I’m hopeful about the future for what some have dubbed “New Atheism.” But for it to really become successful, it has to become a mass movement. It must attract not only rebels and misfits, but average people.
What is required for a mass movement? Eric Hoffer, who wrote The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, says this:
A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrines and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaningless of an individual existence.
Does atheism offer this? I’m afraid it often doesn’t. Atheism is defined by what it denies, and usually breaks down perceived meaning without replacing it. It burdens the convert with the knowledge that we must create our own purpose. This is not what the masses want to hear.
Another important aspect of mass movements is community. “The chief passion of the frustrated is to belong,” Hoffer says. Here atheism fails miserably. Usually a person becomes an atheist in spite of knowing their community will reject them — and there is no new community to embrace them. The Internet has helped this. But in spite of all the benefits on online communities, they do not replace our real communities.
This means atheism is only attracting rebels — those willing, in some sense, to be outcasts. It has no way of welcoming people. Compare this to a church, where you are greeted on your way in, attend classes to get to know others, and meet at least once a week.
It seems to me that atheism is not a final destination. It is a necessary part of a skeptical worldview, but I don’t think it will always be a defining characteristic. It is only a defining characteristic because of how widespread the delusion of a deity is. If most people were atheists, it would be like believing the earth was round or that it travels around the sun — both ho-hum beliefs now but at one time defining characteristics. But for us to get to that point, it seems atheism will have to become a mass movement for a period of time.
Can atheism give help people overcome the anxieties of an individual existence? Can it give them a welcoming community to be part of? If so, how? If not, is there hope for it to become a mass movement?
Jabster: “In all honesty, it has been a long time since I have read any of Marx and... 
steven: at my school the dress code is if ur in kindy white shirt grey pants nappy... 
billybee: To clarify: I claimed all $3200.00 of the income from C.C. on that years filing. 
Sunny Day: Hilarious, and I’m supposed to be chided for not reading the bible. HA HA... 
34 Comments
Hi. A comment from France.
This kind of post makes me really feel the difference between US and France on these matters. Here no one would be questioned about this faith or lack thereof. We don’t have such strong religious communities, and there are many other ways to socialize. Public people usually never advertise their faith (although our current president, Mr. Sarkozy, who is missing a lot of philosophical and historical background, shows worrying trends towards religions) or anything personal e.g. marital status, sex affairs or sexual orientation. We even have one lady in our government who is pregnant while not married, and who clearly stated she would not tell who is the father – nobody cares.
Another example: I’m a (really hard ;-) ) atheist, not even baptized, while one of my best friend is a (hard) catholic, although with a engineering background, and we often argue about interaction between churches and society, and also about ethics, but we would never disrespect each other based on religious aspects. I perfectly know and acknowledge the importance of catholic churches in the past in Europe, he perfectly agrees on the separation of churches and state that we have in France since 1905.
Surely, it’s not yet all good, but it looks much better than what I understand from your post.
PS: and please, please, make sure to not get Sarah Palin to the white house…
I still attend church every Sunday. There’s something about a community which meets every week to hear (sometimes) relevant speaking, sing songs, and commune (something communities, by definition, should do, no?)
I just find myself wishing that it were possible to have something like this without all the mindless drivel about faith, and without people being patted on the back because of their fake certainties and for being the best at pretending to know things they don’t know.
I lament that religions seem to have created a monopoly on these things, and that if you meet weekly, on a Sunday, you must worship some imaginary deity.
This is one area that religions seem to have a good thing going, but which they spoil with spirituality and ritualism. Worse, they seem to have spoiled it for everyone else. No one there suspects, as far as I know, that I’m not one of them because I keep it a secret. And I have to, because they believe that in order to be part of the community, I too must pretend to love my imaginary deity, give him credit for all that is good, and ignore his responsibility in all that is bad.
This is a very interesting question! One I think is very valid, and that makes a great point that generally atheism is seen more as a regection of something, rather than it’s nature of open minded-ness and reason.
Unfortunately, the main problem I feel that happens when atheists gather is that inevitably they begin to talk in a way that belittles religious people, rather than religion itself. This of course would not further the new atheism movement at all, and would probably in fact scare people away.
