A friend of mine posted the following article, titled "If I Were an Atheist" to her Facebook wall. She says the original can be found at http://www.revelife.com/733247722/if-i-w
"As it is now, I have no particular stake in something called 'theism.' I never found 'theism' compelling in itself, and it really is true for me that Christ and his cross stand at the center of my belief in God. For God is not an idea I reasoned out, though I can understand how some make that jump. Rather, I discovered (to my great joy) that there was a God not because there had to be one (for whatever reason), but because the Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
"But if I were an atheist, and Jesus meant nothing to me, I would be a nihilist. I can't imagine embracing any other sort of atheistic perspective. They all have to break down into nihilism if they're to be honest. Some sort of optimistic humanism just wouldn't do for me. Furthermore, I would reject all notions of morality. I realize that not all atheists make this move, but if I were an atheist, I would mock those who did not. I would follow Bertrand Russell in saying,
"'If, when a man writes a poem or commits a murder, the bodily movements involved in his act result solely from physical causes, it would seem absurd to put up a statue to him in the one case and to hang him in the other... [for his] behavior is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of the imagination. (src)'
"Now Russell also states that he expects that, in time, physicists will overturn the particular metaphysics that lead to such moral conclusions, and quantum physics is tending in that direction. Nevertheless, I would find very little value in saying that morality matters except as an evolutionary development that more or less keeps the species cooperating.
"Which is to say that I would not be a good person if I were an atheist. Morality is a system that helps us all out immensely, because it frees us from the fear of being raped or mugged or swindled long enough that we can work together on something like a family or a construction project. And it would be a perfect world if everyone acted morally. But as long as the majority acts moral enough to keep society together, it is to the advantage of the bold to get away with whatever they can get away with, and morality be damned. Shrewdness, not goodness, is the order of the day.
"So if I were an atheist I would get away with what I could, and try to live a life of relative pleasure, although ultimately even that would be pointless, as once memory is obliterated (as in death) pleasure and pain lose all meaning, which in turns means that in expectation of such an end, pleasure loses what pleasure it has.
"As it is, I have sold myself in service to Jesus of Nazareth, who alone (I believe) gives meaning and pleasure to life. If we are to be found alive, we will be found alive in him. But that's another post altogether.
This is what I wrote as a response:Well however much believing in god because he believes Jesus is the son of god may work in his own heart, it doesn't seem to work at all as a reason or cause for belief. That's like saying he believes in Bigfoot because Bigfoot has shaggy brown hair. Accepting the attribute as the reason for the entity doesn't seem possible unless one first accepts the entity is there to have the attribute. I don't see that it's possible to believe that Jesus is the son of god without first accepting that there is a god of whom Jesus can be a son--one can't, I don't think, believe Jesus to be the son of someone whom one does not think exists. My friend said she doesn't concur particularly with his reasons for his belief, but to me it bears mentioning that his reason doesn't seem to be a reason at all. It may work for him on an emotional level, but on a rational one it makes no sense--and he did, after all, set it up as a CAUSE (which I interpret, rightly or wrongly, as equivalent to a reason) for his belief.
I would beg to differ that we (atheists) must "all break down into nihilism if . . . [we're] to be honest." He states that as a necessary conclusion, and I really don't think it is. I am an atheist, I am not a nihilist, and I don't consider myself intellectually, emotionally, or ethically dishonest. If I am deluding myself in my lack of nihilism, I am open to having that pointed out to me. I simply don't think it's there. If the writer would reject morality that would be his choice. I do not, and I dare say many atheists don't. I don't think it makes me dishonest to fail to reject morality. If the writer were to mock me for that, that would also be his choice. His mocking would not, in itself, invalidate my choice to continue to behave according to a moral code. If his belief is the only thing standing between him and his behaving like a mocking jerk, that's also his prerogative. :-)
If Bertrand Russell were indeed saying that there is no real difference between writing a poem and committing a murder (and that's not quite how I read this quote), then why was Russell not himself a murderer? He wrote a poem or two, but they weren't his specialty. But then, neither was murder. If his quote is to be taken on the level the author appears to take it, then what stayed Russell's murderous hand the first time someone annoyed him?
The writer complains that for atheists, morality becomes nothing but a thing that keeps our species cooperating. What more does one ask of morality, exactly, than to be the thing that keeps our species cooperating?
Boy, does this one get dragged out a lot: there can be no morality without god. For me, that is just patently absurd. Of course there can. There is. I consider myself a walking example. I follow a code of morality (which may differ from that of the average, say, religious fundamentalist of any faith, but that does not mean that I don't have one) because I choose to do so.
Humans are social mammals. Look around at the societies of any social mammals, and you will find that within those societies there are things one does, there are things one does not do, and there are consequences when one does the things one is not to do. What is morality but that? What more would it need to be?
I must say that every time I hear this argument, it frightens me. What I hear when I encounter that argument is: "If I didn't think Daddy were watching, I would crack you on the head right now and take all your stuff." I hear that the ONLY thing preventing the person making that argument from cracking me on the head and taking my stuff is that s/he fears divine punishment if s/he does so. Frankly, it terrifies me that the person's hold against savagery is so tenuous, so dependent on the single thread of fear of punishment.
Toddlers behave, when they do behave, because they fear punishment. It's the most they're capable of. The hope is that as children get older and develop a capacity for empathy, they come to a place from which they behave not because they fear punishment but because it's simply the right thing to do, and they do not wish to hurt the feelings of others--because they have empathy and know that they don't like their own feelings hurt.
