This is another one of those ideas that’s been rolling, tumbleweed-like, in my mind for a while — the myth (i.e. made up bullshit) about atheism as a religion.

However, I’m not going to talk about why atheism seems like a religion to those that just don’t understand it, and I’m not going to talk about it taking faith to be an atheist (a ludicrous idea). Instead, I’m going to highlight the ways that some people talk about atheism, the language they use and why they might do so.

When reading recent news articles, in particular commentary on the “war” between religion and atheism, and most especially from christian apologists, the thing that immediately jumps out at me (well, after the bad arguments, misrepresentations and fallacies) is that they very often use the language of the religious when attempting to describe the atheist’s position.

Here’s an example, from a recent article written by Andrew Higgins:

The star: Michel Onfray, celebrity philosopher and France’s high priest of militant atheism. Dressed entirely in black, he strode onto the stage and looked out at the reverential audience for his weekly two-hour lecture series, “Hedonist Philosophy,” which is broadcast on a state radio station. “I could found a religion,” he said.

My emphasis. Do you see what the author has done here? They’ve used a religious label (’high priest’) that doesn’t have any kind of atheistic equivalent, to imply that Onfray is some kind of authority on “atheist dogma”. The second example here is a little more subtle, using the adjective ‘reverential’ to imply that the audience was so very eager to hear Onfray’s latest pronouncement on what we, as atheists, should think. Higgins could quite easily have used a synonym without such religious overtones: ‘eager’, ‘interested’, ‘attentive’, ‘keen’.

The ‘militant’ epithet, while not manifestly religious, is commonly used to describe the violent elements of active political and/or religious movements.

This appears to be a common tactic. Another, from Don Feder:

Oh, for the days when one could safely stroll into a bookstore without tripping over the latest atheist title. Ironically, by writing their tracts, in the long run atheists might boost belief.

By labelling these works as ‘tracts’, the author is using a word with strong religious overtones to convey that they must contain the elements of thought on the latest atheist doctrine.

One of the people most guilty of this, at least in the British press, is Oxford theologian, Alister McGrath. Here are a couple of his wonderfully polemic utterances:

I went up to Oxford to study the sciences in 1971, expecting my atheism to be consolidated. In the event, my world was turned upside down. I gave up one belief, atheism, and embraced another, Christianity.

….

Above all, I encountered something at Oxford that I had failed to meet in Northern Ireland - articulate Christians who were able to challenge my atheism.
The Daily Mail

It may not be completely obvious as to what exactly the religious language is here, but I’ll point it out, and perhaps you’ll see it. Here, McGrath talks about “my atheism”, as if it’s some kind of houseplant that he has somehow obtained and been tasked to nurture to full bloom. Who, really, talks like that? The way that McGrath uses “my atheism” here appears to show that he thinks that atheism is just another thing to be believed in, as religious claims are.

McGrath is a smart man, and is either being extremely sneaky, or just so very confused as to what atheism actually is (even though he says that he used to “be” an atheist.) From his other writings on the subject, it seems clear to me that it’s the latter.

A couple more, these from the inimitable wingnuttery of William Dembski, this time on Darwin rather than atheism, but the principle remains:

This is a news-worthy cause for British Darwin-doubters, who should urge that Darwin be dumped from the 10-pound note whenever there is a new security-upgrade version, on grounds that he is the chief prophet of the materialist religion, and his presence on the 10-pound note is an inappropriate endorsement of that materialist religion and its related anti-religious ferment.

…

Deifying Darwin is contrary to the multicultural goal of the British intelligentia (sic), and it encourages the worst anti-religious bigotry of Dawkins et al.

Dembski is as obvious in his fallacious misrepresentations as he is a nutjob. I hope I don’t need to explain these, although the utter stupidity of claiming something as an “anti-religious religion” should be pointed out.

When we look at the choices of words these people use, we should think about why they choose these words specifically, especially when it’s as blatant as in Dembski’s diatribes against Darwin.

One reason that occurs to me is that they are deliberately trying to convey the idea that atheism is a religion which, of course, it’s not. Conflating atheism as religion allows them to dismiss it as just another kind of belief, as they might do with other, bona fide, religions.

However, not everybody knows this, especially if they haven’t discovered for themselves what atheism is and just read or hear the apologetic refrains of “Jesus/god/allah good, atheism bad” (thank you, Animal Farm).

Another audience that I can see being taken in by this is the person that has recently apostatised. If they see atheism as “just another religion” and they’re trying to get out of that particular mind-set, they might not see anything but religion, and come to the conclusion of “better the devil you know” and return to the comfort of the fold that they already know so well.

Others might be those who, for some reason, don’t label themselves as atheists (even though they don’t have a god-belief): I’m thinking of the agnostics, secular humanists and other religion-sceptics here who are, de facto, atheists even if they don’t label themselves as such. This just helps to keep a large number of atheists in the so-called closet, and perhaps makes them fear that they might introduce difficuly into their personal lives, or lose their voice in speaking out against religious privilege and theocratic ideas if they did label themselves so.

If this is the case, I find this most disturbing. To deliberately misrepresent someone else’s position like this is just setting up a straw man.

Another reason that I can think of is because they may genuinely believe that atheism is a religion and, to be able to make sense of ideas that they find completely alien, label us with what they think are the most appropriate adjectives and titles that they do understand, simply because it’s the only way that they can possibly comprehend our position. If this is a real reason, I find it truly saddening, rather than disturbing.

It’s also sad to see secularists guilty of this too, as was demonstrated recently by Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, when he labelled some atheists as “fundamentalists” and accused them of being rigid to “dogma”.

I can’t offer a solution to this, except to say that those who think this way could possibly be a little more careful about their descriptions of atheists and atheism, unless they want to be accused of just setting up straw-men and turning otherwise reasoned arguments or opinions into turgid tripe.

Some might be sad/surprised to see that I haven’t mentioned Ann Coulter. To be honest, the less said about that vitriolic bint the better, but she’s as guilty of this as any apologist.

This entry was posted Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 10:51 pm and is filed under . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.