god worthy of worship. In fact, I would choose or non-being over such a petty god.
Finally I had to admit to myself that I was an atheist. Afterward, I felt lighter, happier, freer. Part of that was giving up the notion that I was here for some reason. I could live for it's own sake. Give what I wanted to give, have what I wanted to have, be what I wanted to be.
Still, it was Christianity and Buddhism that led me to atheism, which in turn led me to Naturalism. This is more than quibbling over semantics, Naturalism is a belief in a natural origin of the universe and life; it is the foundation of scientific thought. Atheism is a stance on a si
ngle subject (god) which does not address the fundamental of the universe and does not eliminate spiritual or supernatural perspectives on reality. And I, personally, wrestled with concepts of god, before I gave in to a Naturalistic perspective.
I was born into a christian society, which means I was infected with the notion of a god who was God and whose son was Jesus, whom was also God himself, and the God/Child came to Earth, to die and live again, in order to save us from our sins, if only we believed in him and lived according to his rules. Sin, of course, is disobeying the arbitrary rules of that same God.
I don't mean to set Christianity up as a “strawman,” I'm just trying to communicate the gist of the religion so I can move on. Still, the essence of why I don't believe in a Christian faith, is that the entirety of the religion falls over under the weight of reason; it is by, nature a strawman staked upon ontological arguments and continually re-stuffed by apologists.
Honestly, even in my early childhood, I don't know that I ever believed in god, though I tried. It's hard not to accept the word of adults, altho those same adults do tend to squash skepticism, should it appear in young children. I remember going to church, listening to sermons, going to Burger King afterward and spending the rest of the day playing. We belonged to the Salvation Army, until we moved to Corvallis and it became inconvenient to attend services.
I went through phases, during which I tried desperately hard to be a good Christian and to believe, attending youth groups after school, riding along with friend's to their Sunday services. Underneath it all, I worried about my black soul and possibilities of demonic possession. It's not that magic or demons existed in a real sense, it's that I saw issues with literal interpretations of the Bible and part of the Christian Infection is the notion that reason is a tool of the devil, while God requires faith.
Still, there were a lot of intelligent people in my life, who believed in god and these people sent me down the path of apologism. So, maybe the Bible wasn't literally true, maybe the Earth was created in “seven of God's days” which were obviously on a different scale than a day from our perspective. Maybe God wasn't even a singular entity, but a force or the universe as a whole or love. The important thing was that god is and I believe. By this point, I was a teenager and truly an agnostic, constantly justifying why I wasn't atheist, redefining god to work with the world I lived in.
It's imperative to understand that atheism is broadly considered to be a moral defect in the U.S.A. Agnosticism is begrudgingly accepted, I guess because arguments for agnosticism come from a place of seeming humility, while atheism seems to come from the arrogance of claimed knowledge. Although, atheism also engenders accusations of amorality and nihilism, thus admitting to atheism is a risk.
For me, that's where the struggle lay. Being honest (with even myself) about my atheism, meant I was some sort of monster, I was in some way defective, I could never be a good human being. I still haven't come out to everyone, elderly family members, very religious friends, there is a real threat in doing so, not of pain or violence, but of losing the relationship.
So, I claimed to be an agnostic in my early adulthood. I hid in the safety of relativism; there are so many conceptualizations of god, I thought, how can I choose one. This gave way to Buddhism, as I struggled to explain agnosticism to the people I know. The beauty of Buddhism is that it's not especially theistic, it's a philosophy as much as a religion, but saying I was a Buddhist got people off my back, even garnered a certain respect with some. Eventually, I felt the burden of mysticism and revealed wisdom.
Throughout that, I didn't draw my sense of right or wrong from religion and I never felt a sense of purpose from either Christianity or Buddhism. If anything during that time, I felt a greater sense of nihilism, stemming from the frustration of having to choose faith over reason. The drive to rebel from and destroy the system only exists while you're within the system.
As for right and wrong, we could talk of social contracts or whatever else, but I simply equate them with beneficence and harm. That which benefits is good, that which harms is bad: that which maximizes benefit and minimizes harm is right, that which minimizes benefit and maximizes harm is wrong. There is a level of relativism involved, but it's qualitative relativism, so long as the evaluation is honest there is no ambiguity. Slavery, for instance, in many forms is wrong, there are solutions where to problem of needing labor that don't infringe on the sovereign rights of another individual, however there are consensual forms of “slavery” which are entirely acceptable and right.
At some point, I came to the conclusion that I had to be honest. I was a deeply principled person, a fact which would not change if I gave up the pretense of spirituality. I also realized that atheism forces thought, which is why the statement “atheists are immoral” is true: atheists come to their notions of right and wrong thru careful consideration of evidence and experience, not as lessons from parables or bronze age codices. On some level, both a principled atheist and a moral christian are following an arbitrary set of rules, the difference being that an atheist is personally accountable for their notions of right and wrong, as both sets of rules are more or less arbitrary but the christian believes their rules come from divine revelation.
The god I would believe in prefers a self-accountable atheist to a pandering christian. Which, returns me to the fact that I can contrive a god I could believe in. It's not hard, I can do it entirely within a biblical context. However, that god is a product of my mind, the end result of apologism, it's not the god any person has ever tried to sell me, not the god literally described by the bible. Is it not vanity to worship my own contrived notions of divinity? Is that not a violation of scripture even? Is it possible to worship a god that isn't false? This is the basis Judeo-Christian for my atheism.
Still, the god I could believe is good and just, there would be evidence beyond what exists. More likely, the god I would believe in isn't concerned with faith or belief, which seem truly petty concepts for a god worthy of worship. In fact, I would choose or non-being over such a petty god.
Finally I had to admit to myself that I was an atheist. Afterward, I felt lighter, happier, freer. Part of that was giving up the notion that I was here for some reason. I could live for it's own sake. Give what I wanted to give, have what I wanted to have, be what I wanted to be.
Although my background is not as Christian as yours, much of this rings very true with me. Atheism is not generally considered a belief system due to the fact that we are not united and the core meaning of the word is simply to believe there is no god. However, the part you wrote about morals is very true. Atheism prompts reason, and this reason is what most atheists have in common even if the end result is different.
ReplyDeleteMore often than not I tell people I am a nihilist. I find this word is generally received with a negative context and I believe that is unnecessary. As a nihilist I still believe in defining a set of morals and living by them, but only to satisfy that part of me that will always be human. I can espouse the idea that love and family is meaningless, and I do truly believe it, however that does not mean I am not a human and that I do not feel emotions that cause me to seek these things.
It is more an idea of the meaning of things from a vantage point outside of the human race and any living being. Since I myself will never be outside of myself, my actual practices in life don't frequently mirror my beliefs. The ideas in nihilism do however bring me a great deal of peace, which I feel is the major point of any belief system.
You say a lot of interesting things there. I never really new what an apologist was. And I like the term Naturalism. I've been calling myself a scientist and giving it the same meaning. Very nicely written. Jim Whipple
ReplyDeleteThanks Jim & Aaron.
ReplyDeleteI think the primary reason atheism isn't a religion, is because if there were no theists, there'd be no concept of religion or need for the term atheism and it would therefore, not exist.
Scientist seems more a profession, as it conjures the image of a professional scientist, lab coat and all. Naturalist, Humanist, Rationalist, or Rational Skeptic seem like the most appropriate terms, to me. Rational Skeptic conveys about the same philosophy as nihilism, but lacks the negative connotation.
Language is a challenge, the literal meaning often doesn't correlate with the perceived meaning and both evolve over time.