I feel as though the religious will no longer be the majority eventually. I would be curious to know some statistics on the percentages of religious people today vs 100 years ago. I would guess that there are many more athiests today than in the past.
It makes sense that the more science discovers the way our world works, the more skeptical people are that the man behind the curtain is running the show.
I don’t think atheism can be a mass movement. You arrive at atheism by being sceptical of belief in god or gods and all things supernatural. If you investigate the nature of reality beyond this, you will come to find that the scientific method is the most powerful methodology for knowing about that reality that has ever been devised in the history of the human species. I believe that this leads one to naturalism as a way of perceiving things, i.e., there is only the natural, nothing supernatural exists. I also believe that an enlightened form of humanism can be derived from naturalism, a humanism that is based on an understanding of humans as fully caused, social animals who have a need for meaning, a sense of belonging and community, etc., in their lives, and who can be moral, ethical, and spiritual beings without any recourse to belief in higher, supernatural powers.
Having said this, I see no particular religious institutions that would serve to further this kind of perspective on the world and the peoples in it. The Unitarian-Universalist Association comes as close as I imagine any church can to being a secular religious institution, but lacks the hallmarks of being anything even remotely like a mass movement. Various humanist and secular humanist organizations function somewhat similarly, but without any trappings of religion or the sorts of things like art, music, liturgy, etc that bind people together in orthodox religious settings. I fail to see how atheist, naturalist, secular humanists are going to set anyone on fire with any of their proclamations about free-thinking and rational living. If you’re looking for inspirational scientific writing, you can turn to things like the works of Carl Sagan (and his “Cosmos” series) and some of the more lyrical passages from Richard Dawkins’ writings, etc. But beyond that, I think we’re going to have to reinvent ourselves over a long period of time as a larger, secular humanist society. Religion is not anywhere near dead (I only need take a casual walk in my own neighborhood to verify that) and we are still probably decades, if not several centuries, away from a world where the norm is naturalistic, atheistic, secular humanism, no matter how it expresses itself. If we survive this century and into the future beyond, perhaps we will one day achieve something like that. We need to champion freedom of thought and expression, the value of education, and the worth and dignity of individuals in society at large. Humans being what they are, in time, I think, we will see new rituals and community organizations arise that express these ideals in a much wider and more visible context. I suspect that much of what now is viewed as orthodox religious expression will be transformed into something more in line with these ideals in the decades and centuries to come.
What would drive the forming of an atheist community? Christians gather because they are drawn together as body of Christ (Trinity Person 2) by the Holy Spirit (Trinity Person 3), for the glory of God the Father (Trinity Person 1). Christianity, with it’s innately relational Trinitarian God, creates community naturally. If (if) atheism is an inherently individualistic world view, then their unifying characteristic is antithetical to community. Why would atheists want to be associated with other atheists per se when all they have in common is a negative take on another worldview? Why not just get together with people of similar interests regardless of their religious views?
“What would drive the forming of an atheist community? Christians gather because they are drawn together as body of Christ (Trinity Person 2) by the Holy Spirit (Trinity Person 3), for the glory of God the Father (Trinity Person 1). Christianity, with it’s innately relational Trinitarian God, creates community naturally.”
Which, of course, ignores the thousands of religions that foster a sense of community that do not believe in a trinity, or in the Christian god at all.
Trinitarian Christians are not the center of the universe, you know.
Trinitarian Christians are not the center of the universe, you know.
Of course not, the Earth is!
But I’m speaking specifically of Christianity’s inherent sense of community—something that atheism lacks. Other religions may foster community by other means and I’ll let their adherents speak for themselves. Secular society fosters community by living in neighborhoods, going to school and to work, playing/watching sports, and lots of other ways. Why should atheists seek yet another in addition to the myriad of available options? What would a group of atheists commune over that they couldn’t just as well do in other groups? My point is: Why bother?
There is always the option of calling yourselves agnostics and starting a community agnostic picnic / barbecue. Like communism, atheism is a bad bad word among the masses. Regardless, this is less of a problem for introverts.
(I have participated in the most ridiculous debates about why agnostics are correct but atheists are wrong. Apparently, it would be much better if I called myself an agnostic than an atheist when I ask for evidence on whatever the weekly flavour of self-deception is.)
