Atheists Deserve Better than the ‘Good without God’ Campaign
A few people here are trying to claim an equivalence between theism and atheism – that they’re both just a faith. That’s probably true at a day-to-day operating level, but atheism does have one unique claim: evidence.
The way I see it, atheism isn’t necessarily the claim that there is no god. Atheism CAN be the claim that there is no evidence for a god, that no religion has any greater claim to truth than any other religion and that religion itself is unnecessary. Some might want to label that position “agnosticism”, but I think it’s a much stronger claim than just “I don’t know”.
Reasoned atheism does have a stronger basis than faith alone. Atheists don’t have to sign up to a position on evolution, how the universe began etc. To an atheist, that’s external to the question of the existence of god. The atheist is able to change his beliefs on those questions when new evidence becomes available. Right now evolution looks like a good bet – but exactly HOW evolution occurs (or how it got started) can be left unanswered (for now).
All people have irrational beliefs – little bugbears that they hang on to, rather than examining them, because they’re convenient or comfortable. For atheists, that’s just a quirk, a mistake, something they can and should try to work on (learning about cognitive biases can help). For religion, it’s not optional – it’s essential to the development of faith. You HAVE to take a leap without evidence.
I actually find religion interesting. I don’t know much about islam yet, but I read and listen to a fair bit about judaism and christianity and I find them both fascinating and philosophically impressive. I think (actually, I know) that religion gets way too much blame for causing violence, and I find most critiques of religion pretty childish (I think dawkins overshoots badly, but I understand where he’s coming from). On the other hand, I think it’s ridiculous to claim that there’s no morality without religion – that’s just bogus, and easy to debunk.
I most definitely don’t have it in for religion. I think can do without it, but I don’t think we ever will. Am I an atheist? Dunno. I’m still deciding. I think that makes me an agnostic.
