Atheist Offensive!

"Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, but at least its an ethos." - The Big Lebowsky (regarding nihilism)

"What? There's no silicon heaven? Well, then where do all the calculators go??" - Red Dwarf

No, this is not a call for crusade or jihad, but I've just been noticing that quite a few published works have been put out recently in the cause of atheism: here's the review for one and for another. This comes in addition to a recent article by a noted psychologists (psychologists, neurologists and evolutionary bioligists seem to be especially strident atheists) regarding religion as a cognitive by-product.

This prompted me to do a little research on theism, atheism, agnoticism, ignoticism, ad nauseam. About.com has a slightly over-exhaustive defence of atheism, although one wishes that they'd find a more photogenic spokesman.

Thoughts about the existence/non-existence of god, an afterlife, and the supernatural in general are definitely heavy thoughts of mine, when I can tolerate the burden. And while I feel that atheism does have its uses, and probably should not be weighed with the burden of proof against them, it is just interesting to me that these days they focus so heavily on the evils of monotheism. Monotheism has historically caused quite a large amount of problems for humanity in general, from self-mutilation to forced belief in the earth as the center of the universe, to the belief in the sin of eating food. Still, one feels that these atheists argue as they do because they have some particular axes to grind. I have yet to see how these atheists would treat atheistic religions, such as Zen or Daoism: Are these Western authors anti-theist, or anti-religion? They seem to blur their argument. Also, I must admit that although I've read their arguments on evolutionary psychology, practical necessity, etc., I'm still not sure how the metaphysics of ethics is addressed; I mean, if love, truth, good and evil are mere relative human constructs, whats to stop them from being altered? If I could develop an evil Land of Mordor with slaves and whatnot, and it was able to maintain itself and compete favorably against other societies, who could then complain? What if the Nazis won? Can one stop short of nihilism in this line of reasoning? I realize the metaphysics of morals isn't exactly the same thing as the non/existence of god, but if atheism is blurring the line by attacking both theism and religion, then it the subjectivity or universality of ethics is also a concern that should be addressed, rather than just glibly explained away by evolution or "practicality".

The general theist/atheist debate also seems to avoid other pathways, such as the viability of pantheism or pandeism. Perhaps atheists would sniff that such beliefs are worthless semantic fudges, but then again if such beliefs relabel the world around us in a way that make people happy, why not? If atheists are supposed to address things from a scientific perspective, then they shouldn't then turn around and argue which is a "better" way to view the reality of which we are a part, as long as it accords science its due. Maybe it makes some people feel better to think that the universe operates under cold, scientific laws and randomness, but if others choose to see us as all part of a divine whole, I'm not sure what is so wrong with that. As for what monotheists think on these issues, I think we'll just skip over that.

I like a point raised by "ignosticism": as with many other philosophical debates, ultimately nobody really knows what the hell they're talking about, because they haven't really provided any strict definitions and are more or less attacking extremes and cariactures (this can be turned against atheists: despite their best efforts to pretend otherwise, atrocities have been committed by convinced atheists as much as by convinced theists).

Anyways, as for myself, I used to think I was a "free thinker" until I realized that it's an actual group. I think that Hindu concepts on the Brahman are probably a good step in my own direction, but ultimately I agree with Herman Hesse's Siddartha, who tells the Buddha that he absolutely agrees with him, and therefore cannot follow him out of fear that he'd be doing it for the wrong reasons and not reaching his own conclusions for himself. We each need to follow our own path, and can learn from others, but shouldn't listen to them too much.

As an extra, here's an interesting scholarly article on the development of a belief in the afterlife in the Bible. Those ancient Hebrews were harsh, damn!