Atheism - a beautiful garden without fairies

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? - Douglas Adams

Perhaps few words today can compete with atheism in invoking feelings as disparate and wide ranging as repugnancy, vitriol, abhorrence, unease, emancipation, liberation, solidarity and fervour. But what atheism means is lost on many who are misled into the trap of over-emoting. It is perhaps worth remembering the often forgotten fact that the term ‘atheist’ – ἄθεος, was first applied as a pejorative term to describe early Christians by the ancient Romans, for the Christians failed to worship the Roman gods. Everybody is an atheist to some gods who were once worshiped or indeed are currently, prayed, genuflected and sacrificed to. In H.L. Mencken’s brilliant essay ‘The graveyard of the Gods’ he listed more than a hundred divine entities including Baal, Osiris, Anubis, Quetzalcoatl, Cronos, Mars, Pluto, Persephone and Saturn. “Gods”, as he concludes, “of the highest standing and dignity – gods of civilized peoples –worshiped and believed in by millions. All were theoretically omnipotent, omniscient, and immortal. And all are dead.” Thus, compared to the most fervent Christian, Muslim or Jew, an atheist only believes in one less god.

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is simply the rejection of the belief that there are any supernatural deities. It is not a moral stance of any kind or a belief system as some religious apologists would have you believe. It is something of a bizarre situation where the disbelief of an active assertion of an invisible entity requires a term. We don’t have the terms ‘a-fairyist’ or ‘a-unicornist’ because society deem the non-existence of fairies and unicorns as not worthy of negation. This is not an entirely facetious comparison as fairies and leprechauns and even unicorns were until recently believed to be real by many. Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes stories and classics such as The Lost World, was a spiritualist and an ardent believer in fairies and made a fool of himself in the case of the Cottingley Fairies, where two young girls took photos of themselves apparently in the company of jovial pixies. It was only in the 1980’s that the then elderly ladies admitted that they were faked with cardboard cut-outs.  Ironic that the man who created the ultimate logical skeptic Sherlock Holmes was so easily beguiled. He also believed that Harry Houdini, the famous escapologist, possessed supernatural powers, which allowed him to perform his acts. Unable to convince Doyle that his acts were done with illusions, the pair had a public falling out and Houdini continued to champion skepticism and unmasked many frauds and hucksters making money out of the incredulity of the uneducated and gullible. A digression, but illustrating the importance of rationality and skepticism, without which even the most intelligent can fall prey to intellectual rubbish, as Bertrand Russell puts it.

Belief in gods takes many different forms. The most pertinent categories may be that of pantheism, deism and theism. The differences are worth rehashing. Pantheism is the notion that the universe is identical to the divine, or, that ‘god’ is a metaphor for nature. Pantheists do not therefore believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god. Elements of pantheism can be found in a variety of religions such as paganism, Buddhism, Christianity and native religions of African tribes and the Native American religions, often mixed with polytheism (the worship of many gods such as the Egyptians and ancient Greek and Romans) and animism (the notion that animals, plants and inanimate objects such as mountains contain spirits or souls). The philosopher Spinoza and his admirer Einstein can be said to be pantheists. Einstein is often misquoted by religious apologists as a famous, intelligent scientist who believes in god (the argument from authority is itself flawed) but he actually used god as a metaphor for the splendour of the universe. “I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.” Or that old joke - what does the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor? Make me one with everything.   

 

Deism rose during the scientific revolution of the 17^th century, its influence permeating and contributing to the enlightenment in the following century.  It is the belief that observation of the universe is enough to conclude that deities exist but reject supernatural events such as miracles, the infallibility of scripture and the trinity. Bridging the gap between strict dogmatism and the scepticism arising largely from the discoveries of science and industry of the time, deists holds that god created the universe but does not intervene in its working but allows it to run according to the laws of nature. Although declaring their belief in god and rejecting atheism, deists were often referred to as atheists by theists.

 

Theism believes that god not only created the universe but is a personal, omnipresent, omnipotent and benevolent being active in the governance of the universe and caring individually for every living being. Interventions of god through suspension of the natural order are miracles (although some official miracles are quite paltry – St. Thomas Aquinas, a 13^th century writer of theology and philosophy, was canonised with one of the miracles being the story that on his death bed, Aquinas wanted to eat herrings, which at that time was only found in France or England and not in Italy. Just then, a fishmonger, making a delivery of sardines to the estate, was asked what fish he brought. Upon inspecting the baskets, it was found that one was full of fresh herring. This story is from a third hand source.).