My atheism is not a defining characteristic of who I am. My critical mind is, and my atheism is merely a symptom of that critical, logical mind.
Why is a mass movement needed? Give religion enough rope and it hangs itself! We just need alot of rope.
Maybe some sort of atheist organisation…
cue Bender moment.
Actually atheism and religion may both soon become irrelevant.
Here’s a take on evolution.
As Moores law( the doubling of computing capacity every 18 months) continues to about the year 2025 we should have achieved true artificial intelligence,that is to say that computers will be as smart and functional as us.
Now what happens as Moores’ law continues and computers become twice then four times eight times etc. smarter than us?
At that point the machines will be effectively in control of us.
It will or could get to the point where we will be like flatworms trying to understand opera in understanding what and how these machines are thinking.
Ever wonder why aliens are depicted as scrawny creatures with 3 fingers and big heads? It could be that intelligence machines have effectively taken over many fuctions of thier lives and those elements of thier being have become genetically dormant.
This is happening already. If the computer goes down at the convienience store the clerk may not even be able to count change. We are more dependent on our machines every day.
Alien space craft sightings could be just that, sighting of flying computers sent from oter places in the universe to collect data. Prety easy for a machine to fly a few hundred light years as long as there’s a stable power source.
also with the advent of quantum computers, circuits that function on a sub atomic level, we see that we could already be part of a simulation started by one of our intelligent ancestors.
Matter can become information as well as energy.
@Samuel: If religion will hang itself with enough rope, why did it flourish for so long — until science came along?
My opinion is, give religion enough rope, and it’ll construct the Dark Ages again with it.
In a sense science is already a movement to establish meaningful existence apart from religion though I read somewhere a majority of scientists believe in some sort of God. Seems contradictory.
I have added the references to the above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore’s_law
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/quantum-computer.htm
Taken from “The Simpsons” episode# 236
I’ve thought about this as well. Our insistence that ‘atheism’ denotes only a disbelief in God is something of a double edged sword: on one hand it’s useful against odd claims about or ideologies or motivations (‘All atheists are conservative-hating liberals’, for example), but it also doesn’t make it particularly attractive. As you pointed out, there’s no aspect of community there and no real possibility for an aspect of community, either; you can’t build a feeling of fellowship on a single belief (or lack of belief). Just because someone is an atheist is no guarantee that you’ll agree with that person on anything else.
Do you think we should try to redefine atheism into something more than it is at present, into something that could be inclusive and broad, or should we try to go with something like secular humanism, which is atheistic in nature but not ‘atheism’?
In my opinion, religion is doomed in the long run, if we are not all doomed in the short run. Rationality will ultimately win, because once a person gets to that point, they never move off it. When a society gets there, it never moves off it either.
The situation in Europe is an excellent proof of why there is “hope.” Many churches in England are now grocery stores or discos, and interest continues to wane.
I think all the things you bring up in this post will determine who quickly a more rational point of view will take hold in the US.
Have you read Sam Harris’s book? (I’m thinking probably yes.) If so, you’ll understand why the goal of atheists should be to make this happen as quickly as possible. Atheists should mobilize and figure out ways to make atheism a mass movement in the US.
Now … how do we mobilize? Maybe we should create a form of community that people long for: meetings on Saturday nights that consist of parties: good conversation, drinking, and what-have-you. Woohoo!
tryin a new avatar.Thanks for the indulgence
Re: comment 12 by murrowcronkite. Your view is derived from the thinking of people like Ray Kurzweil, et.al who say that the “singularity” is near. That may not be such a bad thing. For example, if any carbon-based life forms are going to survive on the planet in an ecology resembling anything at all like that to which we are accustomed, we’re probably going to need supercomputers to figure out how ecosystems function and how best to repair or modify, or even build them. From there it’s only a few steps to “terra-forming” other planets and harnessing unimaginable amounts of power. If interstellar travel is possible,perhaps superenhanced beings (the distinction between computer and human becomes meaningless at this level) will spread outward from this solar system to the galaxy and cosmos beyond.
Or the whole thing will spin out of control and we’ll inadvertently kill ourselves in the not too distant future.
Who knows? Stay tuned…….
The situation in Europe is an excellent proof of why there is “hope.” Many churches in England are now grocery stores or discos, and interest continues to wane.
