Criticism of atheism is criticism of the concepts,
validity, or impact of atheism, including
associated political and social implications.
Criticisms include positions based on the
history of science, findings in the natural
sciences, theistic apologetic arguments, arguments
pertaining to ethics and morality, the effects
of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions
that underpin atheism.
Various contemporary agnostics like Carl Sagan
and theists such as Dinesh D'Souza have criticised
atheism for being an unscientific position.
Analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga, Professor
of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of
Notre Dame, argues that a failure of theistic
arguments might conceivably be good grounds
for agnosticism, but not for atheism; and
points to the observation of an apparently
"fine-tuned Universe" as more likely to be
explained by theism than atheism. Oxford Professor
of Mathematics John Lennox holds that atheism
is an inferior world view to that of theism
and attributes to C.S. Lewis the best formulation
of merton's thesis that science sits more
comfortably with theistic notions on the basis
that Men became scientific in Western Europe
in the 16th and 17th century "[b]ecause they
expected law in nature, and they expected
law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.'
In other words, it was belief in God that
was the motor that drove modern science".
American geneticist Francis Collins also cites
Lewis as persuasive in convincing him that
theism is the more rational world view than
atheism.
Other criticisms focus on perceived effects
on morality and social cohesion. The Enlightenment
philosopher Voltaire, a deist, saw godlessness
as weakening "the sacred bonds of society",
writing: "If God did not exist, it would be
necessary to invent him". The father of classical
liberalism, John Locke, believed that the
denial of God's existence would undermine
the social order and lead to chaos. Edmund
Burke, an 18th-century Irish philosopher and
statesman praised by both his conservative
and liberal peers for his "comprehensive intellect",
saw religion as the basis of civil society
and wrote that "man is by his constitution
a religious animal; that atheism is against,
not only our reason, but our instincts; and
that it cannot prevail long". Pope Pius XI
wrote that Communist atheism was aimed at
"upsetting the social order and at undermining
the very foundations of Christian civilization".
In the 1990s, Pope John Paul II criticised
a spreading "practical atheism" as clouding
the "religious and moral sense of the human
heart" and leading to societies which struggle
to maintain harmony.The advocacy of atheism
by some of the more violent exponents of the
French Revolution, the subsequent militancy
of Marxist–Leninist atheism and prominence
of atheism in totalitarian states formed in
the 20th century is often cited in critical
assessments of the implications of atheism.
In his Reflections on the Revolution in France,
Burke railed against "atheistical fanaticism".
The 1937 papal encyclical Divini Redemptoris
denounced the atheism of the Soviet Union
under Joseph Stalin, which was later influential
in the establishment of state atheism across
Eastern Europe and elsewhere, including Mao
Zedong's China, Kim's North Korea and Pol
Pot's Cambodia. Critics of atheism often associate
the actions of 20th-century state atheism
with broader atheism in their critiques. Various
poets, novelists and lay theologians, among
them G. K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, have
also criticized atheism. For example, Chesterton
holds that "[h]e who does not believe in God
will believe in anything".
== Definitions and concepts ==
Atheism is the absence of belief that any
gods exist, the position that there are no
gods, or the rejection of belief in the existence
of gods.Deism is a form of theism in which
God created the universe and established rationally
comprehensible moral and natural laws but
does not intervene in human affairs through
special revelation. Deism is a natural religion
where belief in God is based on application
of reason and evidence observed in the designs
and laws found in nature. Christian deism
refers to a deist who believes in the moral
teachings but not the divinity of Jesus.
== Arguments and positions ==
The last 50 years has seen an increase in
academic philosophical arguments critical
of the positions of atheism arguing that they
are philosophically unsound. Some of the more
common of these arguments are the presumption
of atheism, the logical argument from evil,
the evidential argument from evil, the argument
from nonbelief and absence of evidence arguments.
=== The Presumption of Atheism ===
In 1976, atheist philosopher Antony Flew wrote
The Presumption of Atheism in which he argued
that the question of God's existence should
begin by assuming atheism as the default position.
According to Flew, the norm for academic philosophy
and public dialogue was at that time for atheists
and theists to both share their respective
"burdens of proof" for their positions. Flew
proposed instead that his academic peers redefine
"atheism" to bring about these changes:
What I want to examine is the contention that
the debate about the existence of God should
properly begin from the presumption of atheism,
that the onus of proof must lie upon the theist.
The word 'atheism', however, has in this contention
to be construed unusually. Whereas nowadays
the usual meaning of 'atheist' in English
is 'someone who asserts that there is no such
being as God, I want the word to be understood
not positively but negatively... in this interpretation
an atheist becomes: not someone who positively
asserts the non-existence of God; but someone
who is simply not a theist.
The introduction of this new interpretation
of the word 'atheism' may appear to be a piece
of perverse Humpty-Dumptyism, going arbitrarily
against established common usage. 'Whyever',
it could be asked, don't you make it not the
presumption of atheism but the presumption
of agnosticism?
Flew's proposition saw little acceptance in
the 20th century though in the early 21st
century Flew's broader definition of atheism
came to be forwarded more commonly. In 2007,
analytic philosopher William Lane Craig's
described the presumption of atheism as "one
of the most commonly proffered justifications
of atheism". In 2010, BBC journalist William
Crawley explained that Flew's presumption
of atheism "made the case, now followed by
today's new atheism" arguing that atheism
should be the default position. In today's
debates, atheists forward the presumption
of atheism arguing that atheism is the default
position with no burden of proof and assert
that the burden of proof for God's existence
rests solely on the theist.The presumption
of atheism has been the subject of criticism
by atheists, agnostics and theists since Flew
advanced his position more than 40 years ago.
==== Criticism of the presumption of atheism
====
The agnostic Analytic Philosopher Anthony
Kenny rejected the presumption of atheism
on any definition of atheism arguing that
"the true default position is neither theism
nor atheism, but agnosticism" adding "a claim
to knowledge needs to be substantiated, ignorance
need only be confessed".
