Atheist Fundamentalism

Thus far I've learned that I need to be more careful so it doesn't seem like I'm trying to parody myself when I write. So even so far the effort isn't wasted. Let's press on, shall we?

I ran into this article on the BBC website. It's fairly short and I recommend you read it through, but the Cliff's Notes version is that the Archbishop of the Church in Wales released a statement warning of 'atheist fundamentalism' and, of course, expressed concern about its effect on the Christmas holiday. For the life of me I've not been able to come across the full text of his statement, if there is one, so this may simply be a headline-grabbing press statement rather than some sort of proclamation that carries specific religious force.

This is the first I've ever come across the term - and the Right Reverend suggests that it is a "new phenomenon" - but apparently it's popped up here and again in the past couple of years. "Atheist fundamentalism" doesn't seem to really mean anything on the face of it; in fact it seems like an oxymoron. But I think that when you cut right down to it there is, at least, a case to be made for the existence of atheist fundamentalism. After all, you can have fundamentalism if you have a religion - and atheists certainly have that.

That in itself seems weird to say, and in a sense it is - to call something a religion (and indeed a faith) when it is predicated on the vocal rejection of all that seems unfair. But if you ask an atheist what it's all about, and boil it down quite thoroughly, they must invariably admit that atheism is about God. However you define atheism this is a bedrock that will eventually be struck, and to assert that there is no God is not a different statement in quality than to assert any other fact about God, as do the conventionally religious traditions. God is all-loving; God is one; God is many; God is there. God is not there. If you think of religious thought as a tree, with each separate belief setting off onto a separate branch, atheism is one of the very lowest. But it's on the tree.

This isn't quite so cut and dried, of course (if it were I'd have to shut up forever, and how sad that would be - for me). As far as I understand it Buddhism is an 'atheistic' faith; they have no gods, at least not gods like ours, and in any event certainly do not have the idea of God we do. I'm willing to take the obvious cop-out and say that speaking of fundamentalist atheism I mean in the sense of Western atheism; I do not believe the Right Reverend Llandaff was concerned about an epidemic of Buddhist polemics in the article above. Ironically, though, that may be an exception that proves the rule - atheism in the West is not merely a matter of rejection of God anymore, if it ever was. Western atheism is a separate tradition with its forbears and thinkers and dogmas.

It may seem to go without saying that first among these dogmas is a certainty of the lack of a God. But it has to be said precisely because it's so easy to overlook. This excludes atheism from being a mere political position. Agnostics are not atheists, which they would be if atheism was taken to mean simply 'those who do not positively believe in God.' Agnostics are that; but they do not actively assert the absence of a God, as atheists do, and there is an iron bar separation between non-believing and simply abstaining from belief. That separation doesn't exist between non-believing and believing; they are two sides of exactly the same coin. This is especially true since both beliefs operate without factual justification - that is atheists, like believers, take that stance based on faith rather than evidence.

A Western atheist probably won't agree to this (if they would agree to any of it). Oddly enough it is in the nature of all Western religious traditions to be both exclusive and elitist, and atheism is no exception, as the comparison with agnosticism shows. It proves its superiority to other faiths (as they would have it, 'faith' generally) on the following basis: if the primary justification for God is either the well-ordered, mysterious nature of the universe, and science can account (or can plausibly be expected to account at some later date) for these facts without recourse to some 'first cause' or 'primary mover,' then belief in God is neither necessary nor justified. If you're familiar with Carl Sagan's Contact, you'll remember the use of Ockham's Razor to defend atheism - that is, the simplest explanation is generally the right one. Part and parcel of that is that if some element of an explanation is unnecessary, it should be left out. Enter (or exit, more aptly) God.