I live in Ireland, where many former churches have indeed been converted into some form of business (the most famous being ‘the Church’ restaurant in Dublin). On one hand it is a promising sign that religion’s grasp on society is weakening, but it’s a major double-edged sword. What James Randi would call ‘woo’ of all forms (tarot, mystical healing, ‘alternative’ medicine, etc.) is exploding in popularity here at the moment. Traditional religion is waning, but atheism in this country is completely powerless to offer people a viable alternative. Instead, they seem to gravitate towards superstition and ‘magical’ practices.
OK…
who wants to write the atheist catechism?
We should totally involve chocolate and cookies in our sacraments.
That’s funny. You discuss the hypothetical possibility of massive atheist movement, like it never happened before. Haven’t you guys heard about a country named Soviet Union? I’ve spent 25 years there, before it collapsed.
For 70 years, in Soviet Union atheism was promoted by the state. Right after the revolution many churches were destroyed, many priests were executed just to scare the public away from churches. It worked well. By the time I remember (70-80-s) the believers were outcasts. For example, in my High School there was just 1 (one!) believer, out of hundreds of people. Everybody knew this (because it was weird – someone believes in God), everybody made fun of him, he was treated really badly. The teachers also would give him bad grades – how could you give a good grade in science class to someone who believes such a nonsense? Also, a believer in the school would lower school ratings/statistics, so nobody liked him. I don’t think he could go to University after the school. It was not pretty. If you think atheists are treated badly in the US, you can’t even imagine the discrimination against believers in Soviet Union.
Then, the Soviet Union collapsed. The state atheist propaganda ended. No more pressure; no more fear to confess you believe in God. So, what happened in the next 15 years? Christianity quickly gained popularity, and majority of people in Russia today claim to be believers.
So, the 70-year long experiment with all-atheist society has failed there. Is it possible in the future/in other places of the world? Maybe, but I highly doubt it.
I’m guessing that most atheists in Europe or the USA today are looking forward to a time when churches are destroyed and priests executed. There is a difference between propogating atheism as a viable worldview that can compete with religion and propogating atheism through the ruthless supression of religion.
Gah, that should be ‘I’m guessing thatm most atheists in Europe or the USA are not looking forward to a time when churches are destroyed and priests executed’. Of all the places to leave out a word….
Do you think the communist party did bad job propagating atheism as a viable worldview? In my time, it was not like people were religious but were afraid to tell. No, almost everybody was honestly atheistic. Naturally, naively atheistic – nobody would ever challenge this worldview. And it was reinforced in school. Every University had a mandatory class, called “Scientific Atheism”. One couldn’t get a degree without studying Plato, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and contemporary philosophers, and making the logical, rational conclusion: atheism is the only viable worldview.
…By some reason, the teachers of Scientific Atheism were always the dumbest, non-interesting people in the University. And we hated this class, because we had to spend our precious time, 1 year of studies on fighting something nobody would believe anyway. I guess this shaped my current world view, and I see atheism as a pathetic idea, which is even worse than religion.
@privet: Appealing to the Soviet Union to show that atheism is a “pathetic idea” is like appealing to the Crusades to show that Christianity is a “pathetic idea.” Those events may have been bad, but they do not address to the truth or falsehood of atheism or Christianity.
Just like there can be evil Christians and Christian governments, there can be evil atheists and atheistic governments. Such is life. Unfortunate, though.
…By some reason, the teachers of Scientific Atheism were always the dumbest, non-interesting people in the University. And we hated this class, because we had to spend our precious time, 1 year of studies on fighting something nobody would believe anyway. I guess this shaped my current world view, and I see atheism as a pathetic idea, which is even worse than religion.
…hang on a minute. There’s a common caricature of atheists that portrays them as simply rejecting the idea of God because they were mistreated by the church or otherwise had some sort of ‘bad experience’ with religion. How is this any different? Your views on atheism, if they were indeed shaped mostly by this, have nothing to do with atheism or religion – instead they’re informed solely by a bad experience. This would be like me saying that I found the possibility of God’s existence ‘pathetic’ solely because I was forced to go to a Catholic school and was indoctrinated into that particular brand of theism.
I guess I didn’t explain myself well; the last words were confusing, my bad. The fact that the state was evil is irrelevant here.