 

Out of the three, pantheism is relatable to anyone with an iota of romance in their nature. Think Wordsworth’s ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’. Deism was a respectable position before Darwin, modern physics and astronomy. Facing the mysteries of complex life, Paley’s watchmaker analogy, where the physical laws like those discovered by Newton and the intricacies of life and nature was seen to be akin to the mechanistic perfection of a watch where the watchmaker is god. But the 1859 publication of Darwin’s theory of natural selection explained how what seemed like irreducibly complex things such as the eye can be got with simple, gradual steps. This emancipating realisation is revolutionary precisely because it frees us from the constraints of false induction. Furthermore, the subsequent realisation that nature is unforgiving and cruel – that about 98% of all species that had ever lived are now extinct, fly in the face of the idea of a personal, theistic god who is supposed to care and love each living thing. When people point to rainbows and skylarks and dewdrops on roses as evidence for the divine, they more often than not forget things like the loa loa worm in Africa that burrows itself in the eyes of children or the parasitoid wasp, which paralyses a host, usually a caterpillar and lays its eggs inside the hosts body. The hatched infants then proceed to eat the host, in such a way as to keep the host alive as long as possible to ensure the meat is fresh. The daily struggle of creatures for survival, often on the verge of starvation, predation, disease, in constant fear and clinging to life enduring countless and unseen sufferings all testament to the absence of such a wish-thinking inspired sky-father. Woody Allen captured it well when he lamented: "How can I believe in god when just last week I got my tongue stuck in the roller of an electric typewritter?" Perhaps the ultimate challenge to the theistic idea is one posed by the Epicurus about 2300 years ago. He asked simply:

 

“Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence evil?” 

 

Raphael's School of Athens, with Epicurus portrayed on the left, reading a book

 

 

The most objectionable aspect of theism however, is that it asks us to surrender our most valuable qualities, those of logical thought and rationalism while quashing our imagination and sense of inquiry. Summed up eloquently by St. Aquinas’s statement that he is “Homo unius libri” – a man of one book. As Alexander Pope stated in his Essay on Criticism:

 

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

 

The source of this wish thinking, this yearning to be looked after and taken care of, is ignorance and fear. The theistic idea that the universe is created with us in mind, that we are at the apex of god’s creations and that we are to transcend death at the low cost of surrendering our critical faculties is solipsistic and self-serving to say the least. The idea that those who don’t conform will burn and suffer in eternal punishment is the worst form of sadistic emotional blackmail, often taught to children. The irony of the notion that eternal punishment awaits those who dare question the infinite love of god doesn’t appear to manifest itself in the minds of the fervently religious. On the other hand, Philip Larkin captured to perfection in his Aubade the resolute, grim but honest realisation that our existence does not extend beyond this life and this earth. An aubade is a love song of lovers parting in the morning (as opposed to a serenade, which is the same but in the evening). In this case, the lover is life itself.

The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

Hence, with the realisation of our fortunate and limited time with life, we are impelled to embrace it everyday. Omar Khayyam is a Medieval Persian polymath, an astronomer, mathematician and poet known for his love of life, wine and women. He also expressed doubt of religion, especially the notion that god would reveal himself to some but not to others, especially when those invoking god’s name use it for obvious gain and power over others. In his Rubaiyat, (Richard Le Gallienne translation), he urged the reader to embrace life in the here and now. Instead of blindly following and be shackled by ideologies that deny us to rise to the heights demanded by our dignity, we should take the risk of thinking for ourselves.

Would you be happy! Hearken, then, the way:
Heed not to-morrow, heed not yesterday;
The magic words of life are here and now –
O fools, that after some to-morrow stray!

To all of us the thought of heaven is dear –
Why not be sure of it and make it here?
No doubt there is a heaven yonder too,
But ‘tis so far away – and you are near.

Men talk of heaven, - there is no heaven but here,
Men talk of hell, - there is no hell but here;
Men of hereafters talk, and future lives, -
O love, there is no other life – but here.

Or, in Christopher Hitchens’s typically eloquently pungent prose:

“To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.”