I also further think that moral acts undertaken solely because one fears punishment are not actually moral. This is a point on which the Dalai Lama and I agree: "moral" actions undertaken for purely selfish motives (such as the fear of punishment for not doing them) are not actually moral actions. "Moral" actions undertaken because they are the right thing to do, and because they provide benefit to others (as well as to oneself) are moral.
The fact is that we humans, being social mammals, need each other. If we all went around cracking each other on the head and taking each other's stuff, it might work out well for a few of us for a short time, but it's simply untenable in the long run. The species could not continue. Human societies throughout history have figured that out and have worked out systems for not cracking each other on the head and taking each other's stuff. Some systems have differed, some have worked better than others, but all human societies from our earliest arrival have had a system to ensure minimal-head-cracking (at least of other members of "Us"--we humans are notoriously okay with cracking the heads of members of "Them"). That system is a code of morality.
Take the Ancient Egyptians, for example. They had a long-standing, complex society that was for a good while hugely successful in many ways. Now, they had a whole pantheon of gods, but none of those gods was the God to whom this writer refers. This writer is, one may say, an atheist with regard to Ra and Osiris and the lot, in that he likely believes that those gods never existed. So he would likely say (and I would agree) that they in fact had no god at all that was in any way real. Yet Egypt could not have been such a successful society (by many though not all measures) without a system of laws and a system of morality--things one does, things one does not do, and consequences. They had, in effect, no god--though they believed they had many--and yet they had morality. Maybe not OUR morality, but they did have one.
Or is the mere belief in any god, even one (or more) that doesn't actually exist, enough to coerce morality, toddler-style? If that's the case, that would seem to raise a question or two for followers of modern religions.
The writer seems to assert that to choose morality without the coercion of punishment from god is a sign of weakness. I disagree. It seems to me a far more courageous act to choose morality without the carrot of eternal reward or the stick of eternal punishment. I look at it this way: this life is all I have, and all of my fellow humans are in the same boat. Life is difficult enough without the constant threat of having someone crack me on the head and take my stuff. Why not, then, live my life in such a way as to provide the maximum benefit to me, to my fellow humans, and to future generations? The head-cracking system doesn't do that. Only the cooperating, getting along, helping and caring for--even loving--each other system does that over the long term.
It also seems to bear noting that belief in any god is clearly not a perfect buttress against head-cracking and stuff-taking. Prisons are full of believers who've cracked many a head and taken much stuff--and not all of those are prison conversions. They may or may not have been practicing believers, but odds are very good that many of them, if asked before they committed their crimes, would have said that they believe in one (or more) god or another. Practicing belief is likely a far better buttress, I admit. But my point here is that belief in itself does not seem sufficient.
So if I read the writer correctly, he is asserting that if life is finite, pleasure ceases to be pleasure because it has no point because it does not endure beyond one's own death. Well, if I understand him correctly that would indeed qualify him as a nihilist, that's for sure. But wow, what a horribly limited and limiting view!
The realization that I will die one day does not in any way, for me, detract from the pleasure of my experiences nor enhance their pain. My pleasure and my pain are real, they are here, they are now, and I relish in them both. If anything, in fact, I consider myself more richly engaged in my pleasurable and my painful experiences because I'm not looking away from them toward some imagined post-death future. This is it, and I plan to experience the ride as fully as I can along the way. If my eyes were constantly on what I believed came next, the degree to which I were focused on that next phase would be the degree to which I am NOT experiencing my current pleasure or pain.
I would also argue that my pleasure and my pain DO endure beyond my death, if not for me and if not directly. The state of my pleasure and my pain and the way I respond to them in the course of my life directly affect how I show up in the world. How I show up in the world impacts how others--my friends, my family, my daughter, complete strangers in chance encounters in, say, the bank line--experience me. How they experience me influences their pleasure and pain, which influences how they show up, which influences how others experience them, and so on and so on.
How many lives do we each touch--directly or indirectly--in the course of our lives in this populous world? For how many future generations will our impact be felt? My daughter never met my dad--he died before she was born. But she carries parts of him, both genetically and environmentally, in her. How he reared me influences how I rear her. She always will have him with her, and neither he nor she will ever know the full extent to which, or why, he lives on in her since they never met. Her children, should she have them, and their children, and so on, will carry him, and me, and her in them too. I carry my father's father and my mother's mother, though I never met them either.
For me this ties back to the desire to make the world better for myself, for my fellow humans, and for future generations. The way I live my life now can either improve or hurt the world for generations to come. I'd say my pleasure and my pain certainly endure--it's just that I will not be aware of this. And that's okay; I don't feel a need to be aware of it in order for it to be important to me.
As for meaning, well...my life has whatever meaning *I* choose to give it. That may seem, at first, scary. Even daunting. Ultimately, though, I see it as enormously empowering and freeing. When you first learned to drive, it was terrifying to consider the power you had in your hands--the power to travel, yes, but also the power to hurt and kill yourself and others, and to destroy property. Now that you're accustomed to it, what probably crosses your mind more is the freedom and empowerment that comes from driving. Yes, it's a big responsibility. It's also a tremendous privilege.
Because of my own ideas about the experience people call "the voice of God," I think that even those who believe a god is handing their purpose down to them are also creating their own purposes for their lives; they just aren't doing so consciously, and are using the intermediary of the construct within their own psyches that they call god to "give" them that purpose. For me, the only difference is that I am willing to be aware that my purpose is coming from within myself.
My purpose, by the way, is to create a loving world by living, teaching, and welcoming love. For me, that is no mere dodge from supposedly inevitable nihilism. For me, that is authentic and true. That's how I make the world better for myself, for my fellow humans, and for future generations.
It seems to me that one could argue that I, the atheist, am less a nihilist than is the writer, the believer.
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