Expert: Jeffrey Eldred - 5/27/2010

Question
What I know of "Atheism" is denial in the existence of God. As a beginner in Philosophy, I get confused in understanding why "Atheist" put considerable time and effort in denying/arguing/debating on something which according to them is not there.

Why Atheist argue on "Nothing"? Why not move one step forward and don't give a "thought" about God?

No offense intended at all..

Answer
Intro:
First off, I do not take any offense to this question. This is a surprisingly common question and you posed it in a very civil manner. The shortest way to explain it is that we would like to live in a world where no on gives a thought about God, but instead we live in a world where most other people are highly concerned about God. Atheists speak out about religion for a variety of reasons and so while any one of those reasons might be sufficient to remove the confusion that you have, the only fair way to give the question justice is to discuss the multitude of interrelated reasons. Also I enjoy giving a thorough response to questions, ironically enough, for reasons that you will not fully understand until you have actually read my response.


The politics of religion:
Here is a rather snarky, but fair youtube video summarizing the idea that this section presents[1], addressing a speaker who was not as civil as you were. The idea is that God may not exist, but religion most certainly does. An atheist who doesn't have anything to say about religion to the press is an atheist that you don't know about, so what is left is that every atheist you know of takes considerable time and energy to oppose religion. These atheists are primarily motivated to oppose what they see as concessions to theocracy, and the undermining of the separation of church and state, the establishment clause of the first amendment, or the freedom of speech. If you still don't feel like you understand what that means in practice, the Secular Coalition of America[2], the Center for Inquiry[3], and the Freedom from Religion Foundation[4] are probably the three best known political organizations of skeptics and together they aim at criticizing theocratic tendencies in government, discrimination against non-believers, 1st amendment violations, and government policies not based in evidence and science. Atheists don't tend to care what other people believe, but they are rather concerned when someone takes a stance that they cannot justify in any way other than claiming that they know the mind of God. Instead we should be able to speak with ethical and political words that we can all say something about because as Sam Harris says “We don't need bad reasons to be good, when good ones are available”.

Naturally, the most vocal critics of religions are those people who feel like religion is a problem that doesn't just harm a free society but fundamentally undermines a free society. Christopher Hitchens[5] and Ayaan Hirsi Ali[6] come to mind, and both have contended that the way to defeat extremist religion is to confront it, the number one source of oppression of human rights (especially women) is extremist religion (especially radical Islam), the elevation of human rights (especially women) is the most effect way to bring about economic liberty and human well-being. Atheists disagree about whether the most effective way to reduce superstition and theocracy is to stand on political grounds (to advocate secularism and for people to minimize the harm of their beliefs) or stand on scientific grounds (arguing religion is untrue), but the motivation for these atheists is not the least bit surprising.


Offense is the Best Defense:
Because of the traditions of proselytization in major religions (Christianity and Islam especially), the atheist is often put in the position where he/she must explain to everyone from close friends to passing strangers why he does not swear loyalty to any God and why the allure of heaven (and fear of hellfire) is not sufficient to make him/her believe ridiculous things. In such situations it is often prudent for an atheist to not only answer questions addressed to him/her on the subject, but to make his/her position very clear. It is worse than a simple difference of opinion, but public opinion of atheism has suffered greatly by being defined by people who are not atheists[7]. The reason for it is understandable – whenever someone asserts that religion makes people happier or more ethical that assertion depends on atheists being the example of misery and crime that comes without religion (whether or not people immediately connect the two ideas). In so far as it is true that the people an atheists knows think that atheism leads to such horrible things, it becomes necessary for an atheist to either live a lie or to actively seek to head off misconceptions before they occur (which not only does oneself a favor but all non-believers having the same problem). I know of more than one incident (just from non-believers I know) where non-believers who are not very vocal about their beliefs have been rejected by someone religious that they were dating when the non-believers was found to be not religious. Sadly in those sorts of cases, it is prudent for the atheist to advertise their atheism so that way when they are discriminated against it the emotional toll on everyone involved will not be as great.

At this point in time a large part of what it means to live as an (open) atheist means to be constantly prepared to discuss the issue. Fortunately most atheists have some degree of expertise in the area because they had already “deconverted” at least one person (namely they had to persuade themselves). In my own case I was originally very distressed about the idea of becoming an atheist and for that reason took great pains to consider carefully every argument about God that I could find. Having done that and having taken still greater pains to verify that atheism wasn't the ugly belief system I had been lead to believe it was, you had better believe that I felt quite silly for all that wasted time. I wished that someone could have just digested all that information I went through a gave me a clear short outline explaining it all or just be there to answer any question I had in a reliable informative way. I can't get my time back, but I am motivated to use that expertise to save someone else some time. I don't go out of my way to push it on people, but it does come up and I try to be informative.