Many different definitions may be offered
of the word 'God'. Given this fact, atheism
makes a much stronger claim than theism does.
The atheist says that no matter what definition
you choose, 'God exists' is always false.
The theist only claims that there is some
definition which will make 'God exists' true.
In my view, neither the stronger nor the weaker
claim has been convincingly established".
Atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen criticized
the presumption of atheism arguing that without
an independent concept of rationality or a
concept of rationality that atheists and theists
can mutually accept, there is no common foundation
on which to adjudicate rationality of positions
concerning the existence of God. Because the
atheist's conceptualization of "rational"
differs from the theist, Nielsen argues, both
positions can be rationally justified.Analytic
philosopher and modal logician Alvin Plantinga,
a theist, rejected the presumption of atheism
forwarding a two-part argument. First, he
shows that there is no objection to belief
in God unless the belief is shown to be false.
Second, he argues that belief in God could
be rationally warranted if it is a properly
basic or foundational belief through an innate
human "sense of the divine". Plantinga argues
that if we have the innate knowledge of God
which he theorizes as a possibility, we could
trust belief in God the same way we trust
our cognitive faculties in other similar matters,
such as our rational belief that there are
other minds beyond our own, something we believe,
but for which there can be no evidence. Alvin
Plantinga's argument puts theistic belief
an equal evidential footing with atheism even
if Flew's definition of atheism is accepted.
University of Notre Dame philosopher Ralph
McInerny goes further than Plantinga, arguing
that belief in God reasonably follows from
our observations of the natural order and
the law-like character of natural events.
McInerny argues that the extent of this natural
order is so pervasive as to be almost innate,
providing a prima facie argument against atheism.
McInerny's position goes further than Plantinga's,
arguing that theism is evidenced and that
the burden of proof rests on the atheist,
not on the theist.William Lane Craig wrote
that if Flew's broader definition of atheism
is seen as "merely the absence of belief in
God", atheism "ceases to be a view" and "even
infants count as atheists". For atheism to
be a view, Craig adds: "One would still require
justification in order to know either that
God exists or that He does not exist".
Like the agnostic Anthony Kenny, Craig argues
that there is no presumption for atheism because
it is distinct from agnosticism:[S]uch an
alleged presumption is clearly mistaken. For
the assertion that "There is no God" is just
as much a claim to knowledge as is the assertion
that "There is a God." Therefore, the former
assertion requires justification just as the
latter does. It is the agnostic who makes
no knowledge claim at all with respect to
God's existence."
Forty years after Flew published The Presumption
of Atheism, his proposition remains controversial.
=== Other arguments ===
William Lane Craig listed some of the more
prominent arguments forwarded by proponents
of atheism along with his objections:
"The Hiddenness of God" is the claim that
if God existed, God would have prevented the
world's unbelief by making his existence starkly
apparent. Craig argues that the problem with
this argument is that there is no reason to
believe that any more evidence than what is
already available would increase the number
of people believing in God.
"The Incoherence of Theism" is the claim that
the notion of God is incoherent. Craig argues
that a coherent doctrine of God's attributes
can be formulated based on scripture like
Medieval theologians had done and "Perfect
Being Theology"; and that the argument actually
helps in refining the concept of God.
"The Problem of Evil" can be split into two
different concerns: the "intellectual" problem
of evil concerns how to give a rational explanation
of the co-existence of God and evil and the
"emotional" problem of evil concerns how to
comfort those who are suffering and how to
dissolve the emotional dislike people have
of a God who would permit such evil. The latter
can be dealt with in a diverse manner. Concerning
the "intellectual" argument, it is often cast
as an incompatibility between statements such
as "an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God exists"
and "the quantity and kinds of suffering in
the world exist". Craig argues that no one
has shown that both statements are logically
incompatible or improbable with respect to
each other. Others use another version of
the intellectual argument called the "evidential
problem of evil" which claims that the apparently
unnecessary or "gratuitous" suffering in the
world constitutes evidence against God's existence.
Craig argues that it is not clear that the
suffering that appears to be gratuitous actually
is gratuitous for various reasons, one of
which is similar to an objection to utilitarian
ethical theory, that it is quite simply impossible
for us to estimate which action will ultimately
lead to the greatest amount of happiness or
pleasure in the world.T.J. Mawson makes a
case against atheism by citing some lines
of evidence and reasoning such as the high
level of fine-tuning whereby the life of morally
sentient and significantly free creatures
like humans has implications. On the maximal
multiverse hypothesis, he argues that in appealing
to infinite universes one is in essence explaining
too much and that it even opens up the possibility
that certain features of the universe still
would require explanation beyond the hypothesis
itself. He also argues from induction for
fine tuning in that if one supposed that infinite
universes existed there should be infinite
ways in which observations can be wrong on
only one way in which observations can be
right at any point in time, for instance,
that the color of gems stay the same every
time we see them. In other words, if infinite
universes existed, then there should be infinite
changes to our observations of the universe
and in essence be unpredictable in infinite
ways, yet this is not what occurs.
== Atheism and the individual ==
In a global study on atheism, sociologist
Phil Zuckerman noted that though there are
positive correlations with societal health
among organically atheist nations, countries
with higher levels of atheism also had the
highest suicide rates compared to countries
with lower levels of atheism. He concludes
that correlation does not necessarily indicate
causation in either case. A 2004 study of
religious affiliation and suicide attempts,
concluded: "After other factors were controlled,
it was found that greater moral objections
to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously
affiliated subjects may function as protective
factors against suicide attempts".According
to William Bainbridge, atheism is common among
people whose social obligations are weak and
is also connected to lower fertility rates
in some industrial nations. Extended length
of sobriety in alcohol recovery is related
positively to higher levels of theistic belief,
active community helping and self-transcendence.
