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ATHEISM – WHY?
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It doesn't take long, trawling through the worlds of posts and blogs on the Internet, before you get the idea that there are quite a lot of people finding it necessary to proclaim their atheism in often quite aggressive ways.
I, myself, sometimes gently enter the arena, though I don't think I'm particularly aggressive. But why is it that people who find the whole ideas encompassed by most major religions to be so in need of attack? Surely we all have inalienable rights to believe what we want to believe and to hell with the rest of the world. Our beliefs, after all, are in our heads, and if our heads are peculiar then our beliefs may well be equally peculiar.
I get confused by the issue. I can see, through my own interpretation of some events in history combined with a layman's understanding of Darwin's theories regarding evolution, how religion came to be the force it is.
It probably happened like this – and here we've got to accept the iceberg theory of human life, with the vast part of it, unrecorded and lost, out of sight whilst the tiny bit we can see, the recorded, historic part, available in varying degrees for our inspection. And I believe it's what happened during the lost millennia that lay down the building blocks of who we, as a species, are today.
All sorts of fanciful tales can be proposed, maybe tales incorporating generation after generation of obedience to mystical tribal leaders until it became a matter of racial survival for Owongo Ugg to believe the unbelievable or else. No matter how it happened, it did happen. At the start of the submerged bit of the iceberg we have proto-man, still with a fondness for swinging from trees, maybe with the odd thought forming inside his head, but not much else going on. At the end of it we have the early human-type hominids, not quite us, but getting there. And thousands of years in which the growing brain learned the best way to adapt to its environment, and that learning laid down the foundations of religion – and very much more, as we can hypothesise.
It is not an instinct for our species to want to practice genocide, yet from time to time it has, even in the twentieth century. People with a German passport have no more propensity to tolerate the holocaust in which the genocide of the Jewish people was attempted, yet quite a few (by no means all) not only tolerated it but took part in it. It wasn't a hatred for Jews, I believe, but that strand laid down in prehistory that provided normal rational human beings with the flaw that led to mass murder on a grand scale, following a leader who had supplanted, by his very being, true religion. After all, there must have been some deep and probably lost reason why good, decent, honourable people (most Germans are all of those things) got lost in an ancient rut and followed it to its horrible natural conclusion.
And the same strand that led to the acceptance of the holocaust was the foundation of most modern religions. They have their roots way back in time. They attempt, after all, to explain the creation of the world, and the fundamentals of them are passed down the generations in much more than formal lessons. Simple things, like different hours the law allows shops to open on a Sunday (the Sabbath in my neck of the woods), the fact that this spell checker requires Sabbath to have a capital S, the fact that illogical, irrational and impossible things are taught to children as being irrefutable, the fact that there's usually hymn-singing somewhere on the media on Sundays, the fact that most major holidays have been grabbed by religions until they're identified as religious festivals, the fact that births, marriages and deaths are often in the province of the church, the fact that vicars and priests find it necessary to wear absurd costumes whilst at work (no health and safety, just absurdity), the very existence of a Sunday timetable for public transport, all these things in their own way reinforce a god that if he was truly omniscient wouldn't need reinforcing at all. But the requirement to believe, to accept judgement, to prostrate ourselves before the impossible, was laid down in the vast number of years that are totally lost to us, of which no trace remains, no missing-link appears, and yet that consume so many people with a passion that leads to suicide bombing, the greatest possible personal sacrifice for the least obvious purpose.
That's why you often find aggressive atheists in blogland. Because they've seen past the cultural absurdities to the underlying primitive forces that gave them their birth countless thousands of years ago. But they're (we're) also subject to the same ancient imperatives, which is where the aggression and the passion comes from.
It's all theory, of course, by a layman using a layman's ignorance, but it makes sense to this particular layman, who, if he were more articulate, might have expressed it better.
© Peter Rogerson 07.02.11
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Comments: 41 ( 1 removed by Peter Rogerson )
I've said it before and you can bank on me saying it at every opportunity. I'm not AGAINST religion per se, I'm just anti god driven religion. And that includes Muhammad (born on my birthday) and Jesus (birth-date doubtful) who are merely god pretenders.
Gods are, of course, the invention of MAN. They only exist in the mind. And most of us know what a powerful though flawed organ the human mind is.
All manner of men, and women, should be free to THINK and to express their thoughts unencumbered. I know I will, until my dying day.
Hey Scott.
The concept of deities and, therefore, the bigger intelligence 'running the show' or supervising the World, is one born out of the minds of people whose earthly heirarchy is structured exactly like that; a boss at the top. We have no real proof of such a thing, nothing concrete which proves such a 'theory'. The problem comes with those who are convinced that deities exist and are trying to insist this theory is the only one and continuously 'selling' the idea to others. The Romans had many deities, but most were made redundant...by Man...so that only one was recognised. Now, I wonder where the unemployed ones went?