Despite the time spent, atheists can be more comfortable than believers discussing religion because atheists hold nothing sacred. According to some religious people, the very existence of atheism is the ultimate insult to religion, and every statement of that atheist hold to be reasonable is regarded as the most scandalous and controversial of idea. Atheists, in contract, have no God to offend, no blasphemy or hellfire to fear, and no ideas that have to be isolated from scrutiny. Before atheists become atheists, they usually become skeptics. Skepticism (often clarified as “scientific skepticism”) means that every idea one has should be critically examined and we should have good evidence for propositions that we put forth. Put this way, it is clear why atheists welcome intense debate and feel enlightened when they are proven wrong about something. With this idea preceding even their atheism, atheists would sooner convert than to claim that their atheism has to be taken on faith (and that the debate should stop). It should also be clear that the kind of people that become atheists are often the sort of people who naturally find (or have come to find) the art of debate to be educational and enjoyable. (I permit generalizations about atheists when those generalizations can be shown to be accurately explanatory of how people become atheists.)

The emphasis on unfettered dialogue and “the marketplace of ideas” also explains why skeptic and atheist groups are so keen on the freedom of speech. At time the criticism of religion or outright blasphemy are nothing less than a test of that freedom of speech. If one is not permitted to criticize religion, than the act functions as civil disobedience in favor of that highest democratic ideal, the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech holds the special distinction of being the idea that an atheist adopted before atheism, but atheism absolutely depends on the freedom of speech. To an atheist, the contention that open inquiry leads reliably to atheism is taken as a given and is explained by the fact that atheism is true. But again, if atheism cannot ultimately convince people just by using the free exchange of ideas, than they don't want to convince people by any other means.


Atheists are more than Atheists:
While atheism by itself is not a very motivating position, argueing on "nothing" as you say, people who identify as atheists usually subscribe to a number of other worldviews. I already alluded to the fact that skepticism is an idea that generally precedes atheism – it deals not only with being open to ideas and skeptical of religion, but also with being skeptical about other forms of the supernatural such as psychics, ghosts, superstition, and magic (as well as things that might as well be supernatural including aliens, monsters, and conspiracy “theories”). “Scientific naturalism” is the related idea that we should rule out all scientific explanations for the unknown before making supernatural assumptions and that so far, science has been able to account for the known (this is why atheists are always so supportive of science). “Secular Humanism” is the collection of all moral philosophies that do not depend on God, which makes them the only type available to atheists and the only type universal to all religions (it is on the basis of Secular Humanism that atheists like Hitchens and AHA criticize the moral harms that religion causes). So in service to these related ideas that atheism often comes up, and atheism is the only part of these ideas that do not go down easily with the general public. Sam Harris has a talk that I've linked in a lot of my other answers because I really like it, in which he explains this paradox of how we identify as atheists but atheism is a word we shouldn't even need[8].

But I think it is more than that just what atheism does for the world, it is what having the atheism does for one's own mind. When people have a world-view and they like their life than it is only natural to ascribe some of that life-success to that world-view. For example, people who have recovered from alcoholism often ascribe it to the particular recovery program they were attending at the time and recommend it above all other programs[9]. I've seen it happen in religion too many times to be completely willing to claim that atheism is the reason for what I regard as my relative happiness, success, and good ethical sense; but sometimes it can just be hard to account for how great life and share that great feeling with others without trying to use the way we think about life at a fundamental level. I generally is a list of personal psychological benefits that some atheists assert that atheism has to offer:
1) If you know life is limited in duration you will not take your life or someone else's for granted
2) By not having to deal with the cognitive dissonance that religion entails, you feel more congruent will be more comfortable with yourself.
3) It is cruel to make people fear hell or condemn other people or bad reasons (homosexuals, promiscuous women, adherents to rival faiths,...and historically this would have included people of other races, nations, or social classes).
4) By confronting the hard truths that you fear (death, personal imperfections, anxiety about sex, difficult scientific problems, situations in which there is nothing you can), you overcome them.
5) Knowing the truth is never a harm and always provides some advantage.
I generally agree that all the above statements are psychological benefits of atheism, but I have to repeat that I am skeptical of how much affect they have on personality. Psychological development and social integration seem to be more fundamental than cognitive theories about metaphysics, and one way or another, people tend to get along just fine without an overbearing of ideology. But when the subject of religion comes up, I cannot help myself: I must say what I know and I must say what is right.


Links:
[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnbXlkNavwo
[2]http://www.secular.org/node/55
[3]http://www.centerforinquiry.net/opp/opp_work/category/positions
[4]http://ffrf.org/legal/
[5]http://www.slate.com/?id=3944&qp=28709
[6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
[7]http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist8.htm
[8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdNw92rXsUs
[9]http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html