Some studies state that in developed countries
health, life expectancy and other correlates
of wealth tend to be statistical predictors
of a greater percentage of atheists, compared
to countries with higher proportions of believers.
Multiple methodological problems have been
identified with cross-national assessments
of religiosity, secularity and social health
which undermine conclusive statements on religiosity
and secularity in developed democracies.
== Morality ==
The influential deist philosopher Voltaire
criticised established religion to a wide
audience, but conceded a fear of the disappearance
of the idea of God: "After the French Revolution
and its outbursts of atheism, Voltaire was
widely condemned as one of the causes", wrote
Geoffrey Blainey. "Nonetheless, his writings
did concede that fear of God was an essential
policeman in a disorderly world: 'If God did
not exist, it would be necessary to invent
him', wrote Voltaire".In A Letter Concerning
Toleration, the influential English philosopher
John Locke wrote: "Promises, covenants, and
oaths, which are the bonds of human society,
can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking
away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves
all". Although Locke was believed to be an
advocate of tolerance, he urged the authorities
not to tolerate atheism because the denial
of God's existence would undermine the social
order and lead to chaos. According to Dinesh
D'Souza, Locke, like Russian novelist Fyodor
Dostoyevsky after him, argued that "when God
is excluded, then it is not surprising when
morality itself is sacrificed in the process
and chaos and horror is unleashed on the world".The
Catholic Church believes that morality is
ensured through natural law, but that religion
provides a more solid foundation. For many
years in the United States, atheists were
not allowed to testify in court because it
was believed that an atheist would have no
reason to tell the truth (see also discrimination
against atheists).Atheists such as biologist
and popular author Richard Dawkins have proposed
that human morality is a result of evolutionary,
sociobiological history. He proposes that
the "moral zeitgeist" helps describe how moral
imperatives and values naturalistically evolve
over time from biological and cultural origins.
Evolutionary biologist Kenneth R. Miller notes
that such a conception of evolution and morality
is a misunderstanding of sociobiology and
at worst it is an attempt to abolish any meaningful
system of morality since though evolution
would have provided the biological drives
and desires we have, it does not tell us what
is good or right or wrong or moral.Critics
assert that natural law provides a foundation
on which people may build moral rules to guide
their choices and regulate society, but does
not provide as strong a basis for moral behavior
as a morality that is based in religion. Douglas
Wilson, an evangelical theologian, argues
that while atheists can behave morally, belief
is necessary for an individual "to give a
rational and coherent account" of why they
are obligated to lead a morally responsible
life. Wilson says that atheism is unable to
"give an account of why one deed should be
seen as good and another as evil". Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, outgoing Archbishop
of Westminster, expressed this position by
describing a lack of faith as "the greatest
of evils" and blamed atheism for war and destruction,
implying that it was a "greater evil even
than sin itself".According to William Lane
Craig, a person who lives without a belief
in God faces some problems such as living
in a state where evil is completely unregulated
and also permissible, while at the same time
good and self-sacrificing people would live
in an unrewarded state where noble deeds lose
their virtue and are rendered valueless.
== Atheism as faith ==
Another criticism of atheism is that it is
a faith in itself as a belief in its own right,
with a certainty about the falseness of religious
beliefs that is comparable to the certainty
about the unknown that is practiced by religions.
Activist atheists have been criticized for
positions said to be similar to religious
dogma. In his essay Dogmatic Atheism and Scientific
Ignorance for the World Union of Deists, Peter
Murphy wrote: "The dogmatic atheist like the
dogmatic theist is obsessed with conformity
and will spew a tirade of angry words against
anyone who does not conform to their own particular
world view". The Times arts and entertainment
writer Ian Johns described the 2006 British
documentary The Trouble with Atheism as "reiterating
the point that the dogmatic intensity of atheists
is the secular equivalent of the blinkered
zeal of fanatical mullahs and biblical fundamentalists".
Though the media often portrays atheists as
"angry" and studies show that the general
population and "believers" perceive atheists
as "angry", Brian Meier et al. found that
individual atheists are no more angry than
individuals in other populations.In a study
on American secularity, Frank Pasquale notes
that some tensions do exist among secular
groups where, for instance, atheists are sometimes
viewed as "fundamentalists" by secular humanists.In
his book First Principles (1862), the 19th-century
English philosopher and sociologist Herbert
Spencer wrote that as regards the origin of
the universe, three hypotheses are possible:
self-existence (atheism), self-creation (pantheism),
or creation by an external agency (theism).
Spencer argued that it is "impossible to avoid
making the assumption of self-existence" in
any of the three hypotheses and concluded
that "even positive Atheism comes within the
definition" of religion.In an anthropological
study on modernity, Talal Asad quotes an Arab
atheist named Adonis who has said: "The sacred
for atheism is the human being himself, the
human being of reason, and there is nothing
greater than this human being. It replaces
revelation by reason and God with humanity".
To which Asad points out: "But an atheism
that deifies Man is, ironically, close to
the doctrine of the incarnation".Michael Martin
and Paul Edwards have responded to criticism-as-faith
by emphasizing that atheism can be the rejection
of belief, or absence of belief. Don Hirschberg
once famously that said "calling atheism a
religion is like calling bald a hair color".
== Catholic perspective ==
The Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies
atheism as a violation of the First Commandment,
calling it "a sin against the virtue of religion".
The catechism is careful to acknowledge that
atheism may be motivated by virtuous or moral
considerations and admonishes Catholics to
focus on their own role in encouraging atheism
by their religious or moral shortcomings:
(2125) [...] The imputability of this offense
can be significantly diminished in virtue
of the intentions and the circumstances. "Believers
can have more than a little to do with the
rise of atheism. To the extent that they are
careless about their instruction in the faith,
or present its teaching falsely, or even fail
in their religious, moral, or social life,
they must be said to conceal rather than to
reveal the true nature of God and of religion.
