What’s more, millions of children behave better because they believe in Santa. The desire for great presents, the fear of getting coal in their stockings instead of presents… this has probably resulted in thousands of cleaned rooms, thousands of finished homework assignments, thousands of un-punched siblings. At least during the month of December.
And millions of children get upset when they discover that Santa isn’t real. Letting go of Santa can be a distressing experience, one that people remember into adulthood. (This isn’t universally true — I was excited to discover that Santa wasn’t real, since I figured it out on my own and it made me feel clever and grown-up to have outwitted the adults — but it’s not uncommon.)
Would you therefore argue that we ought to believe in Santa?
Would you argue that, because belief in Santa makes children happy and better-behaved, we therefore ought to perpetuate it? Would you argue that, because relinquishing that belief can be upsetting, we ought to go to great lengths to protect children from discovering that Santa isn’t real… not only during their childhood, but throughout their adult lives? Would you attend churches and temples of Santa, and leave cookies and cocoa on their red-and-white-plush altars? Would you pity people who don’t believe in Santa as joyless and imprisoned in rationality… and would you chastise these a-Santa-ists as intolerant, bigoted proselytizers when they tried to persuade others that Santa wasn’t real?
Or would you, instead, think that people ought to grow up? Would you think that, for people who grew up believing in Santa, letting go of that belief is an essential part of becoming an adult? Would you think that we need to understand reality, so we know how to behave in it? Would you think that, in order to make good decisions and function effectively in the world, we need to have the most accurate understanding of it that we can muster… and that if the best evidence suggests that Santa isn’t real, we ought to accept that conclusion? Would you look at this idea that we should decide what’s true based on what we want to be true, and call it laughable, appalling, absurd on the face of it?
And if you wouldn’t argue that belief in Santa is valid simply because it’s useful… why would you argue it about God?
Now. You might say that belief in God makes more sense than belief in Santa. You might say that, while we know Santa is a fictional character, the existence of God is, at the very least, an open question… and that therefore, belief in God is more defensible than belief in Santa.
But then you’re back to arguing that God is real. Or at least plausible. You’ve abandoned the argument from utility (which you should, it’s a terrible argument), and you’ve circled back to debating whether God exists, and whether good evidence supports that hypothesis.
And the whole freaking point of the argument from utility is that it abandons the case for God being real. The whole point is that it doesn’t matter whether God is real… as long as belief in God makes people happy. So you don’t get to shore up that argument by saying that God might be real after all. Not unless you’re willing to make a convincing case for God being real.
But if you had a convincing case for God being real… why on Earth would you be arguing that it doesn’t matter whether he’s real, as long as belief in him makes people happy? If you can make a better case for God than you can for Santa… why aren’t you making it? Why are you falling back on this absurd notion that grown-ups should believe whatever makes them feel good, regardless of whether that belief has any connection with reality?
And if you think that educated people can handle the reality of a godless world, but the ordinary masses can’t — then shame on you. That’s not simply untrue. It’s patronizing. It’s classist and insulting. I urge you to spend some time on the excellent Blue Collar Atheist blog by Hank Fox, which will disabuse you of this notion in a hurry. I urge you to read the brilliant piece by Adam Lee on the Daylight Atheism blog about atheist janitors. And in particular, I urge you to read the comments on that piece from atheist janitors themselves, who have plenty of meaning and happiness without religion, who accept and indeed treasure a world with neither Santa nor God — and who resent being treated like the uneducated, unwashed hoi polloi who need to be protected from reality by people who consider themselves their intellectual betters.
The Argument That Eats Itself
Whenever I hear the argument from utility, I consider it a victory for my side. It’s a self-defeating argument, an argument that admits it’s wrong in the very stating of it. When people start defending the utility of their beliefs regardless of whether they’re true, they’ve conceded. They’re essentially saying, “You’re right. The things I believe almost certainly aren’t true. I can’t make a good case for why they’re true. Now will you leave me alone and let me believe them anyway?”
Well, if you want to believe things that you know aren’t true, you’re free to do that. I’m not sure what definition of the word “believe” you’re using there… but sure. If for you, “believing” in God means “telling yourself over and over that God exists, in hopes that you can make yourself really think it”… then knock yourself out.
But if that’s what you think, then why are you bothering to argue with atheists? If you really just believe things because you want them to be true, why do you care what anyone else thinks?
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to assume that you’re debating atheists because you want to test your beliefs against the people who will question them the hardest. I’m going to assume that you do, in fact, care whether the things you believe are true.
And I’m going to show the argument from utility for what it is: a last-ditch effort to hang onto a belief that you know isn’t supportable, but that you’re having a hard time letting go of. I know that religion is hard to let go of: I know that people have emotional attachments, psychological attachments, social attachments, to believing in God, the soul, the supernatural, the afterlife. I’ve been there. I get it.
