Criticism of atheism

Illustration depicting atheism as the descent from Christianity. "The Descent of the Modernists", by E. J. Pace, published in Seven Questions in Dispute, by William Jennings Bryan, 1924.

Criticism of atheism is made chiefly by theistic sources, though some forms of atheism also receive criticism from nontheistic sources. There are several specific kinds of arguments which are commonly used against atheism, including assessments of its validity, the consequences of not believing, and the actions of those who are atheists.

Arguments for the existence of God

The most direct arguments against atheism are those in favor of the existence of a higher power, identified as God or gods. To the extent that these arguments are accepted, they are arguments against atheism. Theistic writers contend that the question of the existence of God (or gods) cannot be conclusively settled by philosophical or scientific arguments, and that atheists who limit their assertions to such arguments are ignoring the entirety of human experience.

Further information: [[:Arguments for the existence of God]]

Atheism as a rejection of theism

Some do not criticize the idea of atheism per se, but are critical that some atheists may have arrived at their position in response to a particular presentation of theism. Such individuals may have been presented with a poorly-constructed theistic model or had bad experiences with a religious institution. Atheism of this premise can be seen as a negative reaction to a human institution built around a particular experience of theism which may or may not be valid.

Agnostic philosophers like Anthony Kenny criticise Atheism on the grounds that it claims too high a level of certainty, and suggest that agnosticism is the appropriate response.

Effects of atheism on the individual

File:Blaise Pascal.jpeg

Blaise Pascal first explained his wager in Pensées (1669): "Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is."

Author Alister McGrath has criticized atheism, citing studies he interprets as suggesting religion and belief in God are correlated with improved individual health, happiness and life expectancy. However, health and life expectancy and other factors of wealth are generally higher in countries with many atheists than in more religious countries.

Philosopher Blaise Pascal claimed that without God, people would only be able to create obstacles and overcome them in an attempt to escape boredom. These token victories would ultimately become meaningless, since people would eventually die, and this was good enough reason not to become an atheist. A number of religions also suggest that atheism has highly negative effects on the individuals after death: a point taken up by Pascal in Pascal's Wager (see picture and caption).

Atheism and morality

Some critics of atheism say the lack of belief in a deity who administers justice may lead to poor morals or ethics. For example, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly announced that "the big powers' atheism is the root cause of man's problems today". Many world religions teach that morality is derived from or expressed by the dictates or commandments of a particular deity, and that acknowledgment of God or the gods is a major factor in motivating people towards moral behavior. Consequently, atheists have frequently been accused of holding no rational basis for acting morally. For example, for many years in the United States, atheists were not allowed to testify in court because it was believed that an atheist would have no reason to tell the truth.

Atheists almost uniformly reject this view and many have argued that no religious basis is necessary for one to live an ethical life. They assert that atheists are as or more motivated towards moral behavior as anyone, citing a range of non-theistic sources of moral behavior, including: their upbringing; natural empathy, compassion and a human concern for others; respect for order, society, and law; and a desire for a good reputation and self-esteem. According to this view, truly ethical behavior would come from altruistic motivation, not from fear of punishment or hope of reward after death. In addition, while atheism does not entail any particular moral philosophy, many atheists are drawn towards views like secular humanism, empiricism, objectivism, or utilitarianism, which provide a moral framework that is not founded on faith in deities.

Many among theists and atheists do not believe that theism, or lack of it, has any pronounced effect on whether a person behaves morally or not. For instance, the Dalai Lama has said that compassion and affection are human values independent of religion: We need these human values. I call these secular ethics, secular beliefs. There’s no relationship with any particular religion. Even without religion, even as nonbelievers, we have the capacity to promote these things. Others state that religion may heighten a person's moral sense without denying that atheists can have a reasonable ethic. Roy Hattersley, though himself an atheist, concedes that religious believers, such as those in the Salvation Army and the Little Sisters of the Poor, possess "moral imperatives" that may make them "morally superior to atheists" like himself.

The notion that atheists are able to live ethical lives may be supported by the traditional Christian concept of natural law. The Catholic Church teaches that human reason inclines people to seek the good and avoid sin, and that people would therefore still be prone to moral behavior even without knowledge of a revealed divine law. This natural law would provide the foundation on which humans can build moral rules to guide its choices and regulate society. Other Christian groups adopt similar reasoning.

Atheism as faith

The claim that atheism requires faith or unproven assumptions is a common argument leveled against atheists of all stripes. In this form of argument, critics of atheism typically employ the term "faith" in the sense often employed by atheists themselves, meaning a "blind" or unwarranted belief. Faith, often taken to mean, "religious faith", does not inherently involve religion; i.e having faith in the colour of the sky, or the word of a weather-reporter is not religious.