== Historical criticism ==
The Bible has criticized atheism by stating:
"The fool has said in his heart, There is
no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable
works, there is none that does good" (Psalm
14:1). In his essay On Atheism, Francis Bacon
criticized the dispositions towards atheism
as being "contrary to wisdom and moral gravity"
and being associated with fearing government
or public affairs. He also stated that knowing
a little science may lead one to atheism,
but knowing more science will lead one to
religion. In another work called The Advancement
of Learning, Bacon stated that superficial
knowledge of philosophy inclines one to atheism
while more knowledge of philosophy inclines
one toward religion.In Reflections on the
Revolution in France, Edmund Burke, an 18th-century
Irish philosopher and statesman praised by
both his conservative and liberal peers for
his "comprehensive intellect", wrote that
"man is by his constitution a religious animal;
that atheism is against, not only our reason,
but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail
long". Burke wrote of a "literary cabal" who
had "some years ago formed something like
a regular plan for the destruction of the
Christian religion. This object they pursued
with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been
discovered only in the propagators of some
system of piety... These atheistical fathers
have a bigotry of their own; and they have
learnt to talk against monks with the spirit
of a monk". In turn, wrote Burke, a spirit
of atheistic fanaticism had emerged in France.
We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly,
that religion is the basis of civil society,
and the source of all good, and of all comfort.
In England we are so convinced of this [...] We
know, and it is our pride to know, that man
is by his constitution a religious animal;
that atheism is against, not only our reason,
but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail
long. But if, in the moment of riot, and in
a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn
out of the alembic of hell, which in France
is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover
our nakedness, by throwing off that Christian
religion which has hitherto been our boast
and comfort, and one great source of civilization
amongst us, and among many other nations,
we are apprehensive (being well aware that
the mind will not endure a void) that some
uncouth, pernicious, and degrading superstition
might take place of it.
== Atheism and politics ==
The historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that
during the 20th century atheists in Western
societies became more active and even militant,
expressing their arguments with clarity and
skill. Like modern Christians, they reject
the idea of an interventionist God and they
argue that Christianity promotes war and violence.
However, Blainey notes that anyone, not just
Christians, can promote violence, writing
"that the most ruthless leaders in the Second
World War were atheists and secularists who
were intensely hostile to both Judaism and
Christianity. Later massive atrocities were
committed in the East by those ardent atheists,
Pol Pot and Mao Zedong. All religions, all
ideologies, all civilizations display embarrassing
blots on their pages".Philosophers Russell
Blackford and Udo Schüklenk have written:
"By contrast to all of this, the Soviet Union
was undeniably an atheist state, and the same
applies to Maoist China and Pol Pot's fanatical
Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s.
That does not, however, show that the atrocities
committed by these totalitarian dictatorships
were all the result of atheist beliefs, carried
out in the name of atheism, or caused primarily
by the atheistic aspects of the relevant forms
of communism". However, they do admit that
some forms of persecutions such as those done
on churches and religious people were partially
related to atheism, but insist it was mostly
based on economics and political reasons.Historian
Jeffrey Burton Russell has argued that "atheist
rulers such as Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao
Zedong and Pol Pot tortured, starved and murdered
more people in the twentieth century than
all the combined religious regimes of the
world during the previous nineteen centuries".
He also states: "The antitheist argument boils
down to this: a Christian who does evil does
so because he is a Christian; an atheist who
does evil does so despite being an atheist.
The absolute reverse could be argued, but
either way it's nothing but spin. The obvious
fact is that some Christians do evil in the
name of Christianity and some atheists do
evil in the name of atheism".William Husband,
a historian of the soviet secularization has
noted: "But the cultivation of atheism in
Soviet Russia also possessed distinct characteristic,
none more important than the most obvious:
atheism was an integral part of the world's
first large-scale experiment in communism.
The promotion of an antireligious society
therefore constitutes an important development
in Soviet Russia and in the social history
of atheism globally".Daniel Piers, a historian
of the League of the Militant Godless which
was a "nominally independent organization
established by the Communist Party to promote
atheism" in the Soviet Union notes that its
pro-atheism activities included active proselytizing
of people's personal beliefs, sponsoring lectures,
organizing demonstrations, printing and distribution
of pamphlets and posters.
=== Early twentieth century ===
In Julian Baggini's book Atheism A Very Short
Introduction, the author notes: "One of the
most serious charges laid against atheism
is that it is responsible for some of the
worst horrors of the 20th century, including
the Nazi concentration camps and Stalin's
gulags". However, the author concludes that
Nazi Germany was not a "straightforwardly
atheist state", but one which sacrilized notions
of blood and nation in a way that is "foreign
to mainstream rational atheism" and that while
the Soviet Union, which was "avowedly and
officially an atheist state", this is not
a reason to think that atheism is necessarily
evil, though it is a refutation of the idea
that atheism must always be benign as "there
is I believe a salutary lesson to be learned
from the way in which atheism formed an essential
part of Soviet Communism, even though Communism
does not form an essential part of atheism.
This lesson concerns what can happen when
atheism becomes too militant and Enlightenment
ideals too optimistic".From the outset, Christians
were critical of the spread of militant Marxist‒Leninist
atheism, which took hold in Russia following
the 1917 Revolution and involved a systematic
effort to eradicate religion. In the Soviet
Union after the Revolution, the teaching the
faith to the young was criminalized. Marxist‒Leninist
atheism and other adaptations of Marxian thought
on religion have enjoyed the official patronage
of various one-party Communist states since
1917. The Bolsheviks pursued "militant atheism".
The Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph
Stalin energetically pursued the persecution
of the Church through the 1920s and 1930s.
It was made a criminal offence for priests
to teach a child the faith. Many priests were
killed and imprisoned. Thousands of churches
were closed, some turned into temples of atheism.
In 1925, the government founded the League
of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution.