So I’m going to give you the respect of treating you like an adult. I’m going to give you the respect of assuming that you’re mature enough to face realities that, at first, are hard to face. And I’m going to give you the respect of being straight with you: If you’re making the argument from utility, if you’re arguing in favor of wishful thinking, you’re not living up to your adulthood.
I will tell you that life without religion can be good. Great, even. I’ll tell you that life without religion can be liberating, that it can give you a profound sense of connection with humanity and the Universe. I’ll tell you that atheists have meaning in our lives, and joy, and comfort in the face of hard times, and solace in the face of death, and a passion to do right. I’ll tell you that atheism can be a safe place to land, and that, as the atheist community grows bigger and stronger, it’s becoming a safer place every day. I’ll tell you that most former believers I know are tickled pink to have let go of their beliefs.
I’m sincere about all of that. But it isn’t what’s most important. What’s most important about atheism is that it’s almost certainly true.
And if you’re defending religion because it’s useful, regardless of whether it’s true… then on some level, you know that.
Come on in. The water’s fine.
(Note: The core analogy here about Santa was swiped from “Red Neck, Blue Collar, Atheist” by Hank Fox. I’m an ethical atheist, and I believe in giving credit where credit is due.)
CHAPTER TEN
What Do You Want, Anyway? One Atheist’s Mission Statement
“So what do you want, anyway?”
You get it now. Atheists are angry about religion. We think religion is a mistaken idea, and we think it does significantly more harm than good. So what do we want to do about it? Or rather, since I still don’t presume to speak for all atheists: What do I want to do about it? Why do I blog so much about atheism? Why do I fly around the country speaking about it? Why did I write this book? When it comes to religion and the lack thereof… what ki
nd of world do I want to see?
I think atheists need to think about this. Otherwise, we’re just arguing for the sake of arguing, a mental exercise done at the expense of annoying people. And we have to decide what kind of world we’re trying to create, so we know what to do to create it.
I have a couple of answers. One is my ideal, perfect-world scenario, the Religious World According To Greta. The other is the world that, while not perfect, I’d be pretty happy with. The world where, if it somehow magically came into being, I’d quit writing about atheism almost entirely, and would turn my focus back to sex and politics and fashion and food.
So let’s look at Greta’s Perfect World first. In my perfect world, I would like to see religion disappear from the human mindset.
I think religion is a mistaken idea, and I think it’s an idea that does more harm than good: if for no other reason, because it is a mistaken idea. I think it does harm, not just to atheists, but to believers. And I think it does harm even in the absence of overt religious intolerance. I think it disables reality checks. I think it encourages gullibility, vulnerability to bad ideas and charlatans. I think it discourages critical thinking and the valuing of evidence. I think it encourages people to prioritize wishful thinking over reality. I think the costs far outweigh the benefits, and I think the world would be a better place without it. Not a perfect place — I’m not deluded enough to think that the disappearance of religion would eradicate all social ills — but better.
So yes, I would like to see religion eventually disappear. I would not, however, like to see this disappearance happen in any sort of coerced or enforced way. I would not, for instance, like to see laws passed against religious beliefs or practices. I absolutely don’t want violence done to people because of their religion. I don’t even want social pressure exerted against religion or religious believers, except to the degree that arguments constitute social pressure. I want believers to be free to practice their beliefs however they choose, as long as that practice doesn’t unreasonably impinge on my life or the lives of others.
That should all go without saying. But some people think that if atheists wants religion to end, we must want that end to come at the barrel of a gun. So I’m going to spell it out. I don’t want religion ended by force. I want it ended by — insert barely-suppressed, self-deprecating guffaw here — persuasion.
No, really. I told you this was idealistic. So let’s move on to the more scaled-back, more pragmatic vision. I would be perfectly happy to live in a world where:
Religious believers respected other believers and their right to their beliefs — including atheists and our right to not have any.
Religious believers understood that their beliefs were, in fact, beliefs and not facts, and didn’t try to make laws and public policy based on them.
People, especially kids, understood that there were lots of different options when it came to religion — including the atheism option — and didn’t have one version forced on them by intimidation or terror or the silencing of all other choices.
Religion didn’t get the privileged, free-ride status it enjoys now, but instead was treated as just another hypothesis about the world, one which had to defend itself in the marketplace of ideas like any other.
If all that were true, I still wouldn’t agree with religion. I’d still think it was mistaken. And I’d still probably debate it with people now and then. But I wouldn’t be devoting my writing career to persuading people out of it. There are lots of mistaken ideas in the world. Urban legend debunking sites are full of them. I don’t devote my life’s work to their eventual disappearance.
But you wanna know the weird thing? I think my first vision, my vision of a world without religion, is more plausible than the second. I think a world without religion is a lot more likely than a world where religion is widespread but entirely tolerant and ecumenical.