It just because I was raised in a non-believer society, agnostic world view seems so natural to me, and spending time and energy on promoting atheism is not worth it.
Think about this.
Say, there is a group of people that believe in flying spaghetti monster. Let’s call them group A, and their agenda: “Believe in flying spaghetti monster, and you will be OK”. Nice.
And then there’s another group of people, group B. Their agenda: “Group A is wrong! Don’t believe in flying spaghetti monster”.
To me, group A would be weird and mildly interesting. The group B would be just pathetic. Don’t these people have nothing better to do with their lives than fight some nonsense?
I don’t want to be in either of these two groups, and I’m not.
@privet: It’s pathetic to want to further the truth? If you dedicated your life to Bigfoot, wouldn’t you want someone to show you how wrong you are, so you don’t waste your life on a lie? What about when doctors were doing bloodletting — wouldn’t you want someone to prove they are wrong, since they were killing people?
I can see your point, and of course it’s your choice to just be neutral and not advocate anything or debunk anything, but I’d rather be someone who advocates for what I believe to be the truth, and still be open to where I’m wrong (because of course I am)/
However, are you not doing what you say is wrong by telling us that atheism is pathetic?
Daniel:
First, English is not my first nor second language, so I apologize if the word pathetic has very negative connotations in English. What I mean by that is that it’s sad and not worthwhile. Not productive.
Again, it’s my personal opinion. The difference is – I’m not advocating it and I don’t claim it’s universally true, far from it. I don’t believe in any absolute truths, for this matter.
Also, I realize that we are products of our environment. I live in the US now and – yes, this is a different world; I see how strong is the religion here, even comparing to the western Europe. Also, I realize that you have your own agenda, as a former passionate evangelical Christian. The strongest atheists I know come from religious families/backgrounds, and strongest believers I know come from very atheistic families/backgrounds.
So, my remark was not intended to diminish what you and your comrades :) are doing, it was just my personal biased opinion.
To me, group A would be weird and mildly interesting. The group B would be just pathetic. Don’t these people have nothing better to do with their lives than fight some nonsense?
I don’t want to be in either of these two groups, and I’m not.
Well, that’s fair enough. The thing is, a lot of atheists aren’t all that interested in fighting religion as a whole either. I browse blogs on here and debate with Christians when they’re up for it, but just today I was talking to a seminary student at my University and had a very pleasant time; the issue of religion never came up. Sure, I’d like to see the elimination of things like Creationism and the general anti-science attitude associated with it, but that’s because those things have a very tangible, negative effect on the society they inhabit. I’d also like to see atheists at the very least be almost as common as theists, and equally accepted, but that’s it – I don’t want to ‘destroy’ religion.
Science and Religion
Science is different from religion. It does not pretend that it knows everything. There are even now deep questions about the origins of the universe that we don’t have answers to now though it is possible we may be able to answer some of them in the future.
But the inability of science to provide answers to these questions does not prove that religious faith, tradition, or an ancient holy text has the ability to answer them. Science cannot prove that God does not exist, but this in no way establishes that God exists. There are millions of things whose lack of existence cannot be established.
The philosopher Bertrand Russel had an analogy. Imagine that there is a teapot in orbit around the sun. It is impossible to prove that the teapot does not exist because it is too small to be detected by our telescopes. Nobody but a crazy person would say “Well, I’m prepared to believe in the teapot because I cannot establish that it doesn’t exist.” This means that maybe we have to be technically agnostics, but really we are all atheists about teapots with orbits around the sun.
But now let us suppose that everybody in our society including our teachers and the sages of our tribes all had faith in a teapot that orbits the sun. Let us also suppose that stories of the teapot have come down to us for many generations as one of the traditions of our own society and there are ancient holy texts about the teapot. In this case people would say that a person who did not believe in the teapot is eccentric or mad.
There are infinite numbers of things like celestial teapots whose lack of existence we are unable to establish. There are fairies, for example, and there are unicorns and goblins. We cannot prove that any of these creatures of the imagination do not exist in reality. But we don’t believe they exist, just as we don’t believe that the gods of the Scandinavians, for example, have any true existence.