Pope Pius XI reigned from 1922 to 1939 and
responded to the rise of totalitarianism in
Europe with alarm. He issued three papal encyclicals
challenging the new creeds: against Italian
Fascism, Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; 'We do
not need to acquaint you); against Nazism,
Mit brennender Sorge (1937; "With deep concern");
and against atheist Communism, Divini Redemptoris
(1937; "Divine Redeemer").In Divini Redemptoris,
Pius XI said that atheistic Communism being
led by Moscow was aimed at "upsetting the
social order and at undermining the very foundations
of Christian civilization":
We too have frequently and with urgent insistence
denounced the current trend to atheism which
is alarmingly on the increase... We raised
a solemn protest against the persecutions
unleashed in Russia, in Mexico and now in
Spain. [...] In such a doctrine, as is evident,
there is no room for the idea of God; there
is no difference between matter and spirit,
between soul and body; there is neither survival
of the soul after death nor any hope in a
future life. Insisting on the dialectical
aspect of their materialism, the Communists
claim that the conflict which carries the
world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated
by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the
antagonisms which arise between the various
classes of society. Thus the class struggle
with its consequent violent hate and destruction
takes on the aspects of a crusade for the
progress of humanity. On the other hand, all
other forces whatever, as long as they resist
such systematic violence, must be annihilated
as hostile to the human race.
In Fascist Italy, led by the atheist Benito
Mussolini, the Pope denounced the efforts
of the state to supplant the role of the Church
as chief educator of youth and denounced Fascism's
"worship" of the state rather than the divine,
but Church and state settled on mutual, shaky,
toleration.Historian of the Nazi period Richard
J. Evans wrote that the Nazis encouraged atheism
and deism over Christianity and encouraged
party functionaries to abandon their religion.
Priests were watched closely and frequently
denounced, arrested and sent to concentration
camps. In Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives,
the historian Alan Bullock wrote that Hitler,
like Napoleon before him, frequently employed
the language of "Providence" in defence of
his own myth, but ultimately shared with the
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin "the same materialist
outlook, based on the nineteenth century rationalists'
certainty that the progress of science would
destroy all myths and had already proved Christian
doctrine to be an absurdity". By 1939, all
Catholic denominational schools in the Third
Reich had been disbanded or converted to public
facilities. In this climate, Pope Pius XI
issued his anti-Nazi encyclical, Mit Brennender
Sorge in 1937, saying:
It is on faith in God, preserved pure and
stainless, that man's morality is based. All
efforts to remove from under morality and
the moral order the granite foundation of
faith and to substitute for it the shifting
sands of human regulations, sooner or later
lead these individuals or societies to moral
degradation. The fool who has said in his
heart "there is no God" goes straight to moral
corruption (Psalms xiii. 1), and the number
of these fools who today are out to sever
morality from religion, is legion.
Pius XI died on the eve of World War II. Following
the outbreak of war and the 1939 Nazi/Soviet
joint invasion of Poland, the newly elected
Pope Pius XII again denounced the eradication
of religious education in his first encyclical,
saying: "Perhaps the many who have not grasped
the importance of the educational and pastoral
mission of the Church will now understand
better her warnings, scouted in the false
security of the past. No defense of Christianity
could be more effective than the present straits.
From the immense vortex of error and anti-Christian
movements there has come forth a crop of such
poignant disasters as to constitute a condemnation
surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely
theoretical refutation".Post-war Christian
leaders including Pope John Paul II continued
the Christian critique. In 2010, his successor,
the German Pope Benedict XVI said:
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how
Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi
tyranny that wished to eradicate God from
society and denied our common humanity to
many, especially the Jews, who were thought
unfit to live. I also recall the regime's
attitude to Christian pastors and religious
who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis
and paid for that opposition with their lives.
As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the
atheist extremism of the twentieth century,
let us never forget how the exclusion of God,
religion and virtue from public life leads
ultimately to a truncated vision of man and
of society and thus to a "reductive vision
of the person and his destiny
British biologist Richard Dawkins criticised
Pope Benedict's remarks and described Hitler
as a "Catholic" because he "never renounced
his baptismal Catholicism" and said that "Hitler
certainly was not an atheist. In 1933 he claimed
to have 'stamped atheism out'". In contrast,
historian Alan Bullock wrote that Hitler was
a rationalist and a materialist with no feeling
for the spiritual or emotional side of human
existence: a "man who believed neither in
God nor in conscience". Anton Gill has written
that Hitler wanted Catholicism to have "nothing
at all to do with German society". Richard
Overy describes Hitler as skeptical of all
religious belief Critic of atheism Dinesh
D'Souza argues that "Hitler's leading advisers,
such as Goebbels, Heydrich and Bormann, were
atheists who were savagely hostile to religion"
and Hitler and the Nazis "repudiated what
they perceived as the Christian values of
equality, compassion and weakness and extolled
the atheist notions of the Nietzschean superman
and a new society based on the 'will to power'".When
Hitler was out campaigning for power in Germany,
he made opportunistic statements apparently
in favour of "positive Christianity". In political
speeches, Hitler spoke of an "almighty creator".
According to Samuel Koehne of Deakin University,
some recent works have "argued Hitler was
a Deist". Hitler made various comments against
"atheistic" movements. He associated atheism
with Bolshevism, Communism and Jewish materialism.
In 1933, the regime banned most atheistic
and freethinking groups in Germany—other
than those that supported the Nazis. The regime
strongly opposed "godless communism" and most
of Germany's freethinking (freigeist), atheist
and largely left-wing organizations were banned.
The regime also stated that the Nazi Germany
needed some kind of belief.According to Tom
Rees, some researches suggest that atheists
are more numerous in peaceful nations than
they are in turbulent or warlike ones, but
causality of this trend is not clear and there
are many outliers. However, opponents of this
view cite examples such as the Bolsheviks
(in Soviet Russia) who were inspired by "an
ideological creed which professed that all
religion would atrophy [...] resolved to eradicate
Christianity as such". In 1918, "[t]en Orthodox
hierarchs were summarily shot" and "[c]hildren
were deprived of any religious education outside
the home". Increasingly draconian measures
were employed. In addition to direct state
persecution, the League of the Militant Godless
was founded in 1925, churches were closed
and vandalized and "by 1938 eighty bishops
had lost their lives, while thousands of clerics
were sent to labour camps".
