Op Ed: Atheism itself isn't a movement

[Synnical]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/04/atheism-religion-philosophy

There might be currents within atheism, and atheists can argue, but schism isn't the right word

*
Comments (179)


The question: Is there an atheist schism?

Atheism itself, atheism as such, isn't and can't be a movement, because atheism is, at a minimum, simply non-theism: non-belief in any god. Mere non-belief in any X can't by itself constitute a movement, because it's merely an absence (or at most a refusal) of belief. If every absence of belief in amounted to a movement, the traffic jam would be a nightmare. A belief about the world shouldn't necessarily commit us to political action – we have to be able to say "No" to affirmative beliefs about the world without thereby signing up to a campaign. We need to be able to make such choices more freely than such a requirement would allow.

Atheism can however include something like a movement, of course, as can other beliefs and non-beliefs. Some of the disagreement among atheists is around this issue. Many atheists want to be able to be atheists without being dragooned into some boring noisy unsubtle bad-tempered "movement". Many other atheists want to be able to be overt explicit unbashful atheists without constantly being told to be more euphemistic or evasive or respectful or just plain silent by other atheists, who surely ought to know better.

This "who surely ought to know better" is one place where the disagreement really grips. To the first group – let's call them plain atheists – this idea looks like typical political hegemonising, like ideological policing, like the demand for uniformity and agreement and loyalty that always goes with a "movement". It looks like groupthink. To the second group – call them movement atheists – that's not it, it's just that other atheists should understand that euphemism and respect have been the norm for a long time and we really ought to be allowed to talk freely.

I'm in the second group, but when I try hard enough, I can see why people in the first group want to be able to be atheists without taking on a whole lot of extra baggage.

The problem, of course, is that what each group wants is incompatible with what the other group wants. In a perfect world, plain atheists could just ignore movement atheists, and movement atheists could mutter away without disturbing their quieter friends. But in the real world, many plain atheists feel that movement atheists bring the whole notion of atheism into disrepute. We make it more difficult for plain atheists to be just that, because the world at large now thinks of atheists in general as movement atheists.

I see the difficulty, and like the walrus, I deeply sympathise, but I also think that plain atheists should to some extent put up with it. We don't actually want to dragoon them into "the movement" but we would like to be able to talk freely without even other atheists telling us to pipe down.

To put it another way, we're not telling them to be noisier, but we don't much like it when they tell us to be quieter. That seems reasonably fair, I think. Yes, granted, we've made it somewhat harder to be a plain atheist (though they could always just closet themselves completely, by pretending to be theists) – we seem to be jumping up and down on the parapet yelling "over here, we're over here!" while everyone else is trying to avoid enemy fire. But that's life. The pope is always making life difficult for liberal Catholics, too; so it goes.

Where one locates oneself on this map depends partly on whether one thinks religion is mostly benign, or mostly harmful, or a difficult-to-unravel mix of the two. It's not a neat mapping though – I'm a committed "movement" atheist in the sense that I really do think taboos on open discussion of religion should go away, but I also think religion is a difficult-to-unravel mix of the benign and the harmful. But then I wouldn't be surprised to learn that all "new" or movement atheists match that description too.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[MrModerate]

1. I am equally content to not believe in god(s) and not believe in atheists . . .

For me, the supernatural is purely fiction: not a void, but a nullity. I don't need to invest an erg of energy maintaining or defending that view, because -- for me -- it just is. I may invest an erg or two shaking my head when a believer in the supernatural (or a culture that believes) does something ridiculous or horrible because of that belief, but outside of that, it ain't my job, buddy.

Similarly, I don't especially care about activist atheism because -- except where it impinges on a denial of human rights because one happens not to believe in god(s) -- it, too is irrelevant. The notion of bringing atheism into disrepute through activism is a philosophical Oakland: there's no there there.

I'm all for Dawkins telling people not to sully science with superstition and I'm all for Hitchens reminding us of the godawful things religionists do, but I've got much better things to fill my day than starting a movement of like-minded individuals aimed at bringing enlightenment to the fettered masses . . .

If that's your thing, knock yourself out. I won't get in your way.

[realisticphish]

2. I'm getting tired of the "schism" and "new atheist" stuff

It's all nonsense. You can't have a schism in a large, decentralized group which by definition has no dogma!

This is the same bullshit you hear creationists spouting. "Biologist A disagrees with Biologist B over the process of mutation in DNA strands. EVOLUTION IS CONTROVERSIAL, SEE? BIOLOGISTS ARE FIGHITNG OVER IT"

The only disagreement within the "atheist movement," if you can call it that, is method of dealing with believers. Whoop de doo.

[skepticscott]

3. Unfortunately, and as usual

what confuses this discussion is the failure of those writing or speaking about it to make make the distinction between atheism (the lack of belief in gods) and anti-theism (the conviction that organized religion, or at least some flavors of it, is and has been a detrimental influence on society). What is often (and erroneously) criticized as "fundamentalist atheism" is, in fact, harsh and unapologetic anti-theism. While many people who are atheists are also anti-theists, the two are most definitely not the same, and it's quite possible to be one, but not the other.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Good point

As for me, I'm both.