Text 3783, 145 rader
Skriven 2009-03-28 03:07:54 av Ross Sauer (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Atheism
===============
I like how one guy years ago said "Atheism is a religion, like baldness
is having hair."




Is Atheism a Religion?

In any polemical arena, all participants eventually reach a level of
frustration with their opponents' inability to grasp the subtlety and
beauty of the Truth. The only weapon left in the rhetorical arsenal is
ridicule, particularly the kind usually characterized as name-calling.
After repeated failure to convince the other side of the wisdom of your
position, nothing feels quite so right and righteous as a good blast of
irrelevant mud thrown in the face of your dimwitted, though tireless,
enemy. A good polemical brawl always ends in the muck, much to the
delight of onlookers. The fight between theists and atheists, I am here
to report, is no different. Richard Dawkins has called creationists who
reject evolution "stupid," "ignorant," and "insane." A review of Jerry
Coyne's highly praised book on evolution quotes Dawkins as saying:
"Anybody who doesn't believe in evolution is stupid, insane, or hasn't
read Jerry Coyne." It is perfectly good English to say one " believes in
evolution" (meaning one accepts evolution as true),  but in the
polemical arena with a mob of desperate creationists who clutch at any
straw, I'd rather say that I accept evolution as a fact and I accept
natural selection as one of the more powerful explanations of how
evolution occurs. I'd rather not say that I believe in evolution any
more than I would say that I believe in gravity or electricity.

Which brings me to the point of this polemical piece. It has become
accepted belief in some quarters of theism that atheism is a religion.
Careful arguers might refer to atheism as a quasi-religion, just to
protect themselves against the criticism of referring to something as
religion that is clearly not religion. The following is an example of
one of the quasi-attackers of atheism:

"Atheism is not, as many will tell you, the absence of religion. Atheism
is itself a quasi-religion that has a set dogma, a theology and most
important its own demonology. For the Atheist the believer, of any
faith, is like a character from the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. We who
believe are all similar beings that need be controlled and feared by
rational people lest we spread our corruption throughout their pristine
and random creation. The Atheist does not simply disbelieve in some form
of divinity in the world, he or she seeks the total annihilation of
religion and the religious."

The above was written in response to someone who referred to Bobby
Jindal as a "creationist governor." The point of noting Jindal's belief
in creationism was apparently to indicate to the reader than Jindal is a
moron who can't be trusted with any important ideas. After all, if he
rejects evolution and believes in some fairy tale about the creation of
the universe by some invisible guy in the sky with great powers and an
evil sense of humor, then he can't be trusted in any position of
political power. Calling Jindal a creationist is akin to calling him a
fool who may justifiably be dismissed on any subject.

Jindal's defender, on the other hand, picks up the glove that has
slapped Jindal in the face without his even knowing it, and defends not
only the creationist governor but all religious believers against the
evil-breathing dragon called Atheism. Let the games begin! But while the
righteous atheists and creationists mud wrestle for style points in the
public arena, let's look at this claim that atheism is a religion.

The first thing to say about the claim that atheism is a religion is
that it is patently false. But let's not let that fact get in the way of
a good analysis of another pointless idea. Did you know that there are
atheistic religions? Yes, Jainism has no gods and Buddhism has no
personal gods. But neither Jains nor Buddhists align themselves with
atheists. Furthermore, the majority of the world's atheists reject
Jainism and Buddhism along with Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and all
the other religions that have been created by humans over the course of
history.

Does atheism have a dogma? No, but many atheists do accept a lovely
narrative involving some very wild and beautiful notions about a Big
Bang, universe formation, evolution of species, and so on. But our
scientific narrative is not dogma. The story is always "the story so
far." It keeps changing as we discover more about the nature of the
universe we find ourselves in.

I won't belabor the point, but humans love to create and tell stories.
No. We don't just love it, we are compelled to do it. It's what makes us
what we are. Science is one of our stories or collections of stories.
Perhaps, it is our best story. In the debate over what it is that
separates humans from the rest of the animals I vote for this story-
telling drive, this love of narrative that strives to connect disparate
items into some sort of satisfying, coherent whole. In the never-ending
argument over what makes us special, others can have their chimps who
stockpile stones or mice whose brains show when they are thinking about
tapping a lever for food or pleasure, but I go for that ancient human
pastime of sitting around the campfire and telling tales.

A book I recently read makes the argument that religion issues from this
brain-driven need to create stories (The Accidental Mind: How Brain
Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God by David J.
Linden). I have no reason to doubt it. But the kinds of stories
religions tell resemble dreams, fantasies, fables, legends, and fairy
tales. The kinds of stories science creates are unique. They are
fallible, revisable, testable, modifiable, and ultimately falsifiable.
Science changes its stories to fit with our growing knowledge of the
universe. Religion doesn't do that. Creationism, in fact, is dogmatic in
its assertion that some desert nomads got it right a few thousand years
ago and anyone who discovers anything that contradicts what these
ancient savants said is a fool. Rather than modify its beliefs to fit
with our expanding knowledge of the world, creationists reject science a
priori and try to construct a new narrative that fits science with their
biblical beliefs. The only way to do this is to declare that all
scientists and scientific methods are in error. To be blunt: young Earth
creationism is one of the stupidest stories humans have ever told.

For a religionist to compare science to theology is either hypocrisy or
ignorance. To say atheism has a demonology because some atheists
demonize creationists and other buffoons as stupid, insane, or unworthy
of consideration in the marketplace of ideas, may be metaphorical but at
least it is a narrative that makes sense. To say that atheists think
that religious believers "are all similar beings that need [to] be
controlled and feared by rational people lest we spread our corruption
throughout their pristine and random creation" may be true (except for
the bit about being pristine, random, and a creation) but it's
irrelevant to the issue of whether atheism is a religion. Likewise, it
is true that some atheists would like to see the end of all religion,
but this desire is also irrelevant to the issue of atheism as a
religion. If this defender of the faith has shown anything, he has shown
that atheism is an enemy of religion. Though it wasn't his aim, he may
have inadvertently proved that science is a religion in the sense that
it is a competitor with creationism and other stories for those of us
sitting around the human campfire wondering what the hell we're doing
here. Even that wouldn't be true, though. We might say that science was
a religion back in the day when its narrative might have been considered
a competitor of stories like creationism. Creationists who have
abandoned science are no longer allowed to sit at the camp fire. They
have to go to another forest and tell stories to each other. The rest of
us will listen to religious stories, but only those that don't reject
science out of hand. Atheists might not accept the stories of scientists
who believe in gods, but most atheists will not be so arrogant or stupid
as to deny all those who believe and tell religious stories a place
around the fire. If the religious story is consistent with the
narratives of science, no matter how implausible the religious story
might seem, it still has a right to be told, argued about, modified, and
ultimately accepted or rejected as the participants see fit.

http://www.skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia37.html

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