=== After World War II ===
Across Eastern Europe following World War
II, the parts of Nazi Germany and its allies
and conquered states that had been overrun
by the Soviet Red Army, along with Yugoslavia,
became one-party Communist states, which like
the Soviet Union were antipathetic to religion.
Persecutions of religious leaders followed.
The Soviet Union ended its truce against the
Russian Orthodox Church and extended its persecutions
to the newly Communist Eastern block. In Poland,
Hungary, Lithuania and other Eastern European
countries, Catholic leaders who were unwilling
to be silent were denounced, publicly humiliated
or imprisoned by the Communists. According
to Geoffrey Blainey, leaders of the national
Orthodox Churches in Romania and Bulgaria
had to be "cautious and submissive".Albania
under Enver Hoxha became in 1967 the first
(and to date only) formally declared atheist
state, going far beyond what most other countries
had attempted—completely prohibiting religious
observance and systematically repressing and
persecuting adherents. The right to religious
practice was restored in the fall of communism
in 1991. In 1967, Hoxha's regime conducted
a campaign to extinguish religious life in
Albania and by year's end over two thousand
religious buildings were closed or converted
to other uses and religious leaders were imprisoned
and executed. Albania was declared to be the
world's first atheist country by its leaders
and Article 37 of the Albanian constitution
of 1976 stated: "The State recognises no religion,
and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda
in order to implant a scientific materialistic
world outlook in people".
In 1949, China became a Communist state under
the leadership of Mao Zedong's Communist Party
of China. China itself had been a cradle of
religious thought since ancient times, being
the birthplace of Confucianism and Daoism.
Under Communism, China became officially atheist,
and though some religious practices were permitted
to continue under state supervision, religious
groups deemed a threat to order have been
suppressed—as with Tibetan Buddhism since
1959 and Falun Gong in recent years. During
the Cultural Revolution, Mao instigated "struggles"
against the Four Olds: "old ideas, customs,
culture, and habits of mind". In Buddhist
Cambodia, influenced by Mao's Cultural Revolution,
Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge also instigated a purge
of religion during the Cambodian genocide,
when all religious practices were forbidden
and Buddhist monasteries were closed. Evangelical
Christian writer Dinesh D'Souza writes: "The
crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated
through a hubristic ideology that sees man,
not God, as the creator of values. Using the
latest techniques of science and technology,
man seeks to displace God and create a secular
utopia here on earth". He also contends:
And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not
to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all
committed atrocities in the name of a Communist
ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who
can dispute that they did their bloody deeds
by claiming to be establishing a 'new man'
and a religion-free utopia? These were mass
murders performed with atheism as a central
part of their ideological inspiration, they
were not mass murders done by people who simply
happened to be atheist.
In response to this line of criticism, Sam
Harris wrote:
The problem with fascism and communism, however,
is not that they are too critical of religion;
the problem is that they are too much like
religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the
core and generally give rise to personality
cults that are indistinguishable from cults
of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the
gulag and the killing fields were not examples
of what happens when human beings reject religious
dogma; they are examples of political, racial
and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is
no society in human history that ever suffered
because its people became too reasonable.
Richard Dawkins has stated that Stalin's atrocities
were influenced not by atheism, but by dogmatic
Marxism and concludes that while Stalin and
Mao happened to be atheists, they did not
do their deeds "in the name of atheism". On
other occasions, Dawkins has replied to the
argument that Hitler and Stalin were antireligious
with the response that Hitler and Stalin also
grew moustaches in an effort to show the argument
as fallacious. Instead, Dawkins argues in
The God Delusion: "What matters is not whether
Hitler and Stalin were atheists, but whether
atheism systematically influences people to
do bad things. There is not the smallest evidence
that it does".Historian Borden Painter assessed
Dawkins' claims on Stalin, atheism and violence
in light of mainstream historical scholarship,
stating that Dawkins did not use reliable
sources to reach his conclusions. He argues:
"He omits what any textbook would tell him:
Marxism included atheism as a piece of its
secular ideology that claimed a basis in scientific
thinking originating in the Enlightenment".
D'Souza responds to Dawkins that an individual
need not explicitly invoke atheism in committing
atrocities if it is already implied in his
worldview as is the case in Marxism.In a 1993
address to American bishops, Pope John Paul
II spoke of a spreading "practical atheism"
in modern societies which was clouding the
moral sense of humans and fragmenting society:
[T]he disciple of Christ is constantly challenged
by a spreading "practical atheism" – an
indifference to God's loving plan which obscures
the religious and moral sense of the human
heart. Many either think and act as if God
did not exist, or tend to "privatize" religious
belief and practice, so that there exists
a bias towards indifferentism and the elimination
of any real reference to binding truths and
moral values. When the basic principles which
inspire and direct human behavior are fragmentary
and even at times contradictory, society increasingly
struggles to maintain harmony and a sense
of its own destiny. In a desire to find some
common ground on which to build its programmes
and policies, it tends to restrict the contribution
of those whose moral conscience is formed
by their religious beliefs.
Journalist Robert Wright has argued that some
New Atheists discourage looking for deeper
root causes of conflicts when they assume
that religion is the sole root of the problem.
Wright argues that this can discourage people
from working to change the circumstances that
actually give rise to those conflicts. Mark
Chaves has said that the New Atheists, amongst
others who comment on religions, have committed
the religious congruence fallacy in their
writings by assuming that beliefs and practices
remain static and coherent through time. He
believes that the late Christopher Hitchens
committed this error by assuming that the
drive for congruence is a defining feature
of religion and that Daniel Dennett has done
it by overlooking the fact that religious
actions are dependent on the situation, just
like other actions.