At times, this argument consists of laying the burden of proof on atheism, or in the case of agnostics and weak atheists, laying it on both strong atheism and theism. However, laying the burden of proof on atheism may be difficult because it is impossible to prove a negative. While it might be theoretically possible to one day find reasonably persuasive evidence of the existence of a deity, it is impossible to find evidence of any thing's nonexistence. As such, arguments for strong atheism consist primarily of arguments against theism, which is in keeping with claims that atheism in general is only the lack of a belief rather than a belief itself. Some strong atheists argue that, since they see the burden of proof as being upon theism, they are under no obligation to offer arguments that seek to actively disprove theism. Instead, strong atheism is a default position, like disbelief in Santa Claus, that they feel ought to be held unless and until that burden of proof is shouldered. However, weak atheists and agnostics feel that neither theism nor strong atheism are a proper default position to be taken and hence labelling both theism's and strong atheism's calls for proof to be argumentum ad ignoratiam.

One atheistic response is to emphasize that (weak) atheism is a rejection or lack of belief, not a belief in itself. This argument is often summarized by reference to Don Hirschberg's famous saying, "calling atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."

Another atheistic response to this argument is to state that the word "faith" in this context, as asserted with respect to theist "belief" verses atheist "belief," means something very different in the two contexts. Faith can mean 'complete confidence in a person or plan, etc.' Faith can also mean 'Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence'. When a theist speaks of his faith, it is argued, he refers to the latter definitions. When he wishes to assert that "atheists have faith, too", the only definition that fits is the first, but his argument implies the latter definitions, nonetheless (see equivocation).

Some people have, in response to this argument, drawn the analogy of Russell's teapot.

Atheists and religious groups

Atheists are sometimes criticized for a perceived unnecessarily harsh, or even prejudicial, way some of them deal with people holding theistic world views. When discussing atheism and morality in at infidels.org, the atheist Mark I. Vuletic questions why many theists still see atheists as stereotypically "morally corrupt". He argues that part of the problem lies in the demonization of disbelief by religious groups, but he also mentions another issue that would sustain the stereotype in the minds of many:

Atheism has a comparatively small public voice, but it is a voice that many believers hear. However, when they listen to this voice, they often hear little more than slurs and insults. When interacting with atheists, believers are frequently met with the same arrogance and condescension, the same hatred and vitriol, the same bigotry and prejudice, as atheists so often receive from believers. In short, believers tend to encounter in atheists exactly what they have been taught to expect.

A somewhat similar view is given by Jeff Nall, also an atheist. In an article in the magazine The Humanist, he criticizes the prevalence of what he calls antagonistic atheism in secular/humanist movements in the USA.

He writes:

...too many atheists see the freethought and Humanist movement as a revolution, an opportunity to wage war on religion. As a result, an epidemic of antipathy has battered an otherwise inspiring veneer. Many outsiders—both nonbelievers and believers—who might otherwise find a naturalistic, secular perspective or philosophy of life worth exploring, see the fanciful crusade of many atheists to "save" humanity from the "scourge" of religion in the same light they view religious fanatics who zealously seek converts.

In the article, Jeff Nall cites and criticizes some atheists advocating the use of ridicule toward religion and other extreme tactics as a way to advance the cause. He argues that, instead of proclaiming war against religion, atheists in the USA would benefit much more by working together with those in religion who are also committed to reason and science to counter the political power of the Christian right. Ridiculing the beliefs of others, he writes, is not only strategically unpalatable, but is also seen by many, including within the Humanist movement, as a form of prejudice.

Nall gives examples of initiatives based on cooperation that he thinks should be used instead of the antagonistic ones. Maybe the best example is the work of the atheist biology professor Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. In response to the Creation-evolution controversy in public education, he organized the Evolution Sunday, a US national holiday to be celebrated in churches. More than four hundred congregations celebrated the holiday on February 12, 2006, commemorating the birthday of Charles Darwin and giving support for the teaching of evolution. The event succeeded in making headlines across the country.

Jeff Nall contrasts Zimmerman's work with the approach on the same issue by the famous atheist intellectual Richard Dawkins, who is, according to Zimmerman, quoted in the article, doing more harm than good with his confrontational style.

Dawkins, however, like many other modern atheists such as Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, believes the days of deferring to religious claims are over. Dawkins believes that the truth is more important than gaining "converts" to atheism. Also Dawkins and Harris argue that religious beliefs are not worthy of respect solely because they are held sacred by some people, that the breaking of taboos will inherently be tumultuous and painful for some, and that it is necessary that the unique conversational privilege enjoyed by religious belief in contrast to other beliefs be eliminated. In spite of that, Dawkins has written texts with scientist/theologians like Ian Barbour and Langdon Gilkey, indicating his willingness to enter into dialogue with theism.

See also

• Deism
• Atheistic Deism
• Theism
• Existence of God
• Atheists in foxholes
• Scientism
• Conflict thesis
• Natural philosophy
• Morality

Criticisms of other beliefs

• Criticism of religion
• Criticism of Islam
• Criticism of Christianity
• Criticism of Judaism
• Criticism of Mormonism
• Criticism of Hinduism