Atheist reading corner: What’s dogmatism got to do with it?

A couple of weeks ago, I was at Borders and had the opportunity to pick up some atheist literature — I thought it was about damn time I read some Dawkins.

But first, I decided to read “Atheism: A Very Short Introduction” by Julian Baggini. It is exactly what it says it is — a very short introduction to atheism. And a very good one — I would recommend it to anybody. I do have quibbles, though.

On the first page, he comes right out with “I had become an atheist, a person who believes there is no God or gods.” I think I’ve said before that I have a problem with statements like this. It makes you sound dogmatic, for one thing (which, ironically, Baggini comes out strongly against later). It’s also not literally true: atheism is a lack of theism. An atheist is someone who has no belief in a God or gods. That’s not the same thing as saying “I believe there is no God.”

But on the other hand, you know what? I do believe there are no gods. It is my belief, based on the combined weight of all of my Earthly experience, that there is no magic man in the sky, the universe was not “created”, and the natural world is the only one there is. Is that so wrong? If it’s okay for theists to say “I think there is a magic man in the sky who made everything in seven days and has a magical place in the clouds to take my soul after I die”, why shouldn’t I say “You know what, I think there isn’t“? I think it may be time for me (and others like me) to stop wringing my hands and own up to what I believe.

As I said before, Baggini comes out against being “dogmatic”, which he defines as “to hold that one’s beliefs are indefeasible when such a refusal to countenance the possibility of being wrong is not justified.” In other words, when faced with evidence contrary to one’s beliefs, digging in one’s heels, holding one’s ears and singing, “LA LA LA, I can’t heeear you!!” rather than re-examining said beliefs. Honestly, I’ve never met a single atheist who would react to actual, tangible evidence of God’s existence like this. There are plenty of theists who react to all manner of things this way*, and their tendency to project all of their negative traits and insecurities onto us makes me believe that this is really more of a PR problem than anything.

*To be fair, there are also plenty of atheists who are dogmatic about non-God-related issues. But I defy you to find me an atheist who could see, say, a BIG FIERY HEAD talking to them from the clouds saying, “I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ LORD, FEAR ME” and just ignore it, or pretend they didn’t see it. Sure, they would want to make damn sure it wasn’t a practical joke, or a hallucination, or some really cool special effects, but if they were convinced that it was real, yes, Virginia, you’d have a newly-minted theist on your hands. They would have no choice. But I haven’t seen any big fiery heads yet, so you’ll have to forgive me for being skeptical. Whether Baggini would classify me as a “militant atheist” is a topic I may have to write about in the future.

But this is by no means all that was discussed in the book. Other highlights include a discussion of morality, refuting the idea that morals can only come from God; and a chapter about atheism and atheists in history, which could possibly be encapsulated (as far as I’m concerned) in the following quote: “Christian critics who also think that the Soviet Union provides some kind of refutation of atheism would, by their own logic, have to accept that atrocities such as the crusades or inquisitions refute Christianity.”

Next up on the reading list (to be read and reviewed at some point in the vague and distant future) are “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” by Christopher Hitchens, which I expect I will have more to say about.

Tags: Atheism