== Atheism and science ==
Early modern atheism developed in the 17th
century and Winfried Schroeder, a historian
of atheism, has noted that science during
this time did not strengthen the case for
atheism. In the 18th century, Denis Diderot
argued that atheism was less scientific than
metaphysics. Prior to Charles Darwin, the
findings of biology did not play a major part
in the atheist's arguments since in the earliest
avowedly atheist texts atheists were embarrassed
to an appeal to chance against the available
arguments for design. As Schroeder has noted,
throughout the 17th and 18th centuries theists
excelled atheists in their ability to make
contributions to the serious study of biological
processes. In the time of the Enlightenment,
mechanical philosophy was developed by Christians
such as Isaac Newton, René Descartes, Robert
Boyle and Pierre Gassendi who saw a self-sustained
and autonomous universe as an intrinsically
Christian belief. The mechanical world was
seen as providing strong evidence against
atheism since nature had evidence of order
and providence, instead of chaos and spontaneity.
However, since the 19th century both atheists
and theists have said that science supports
their worldviews. Historian of science John
Henry has noted that before the 19th century
science was generally cited to support many
theological positions. However, materialist
theories in natural philosophy became more
prominent from the 17th century onwards, giving
more room for atheism to develop. Since the
19th century, science has been employed in
both theistic and atheistic cultures, depending
on the prevailing popular beliefs.In reviewing
the rise of modern science, Taner Edis notes
that science does work without atheism and
that atheism largely remains a position that
is adopted for philosophical or ethical, rather
than scientific reasons. The history of atheism
is heavily invested in the philosophy of religion
and this has resulted in atheism being weakly
tied to other branches of philosophy and almost
completely disconnected from science which
means that it risks becoming stagnant and
completely irrelevant to science.Sociologist
Steve Fuller wrote: "Atheism as a positive
doctrine has done precious little for science".
He notes: "More generally, Atheism has not
figured as a force in the history of science
not because it has been suppressed but because
whenever it has been expressed, it has not
specifically encouraged the pursuit of science".Massimo
Pigliucci noted that the Soviet Union had
adopted an atheist ideology called Lysenkoism,
which rejected Mendelian genetics and Darwinian
evolution as capitalist propaganda, which
was in sync with Stalin's dialectic materialism
and ultimately impeded biological and agricultural
research for many years, including the exiling
and deaths of many valuable scientists. This
part of history has symmetries with other
ideologically driven ideas such as intelligent
design, though in both cases religion and
atheism are not the main cause, but blind
commitments to worldviews. Lysenkoism reigned
over Soviet science since the 1920s to the
early 1960s where genetics was proclaimed
a pseudoscience for more than 30 years despite
significant advances in genetics in earlier
years. It relied on Lamarckian views and rejected
concepts such as genes and chromosomes and
proponents claimed to have discovered that
rye could transform into wheat and wheat into
barley and that natural cooperation was observed
in nature as opposed to natural selection.
Ultimately, Lysenkoism failed to deliver on
its promises in agricultural yields and had
unfortunate consequences such as the arresting,
firing, or execution of 3,000 biologists due
to attempts from Lysenko to suppress opposition
to his theory.According to historian Geoffrey
Blainey, in recent centuries literalist biblical
accounts of creation were undermined by scientific
discoveries in geology and biology, leading
various thinkers to question the idea that
God created the universe at all. However,
he also notes: "Other scholars replied that
the universe was so astonishing, so systematic,
and so varied that it must have a divine maker.
Criticisms of the accuracy of the Book of
Genesis were therefore illuminating, but minor".
Some philosophers, such as Alvin Plantinga,
have argued the universe was fine-tuned for
life. Atheists have sometimes responded by
referring to the anthropic principle.
Physicist Karl W. Giberson and philosopher
of science Mariano Artigas reviewed the views
of some notable atheist scientists such as
Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould,
Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg and E. O.
Wilson which have engaged popular writing
which include commentary on what science is,
society and religion for the lay public. Giberson
and Artigas note that though such authors
provide insights from their fields, they often
misinform the public by engaging in non-scientific
commentary on society, religion and meaning
under the guise of non-existent scientific
authority and no scientific evidence. Some
impressions these six authors make that are
erroneous and false include: science is mainly
about origins and that most scientists work
in some aspect of either cosmic or biological
evolution, scientists are either agnostic
or atheistic and science is incompatible and
even hostile to religion. To these impressions,
Giberson and Artigas note that the overwhelming
majority of science articles in any journal
in any field have nothing to with origins
because most research is funded by taxpayers
or private corporations so ultimately practical
research that benefit people, the environment,
health and technology are the core focus of
science; significant portions of scientists
are religious and spiritual; and the majority
of scientists are not hostile to religion
since no scientific organization has any stance
that is critical to religion, the scientific
community is diverse in terms of worldviews
and there is no collective opinion on religion.Primatologist
Frans de Waal has criticized atheists for
often presenting science and religion to audiences
in a simplistic and false view of conflict,
thereby propagating a myth that has been dispelled
by history. He notes that there are dogmatic
parallels between atheists and some religious
people in terms of how they argue about many
issues.Evolutionary biologist Kenneth R. Miller
has argued that when scientists make claims
on science and theism or atheism, they are
not arguing scientifically at all and are
stepping beyond the scope of science into
discourses of meaning and purpose. What he
finds particularly odd and unjustified is
in how atheists often come to invoke scientific
authority on their non-scientific philosophical
conclusions like there being no point or no
meaning to the universe as the only viable
option when the scientific method and science
never have had any way of addressing questions
of meaning or lack of meaning, or the existence
or non-existence of God in the first place.