Part of the reason for the deity belief is that there are vast machineries existing which rely upon this theory being accepted, not that the theory is correct, but that it is accepted, which is different.
'The businesswoman Margaret Heffernan asks how and why individuals and society as a whole choose to turn a blind eye to the uncomfortable truth.' http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y5d57
In her book, 'Willful Blindness', Heffernan argues that the biggest threats and dangers we face are the ones we don’t see – not because they’re secret or invisible, but because we’re willfully blind. She examines the phenomenon and traces its imprint in our private and working lives, and within governments and organizations, and asks: What makes us prefer ignorance? What are we so afraid of? Why do some people see more than others? And how can we change?'
Blissful ignorance is not an excuse.
Anyway, very well written piece - got me side-tracked there for a minute - thanks for sharing :-)
Thanks for submitting to
The Surreal Circus.
I contend that Darwinists need more blind faith than theists do. I'm not big on blind faith. (I've been an Eagles fan for decades, blindly faithful to "they'll win the Super Bowl this year" for too long. lol)
If you're interested in thinking out another possibility on how Man conceived of God, from a guy who also believed in cavemen - try the first 17ish pages of C.S. Lewis's The Problem with Pain. Trust that this isn't me trying to evangelize you. If I were going that way, I'd recommend something out of the Bible. lol Just an idea that Man didn't conceive of God, but concluded God was for other reasons.
Incidentally. If the rest of the ape and monkey family were to be graded on their intelligence, which species would be at the top and which at the bottom?
When Darwin moved away from his own branch of science into related fields he occasionally made wrong judgements, possibly based on insufficient knowledge and understanding. There was an example on the television the other day but sadly I've forgotten the details. It's to do with age, you know.
One thing, we do not have to share the beliefs of others, even though it feels comforting. If someone says there is a man on the moon, we question it. Why? If someone says the Earth is flat, we question it. Why? If someone says it's OK to beat a woman, we question it. Why? If someone says you'll be boiled in oil until you admit to believing in the Catholic church, you question it. Why?
Being thoughtful, generous, concerned and caring about others are human qualities. They were simple tactics which ensured our survival as humans. However, certain people got hooked on the power and influence which leadership attracts. David Kertzer has written about it, with the use of genuine documents of the time. http://www.davidkertzer.com/
For some interesting views about how and why some of us believe in certain things, watch all the parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw
Peace.
Now I believe in said GOD (not God nor gods) because I have had personal experience, mostly subjective but with some objectivity even ... I also believe that we make our own realities, and in conjunction with others, our shared social reality, as we think so it is, with a bit of the "other" thrown in, that being what we believe is is what we think it is ... which came first, the chicken or the egg, the thought or the thought of ???
IMnsHO
One longer one, Jerry: 'we make our own realities'. Guess what the third truth is? What does that phrase mean to you? It's not a trick.
Knowing you're right all the time is not a way of learning to come out of the metaphorical cave. What a few men believed some 1400 years ago and which a certain 'leader' decided to select from old documents, which were themselves a bit of 'history' and a man-made attempt at an answer to those 'big questions, like "who's running all this?", what they believed does not have to be fixed in concrete; we are allowed to update the previous beliefs, in fact science, curiosity, development, evolution, progress require it.
Oh, yes, the first truth is the one I believe in. The second truth is the one you believe in, and the third truth is the real one which no one will get. Take all myths, legends, stories for what they are, just those.
Peace.
Yes, we can all 'create our own realities' as you suggest, but there are some things about which we can agree. If I see a teapot in front of me and you see a teapot in front of you and we are in the same place, then we agree we see a teapot. If, however, someone says they believe there is a man in the moon, we have no proof of that other than what we observe, until someone comes along with a telescope and we can see much clearer that the image we see is not, in fact, a man, but an illusion. People always tried to believe the evidence of their own eyes, without checking closer, humans are always trying to make sense of their surroundings, even thinking they 'own' what they see, not just existing and surviving in them. We are curious creatures, exploring, finding out what we can do with things, making tools, building shelters. We have evolved and progressed a lot since the few events portrayed in the bible were described; not including the rewritten myths and legends of Genesis.
I am fascinated about the chicken and egg question you insert into your answer. I have a question more relevant to the subject. Which came first, Man or god? How did we know there was a god? The answer cannot include phrases like 'Well, I just know,' or 'It's written in the bible,' or 'A Man told me.' No clues this time.