To take God as a simple metaphysical tool (that is as a device to explain what underlies the observable universe) almost completely misses the point of God, but I admit that there is no other way in which God will speak to an atheist. (Certainly there's not a great deal of revelation at work in someone who rejects the existence of God, if indeed there is revelation in the life of anyone, believer or not.) The problem that atheism still faces is that there has to be some other principle or principles to take the place of God. They may exist, I grant; but science is nowhere near obtaining them. String theory and its related subfields prove that conclusively: the latest developments in physics are not much better-substantiated than the ruminations of the Greeks were. This is not to beat on string theory, far from it; but if science is suddenly so lost even on the number of universes in existence, much less how they come about, whether they persist, how the metauniverse beyond it works or even if any of this is reasonable (and if not why our own universe came about in the first place), it is not terribly convincing to suggest that science will somehow get there given enough time. It may well; but it is not plausible to suggest we're on our way. That being the case God is no more arbitrary (even if it is no less arbitrary) than any other suggestion on offer. God at least has the benefit of surviving the test of time.

This being the case, atheism itself is based at least in part on faith motivated by belief in a dogma, a basic principle about the way the universe is. The fact that that basic principle relates to the divine makes it religious; and all of this makes it possible, at least, that that tradition could lend itself to fundamentalism. When I say this, of course I don't mean that atheists are planning to engage in sectarian violence or anything else; fundamentalists are not necessarily violent. But there is a belief that one has hit upon the absolute truth in fundamentalism, as well as a concurrent intolerance to other points of view; and there are atheists who possess that in spades. I found this article when I attempted to feel out the atheist rebuttal to the charge of fundamentalism; though certainly erudite the author seems to think that his position is some sort of "truth fundamentalism" as opposed to all other fundamentalisms. (Incidentally, the issue which this author is replying to surrounded a conference being put on at Harvard by atheists and agnostics in an attempt to stop the appearance of rising fundamentalism in the atheist community. If you're interested I suggest reading the entire summary there, as the dispute gets a bit technical and the write up is better than any I could offer.)

So atheist fundamentalism is, at least, theoretically possible. But is it actually happening? The targets of the 'atheist fundamentalism' attack appear to be the usual suspects, such as Christopher Hitchens and the ubiquitous Richard Dawkins. If you don't know them, Hitchens is a major public intellectual who is notorious for his book on Mother Theresa which was, shall we say, less than a glowing tribute. Hitchens is out flogging his new book God Is Not Great, whose title at least seems to be an attack on Islam specifically (he, incidentally, is a big believer in Islamofascism). Dawkins carries a bit less political baggage and sits squarely on the left, unlike Hitchens; primarily known for his work in evolutionary biology and genetics (specifically The Selfish Gene), his The God Delusion has been out for some time. Both books have been enormously successful. My interaction with both is limited, as I shy away from polemics and these are certainly that; but it is clear from interviews with both, and indeed from common sense, that this is not simply an attempt to engage in ego masturbation for fellow atheists. This is an attempt to expand the tent; and obviously they and others are of the opinion that it is practically and morally better to be an atheist than a believer. That is, fundamentally, fundamentalism.

So perhaps you can empathize with the Archbishop. I imagine it's easy for him to look at falling church attendance, rates of clerical ordination, and the vastly-changed social mores everywhere in the Western world; and then, when people like Dawkins stick their heads over the parapet, to blast them for their faiths' decline. To be sure, the Archbishop is almost totally off where his specific examples are concerned. The Guardian debunked most of them; the comic nature of the "war on Christmas" in the US, and the cottage industry of literature that inspired, doesn't even bear further examination. By signing on to the overblown tripe about "Winterval" and fake stories about the banning of nativity scenes, he very nearly sinks a real case about an emerging and rather nasty side of atheism. Indeed the write-ups that I've seen elsewhere - apparently I'm behind the curve even four days later - range from the contemptuous to the dismissive. Despite his determination to shoot himself in the foot, though, I think the Right Reverend is onto something.

Whether atheist fundamentalism is justifiable - or even a "bad thing" - is farther than I'm going to go. It's worth saying that though we are used to thinking of fundamentalism as an evil, it may be the sign of a maturing faith tradition, for better or for worse. In the end it is not the doctrines of that particular end of the spectrum that count, but what its adherents do with them; whether they are an excuse to punish non-believers or an inspiration to explain and promote the faith is a choice a person makes, not an ideology. At the very least those susceptible to the charge of fundamentalist atheism have been interacting with the religious rather than ignoring or disdaining them. If this leads people to a more enlightened faith - atheist or not - that may not be a bad thing.