We are all atheists about almost all of the gods created by societies in the past. Some of us, however, take the ultimate step of believing that the god of the Jews and the Christians, like the gods of the Greeks and the Egyptians, also does not exist.
—
Now here’s a version of this text in Interlingua. (For more information about Interlingua, use a search enging to search on the title “Interlingua in interlingua” or go to http://www.interlingua.com.
Le scientia es differente del religion. Illo non pretende que illo sape toto. Il ha etiam nunc questiones profunde sur le origines del universe al quales nos nunc non ha responsas ben que il es possible que nos potera responder a alicunes de illos in le futuro.
Ma le incapacitate del scientia de provider responsas a iste questiones non proba que le fide religiose, le tradition, o un texto sancte e ancian pote responder a illos. Le scientia non pote probar que Deo non existe, ma isto non establi de ulle maniera que Deo existe. Il ha milliones de cosas cuje existentia non pote esser establite.
Le philosopho Bertrand Russell habeva un analogia. Imagina que il ha un theiera in orbita circum le sol. Il es impossibile probar que le theiera non existe proque illo es troppo parve pro esser detegite per nostre telescopios. Nemo excepte un folle dicerea, “Multo ben, io es preparate a creder in le theiera proque io non pote establir que illo non existe.” Isto significa que forsan nos debe esser technicamente agnosticos, ma vermente nos es omnes atheistas sur theieras con orbitas circum le sol.
Ma que nos nunc suppone que omnes in nostre societate includente nostre professores e le sagios de nostre tribos habeva fide in un theiera que orbita le sol. Que nos anque suppone que historias del theiera ha venite usque nos trans multe generationes como un del traditiones de nostre proprie societate e que il ha textos sancte ancian sur le theiera. In iste caso le gente dicerea que un persona qui non credeva in le theiera es eccentric o folle.
Il ha numeros infinite de cosas como theieras celestial cuje manco de existentia nos non pote establir. Il ha fees, pro exemplo, e il ha unicornios e gnomos. Nos non pote probar que iste creaturas del imagination non existe in le realitate. Ma nos non crede que illos existe exactamente como nos non crede que le deos del Scandinavos, pro exemplo, ha ulle existential ver.
Nos es omnes atheistas sur quasi omne le deos create per societates in le passato. Alicunes de nos tamen prende le ultime passo de creder que le deo del judaeos e del christianos, como le deos del grecos e le egyptianos, anque non existe.
No one can convince anyone that there is a God. Not science, not creation, not good preaching, not even the amount of goose bumps that appear up and down your arm when you have a godly feeling. Because if someone can talk you into God then someone else can talk you out of God.
For me, the only thing that has convinced me that there is a God is God himself. The Holy Spirit indwells in every believer. It convicts them of their sin, guides them to God’s will, and changes their heart of stone to a heart of flesh. I just testified to this reality in my life but know one will believe it because they can’t feel it themselves.
As mankind is naturally evil, mankind hates God. They do not want to be held accountable to the person in charge so they will try and delude themselves to the point where they can mostly believe that there is not God… and then feel better for it… especially if they have managed to stir up a great gathering of like minded people.
You will never convince some who is saved that there is no God because they belong to God. Jesus says you must repent and believe… but you don’t want to hear that do you? The only way to be convinced is to receive the Holy Spirit… the only way to receive the Holy Spirit is to seek the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And pray that He finds you. God Bless.
Ben
Ben is essentially saying that God is a personal God. We are either with him or we try to start mass movements against him.
Eternity is written on our hearts. Everyone knows that there is a God no matter how much they hate him and no matter how much they try to deceive themselves into believing he does not exist.
God used creation to prove that he exists so we would be without excuse on the day of judgment. So what does man do… invent the religion of evolution to deny the creation. This will continue til Christ returns.
In no way do I want to make anyone angry with God by my words. The only reason I commented on this blog is because there are many lost people in the world and there is very little that I can do to convince them to look to Christ. I hope this may plant a seed of hope. Take care all.
Max
I agree with Michael Edward Davis. Moore’s law/The Law of Accelerating Returns are well developed theories that have the statistical backing behind them. As Michael said, the only way this trend will end is if a major catastrophe occurred. Hopefully this will not be the case. I look forward to the emerging technologies in this new paradigm we are about to enter.
–
Corey M.