Because tolerant and ecumenical religion is the exception, not the rule.
Daniel Dennett talks about this in his book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomemon. He argues that the essential baselessness of religion — the fact that it’s unsupported by solid evidence or logic, that it’s a shared opinion rather than a body of knowledge — actually makes people cling to it more tightly, defend it more vehemently, get more upset and angry when it’s questioned. And the baselessness of religion makes people more likely to build elaborate defense mechanisms around it: from the tacit understanding that questioning religion is ill-mannered, to the harsh and even violent codification of religious beliefs into strictly-enforced law.
You don’t need to build an entire cultural suit of armor around an obvious fact. If strange people came over the hill and insisted that the sky was orange, you probably wouldn’t go to war with them about it. But people do go to war when strange people from over the hill insist that God is named Allah instead of Jesus, or vice versa. The idea that the sky is orange is easy to dismiss. You can see that it isn’t. The idea that your whole concept of God might be mistaken… that’s less easy to dismiss. And it’s therefore, psychologically, much more important to defend.
When I look at the history of religion, and at religion in the world today, it becomes clear that the groovy, accepting, “we’re all looking at the same god in our own way” style of progressive ecumenicalism is very much in the minority. Hostility to other beliefs — and super-hostility to no belief at all — is much more common. It’s so common, in fact, that it seems to be one of religion’s defining characteristics.
So yes, on a day-to-day political level, I’m going to fight for religious tolerance. Evangelizing out of the military, creationism out of the public schools, public health policy not being written by fundamentalists, that sort of thing. But I’m also going to keep fighting against religion. I’m going to keep working to keep atheism in the public eye, to make sure that every day, more people know about it and see it as a valid option. I’m going to keep persuading people out of religion, and keep building an atheist community that’s a safe place to land when people leave it… so in a few generations, long after I’m dead, my ideal vision of a world without religion might someday be realized.
Because I think that’s a much more attainable goal.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Is Atheist Activism Valid?
“Okay, sure. I understand why atheists are so angry about religion. But why do you have to try to convince everyone else to be an atheist? Isn’t that what religious evangelists do? If you’re trying to persuade people that atheism is correct, if you’re working to change the world into one without religion — isn’t that trying to create conformity? Why do you hate diversity? Aren’t you trying to create a drab, uniform world, where everyone is just like you?”
It should be obvious that I think the answer is a big, fat “No!” But it’s true that many atheist activists — myself among them — are working to persuade believers out of their beliefs. Not all atheists do this, of course; many have the more modest goals of religious tolerance and separation of church and state, including tolerance of atheists and recognition of us as equal citizens. But a good number of atheists are, in fact, trying to convince religious believers to become atheists. I’m one of them.
And since many believers see this as an intolerant attempt to enforce conformity — particularly believers of the progressive, ecumenical, “all religions perceive God in their own way and we have to respect them all” stripe — I want to take some time to explain it.
The Intolerant Bigotry of the Germ Theory
If there’s a single idea I’d most like to get across to believers, it would not be, “There is no god.” Or even, “There’s probably no god.” I want believers to reach that conclusion on their own. Upon being awestruck by my brilliant arguments, of course… but ultimately on their own, after thinking it through, after looking at the reasons for belief and the reasons for atheism, and finally concluding that atheism makes more sense. I don’t want people to stop believing in God just because
I say so.
If there’s a single idea I’d most like to get across to believers, it would be this:
Religion is a hypothesis.
Religion is a hypothesis about how the world works, and why it is the way it is. Religion is the hypothesis that the world is the way it is, at least in part, because of supernatural beings or forces that act on the natural world.
Religion is many other things, of course. It’s communities, cultural traditions, political ideologies, philosophies. But those things aren’t what make religion unique. What makes religion unique, among all other communities and philosophies and so on, is this hypothesis of a supernatural world acting on the natural one. It’s thousands of different hypotheses, actually, positing thousands of supernatural beings and forces, with thousands of different qualities and temperaments. But all these diverse beliefs have this one hypothesis in common: the hypothesis that there is a supernatural world, and that the natural world is the way it is because of it.
So religion is not a subjective opinion, or an ethical axiom, or a personal perspective. (These things can be connected with religion, of course, but they’re not what make its unique core.) Opinions and axioms and personal perspectives can be debated — but ultimately, they’re up to each person to decide for themselves. Religion is none of these things. Religion is a hypothesis. It says, “Things are the way they are because of the supernatural.” Things are the way they are because God made them that way. Because the Devil is making them that way. Because the World-Soul is evolving that way. Because we have spiritual energy animating our consciousness. Because guardian angels are watching us. Because witches are casting spells. Because we’re the reincarnated souls of dead people. Whatever.
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless Page 11
