Atheism's Effect on Religion

The Guardian had an excellent column over the weekend that contemplated the effect that New Atheism might be having on religion - or at least the religious book industry. (Read it here!) The writer, Madeline Bunting, wonders if, "perhaps New Atheism's publishing success is a case of winning a battle and losing the war." While I think the article is well-done, and I think she makes some great points about both the debate and the successes of both sides, I'd like to discuss the mistakes she believes atheists often make in this "war."

The great mistake the atheists made is to claim that religion started out as a clumsy stab at science – trying to explain how the world worked – and is now clearly redundant. That misses the point entirely: religion is not about explaining how an earthquake or flood happens; rather it offers meanings for such events. When someone is killed in a car accident, western rationality is good at analysing how the brakes failed and the road curved, but has nothing to say about why, on that particular day, the brakes failed when it was you in the car: the sequence of random events that kill. This search for meaning is part of what drives the religious spirit.

It's true that we don't now (and maybe never will) have a perfect explanation for the emergence of religion in human culture. I'm having a hard time deciphering where exactly she feels the mistake is being made - on the "battlefield" (ie. as a weak point of argument against religion) or within the philosophy (ie. a flawed idea within atheism). Either way, she seems to be assuming that there IS "meaning" behind events such as your brakes failing beyond a physical explanation. To an atheist, the world is primarily explained by physics, science, etc., and any meaning is self-ascribed. If she is saying that atheism offers no "alternative" extra meaning to believers, I'm not sure that we're missing the point - it's simply non-existent in atheist philosophy. I imagine giving up faith also requires giving up that search for any supernatural meaning. Sorry, I have no atheist Splenda to offer the believers as they begin their diet.

The second mistake made by the atheists is the assumption that faith and belief are mental processes akin to opinion. Armstrong runs through the etymology to uncover original meanings: belief is a commitment not a proposition; faith, as in "I have faith in you", is an expression of confidence, not an assertion of the existence of something. Dogma is "a truth which cannot easily be put into words and which can only be fully understood through long experience" – rather like the love of a parent for their child growing into adulthood.

Here, again, I see what she is trying to get at (the distinction between belief and faith), but I'm not sure that atheists actually make that assumption. If atheists were to simply accept that faithful confidence is beyond challenge or question, there would be no point in discussing beliefs at all. I think enough people have established valid arguments for debating faith and religion that I don't have to list them here. Ms. Bunting also seems to be implying that faith is VOID of mental process, which is also not true. The bible contains a number of contradictions, and even the most pious of Christians must use their own mental process to decide how to deal with these sticky situations. Also, following her logic, people would RARELY question or change religions or religious opinions, and this is clearly not true. I can see that Armstrong is attempting to defend faith with some etymological research, but I think that despite the interesting history, he also needs to consider the reality of how people believe today and what the words "belief" and "faith" mean to people living now. After all, these are not historical atheists debating historical religious people - it's a current issue.

I am critical of some points of the New Atheism, but these points are not ones I would challenge. I'll save those points for another day. But I'm not sure I that could have let her critique fly by without, at least, a little discussion.

S.A.M.