Atheism has always been a controversial matter, with the news constantly revealing the tit-for-tat exchanges between senior bishops and disgruntled freethinkers. Recently, however, the disputation for atheists hasn’t been from the usual threat of believers, but instead from the internal squabbling of its best and brightest.
The dispute revolves around whether atheism should become more like a religion, with its latest upstart Alain de Botton wanting to build temples of atheism, much to the disapproval of the doctrine’s rather grumpy grandfather, Richard Dawkins. De Botton seems to think that atheism should be celebrated with the same awe inspiring architecture that was created by organised religion. He wants his new temples to celebrate human qualities such as art or friendship. Atheism, he thinks, could combine the best aspects from religions, such as the role of communities and spirituality, without all the ‘nasty bits’ of war and intolerance. Dawkins’ reply has been that atheism should be a full on rejection of all things concerning religion. He hasn’t been timid in his opinions either, having once likened religion to smallpox and supposedly having looked at the legal possibility of arresting the Pope.
Both sides have a different way of interpreting what they think is the best way of non-believing. Yet, what these two seem not to realise is that by arguing against one another they are bringing the worst aspects of religion into atheism themselves. Dawkin’s zeal in arguing his case and De Botton’s rather unusual ideas seem to be turning atheism into some odd cult along the same lines as Bieberism, Scientology and Star Trekism.
Atheism, a doctrine that was the intellectual response of philosophers such as David Hume to the radical nature of the church, has begun the slow deliberating process of turning loopy itself. With atheists having to choose either the Dawkinite or de Bottonist camp, atheism has lost the refreshing sensibility that it originally had. In our increasingly secular society, if people begin to accept these new ideas then they will be simply moving from one religion to another. Worst of all, this new religion of Atheism seems to be about enforcing the belief that you shouldn’t believe, a view that seems a little odd and contradictory.
What we should realise is that it isn’t religious doctrines or different beliefs that cause any of these mad ideas. It is people like Dawkins and De Botton who, like a priest using the Bible to back up a previously held view, use a creed they subscribe to and corrupt it to say what they want. They are trying to turn it into some type of movement when all it should really be is the belief that there is no God.
Atheism is a personal view that the existence of God seems implausible, not something to be preached or pushed on people either through buildings or shouting. We should all think ourselves about what we believe and don’t believe and not let an architecture obsessed Swiss or a self-declared Pope Hunter to guide our opinions.
So what is there left to do? Well, you can either wallow in despair at the fact that we will never get it right, or you can do what I’m going to do and accept my new, exciting doctrine of sensiblism: the belief that people should just be sensible and do away with all the dogmatism and crazy ideas of atheism and religion.
Sensiblism is a brilliant idea, if I don’t say so myself. I think it is such a good idea we should all go around promoting it and forcing people to accept it, and we could build a huge cathedral to discuss and think about it in and… oh wait.
Sugarman accuses atheism of becoming too much like religion, but he appears to reinforce this mistake (the existence of which is debatable) by making this situation partisan. De Botton publicly proposed an idea of his own, Dawkins publicly disagreed. That doesn’t divide atheists into denominations between ‘followers’ of the two of them, in a with-us-or-against-us kind of cognitive absolutism. Neither of them have ‘followers’.
Treating atheism in this way is like asking who the ‘man’ is in a relationship between two women – it’s not directly comparable, so don’t try. Atheism is not just another form of religion; you can’t list it next to Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto etc. There’s theism (the belief in one or more deities), atheism (the absence of belief in deities or the conviction that no deity exists) and agnosticism covers the ground in between. Individual people and allied groups have different ideas that surround and interlink these.
Just like you can’t tar all Christians with the insane ramblings of Joseph Kony or Rick Santorum, don’t assume all atheists follow any particular ‘doctrine’.