Atheists do the same thing theists do on issues
not pertaining to science like questions on
God and meaning.Theologian scientist Alister
McGrath points out that atheists have misused
biology in terms of both evolution as "Darwinism"
and Darwin himself, in their "atheist apologetics"
in order to propagate and defend their worldviews.
He notes that in atheist writings there is
often an implicit appeal to an outdated "conflict"
model of science and religion which has been
discredited by historical scholarship, there
is a tendency to go beyond science to make
non-scientific claims like lack of purpose
and characterizing Darwin as if he was an
atheist and his ideas as promoting atheism.
McGrath notes that Darwin never called himself
an atheist nor did he and other early advocates
of evolution see his ideas as propagating
atheism and that numerous contributors to
evolutionary biology were Christians.Oxford
Professor of Mathematics John Lennox has written
that the issues one hears about science and
religion have nothing to do with science,
but are merely about theism and atheism because
top level scientists abound on both sides.
Furthermore, he criticizes atheists who argue
from scientism because sometimes it results
in dismissals of things like philosophy based
on ignorance of what philosophy entails and
the limits of science. He also notes that
atheist scientists in trying to avoid the
visible evidence for God ascribe creative
power to less credible candidates like mass
and energy, the laws of nature and theories
of those laws. Lennox notes that theories
that Hawking appeals to such as the multiverse
are speculative and untestable and thus do
not amount to science.
Physicist Paul Davies of Arizona State University
has written that the very notion of physical
law is a theological one in the first place:
"Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute,
universal, perfect, immutable laws from the
Christian doctrine that God created the world
and ordered it in a rational way". John Lennox
has argued that science itself sits more comfortably
with theism than with atheism and "as a scientist
I would say... where did modern science come
from? It didn't come from atheism... modern
science arose in the 16th and 17th centuries
in Western Europe, and of course people ask
why did it happen there and then, and the
general consensus which is often called Merton's
Thesis is, to quote CS Lewis who formulated
it better than anybody I know... 'Men became
scientific. Why? Because they expected law
in nature, and they expected law in nature
because they believed in a lawgiver.' In other
words, it was belief in God that was the motor
that drove modern science".Francis Collins,
the American physician and geneticist who
lead the Human Genome Project, argues that
theism is more rational than atheism. Collins
also found Lewis persuasive and after reading
Mere Christianity came to believe that a rational
person would be more likely to believe in
a god. Collins argues: "How is it that we,
and all other members of our species, unique
in the animal kingdom, know what's right and
what's wrong... I reject the idea that that
is an evolutionary consequence, because that
moral law sometimes tells us that the right
thing to do is very self-destructive. If I'm
walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning,
even if I don't know how to swim very well,
I feel this urge that the right thing to do
is to try to save that person. Evolution would
tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your
DNA. Who cares about the guy who's drowning?
He's one of the weaker ones, let him go. It's
your DNA that needs to survive. And yet that's
not what's written within me".Dawkins addresses
this criticism by showing that the evolutionary
process can account for the development of
altruistic traits in organisms. However, molecular
biologist Kenneth R. Miller argues that Dawkin's
conception of evolution and morality is a
misunderstanding of sociobiology since though
evolution would have provided the biological
drives and desires we have, it does not tell
us what is good or right or wrong or moral.
== New Atheism ==
In the early 21st century, a group of authors
and media personalities in Britain and the
United States—often referred to as the "New
Atheists"—have argued that religion must
be proactively countered, criticized so as
to reduce its influence on society. Prominent
among these voices have been Christopher Hitchens,
Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.
Among those to critique their world view has
been American-Iranian religious studies scholar
Reza Aslan. Aslan argued that the New Atheists
held an often comically simplistic view of
religion which was giving atheism a bad name:
This is not the philosophical atheism of Schopenhauer
or Marx or Freud or Feuerbach. This is a sort
of unthinking, simplistic religious criticism.
It is primarily being fostered by individuals
— like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins — who
have absolutely no background in the study
of religion at all. Most of my intellectual
heroes are atheists, but they were experts
in religion, and so they were able to offer
critiques of it that came from a place of
knowledge, from a sophistication of education,
of research. What we’re seeing now instead
is a sort of armchair atheism — people who
are inundated by what they see on the news
or in media, and who then draw these incredibly
simplistic generalizations about religion
in general based on these examples that they
see.
Professor of anthropology and sociology Jack
David Eller believes that the four principal
New Atheist authors—Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett
and Harris—were not offering anything new
in terms of arguments to disprove the existence
of gods. He also criticized them for their
focus on the dangers of theism as opposed
to the falsifying of theism, which results
in mischaracterizing religions, taking local
theisms as the essence of religion itself
and for focusing on the negative aspects of
religion in the form of an "argument from
benefit" in the reverse.Professors of philosophy
and religion Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher
Rodkey take issue with "the evangelical nature
of the new atheism, which assumes that it
has a Good News to share, at all cost, for
the ultimate future of humanity by the conversion
of as many people as possible". They find
similarities between the new atheism and evangelical
Christianity and conclude that the all-consuming
nature of both "encourages endless conflict
without progress" between both extremities.
Sociologist William Stahl notes: "What is
striking about the current debate is the frequency
with which the New Atheists are portrayed
as mirror images of religious fundamentalists".
He discusses where both have "structural and
epistemological parallels" and argues that
"both the New Atheism and fundamentalism are
attempts to recreate authority in the face
of crises of meaning in late modernity".The
English philosopher Roger Scruton has said
that saying that religion is damaging to mankind
is just as ridiculous as saying that love
is damaging to mankind. Like love, religion
leads to conflict, cruelty, abuse and even
wars, yet it also brings people joy, solitude,
hope and redemption. He therefore states that
New Atheists cherry-pick, ignoring the most
crucial arguments in the favour of religion,
whilst also reiterating the few arguments
against religion. He has also stated that
religion is an irrefutable part of the human
condition, and that denying this is futile.
== See also ==
== References ==
