Atheism is a reaction to the religious climate in the world. I’m not talking about religiophilosophies like Buddhism that are atheistic, but rather what is normally understood in the West with the label ‘atheist’, both positive and negative. As a reaction to extreme Christianity (and, to a lesser extent, Islam), it promises to be useful in breaking the shackles that these repressive systems represent.
But history has shown us many times that people break their shackles only to restore them in a new way. The French revolted against their Monarch, then suffered the Terror, and before you know it, they had an Emperor. The German monarchy was stripped away, so they elected a fascist dictator in its place. The Russians rose up and expelled the Czars but before you know it, the Party’s yolk is as repressive as ever.
History has shown this cycle again and again. Why should atheism be immune to it? Indeed, we can already see hints of this reaction in ‘atheists’ who accept things like orgonite, or astral projections, or fall prey to movements like ‘New Age’. I’ve seen a lot of people who go from being a Christian to being absolutely nuts in this regard. Spirituality, it would seem, is rooted in very many people’s psyches.
So where does one go from there? It is good enough for us, but clearly not for other people. Again, where to next? For a moment, let’s take the structuralists at their word and say that religion serves as social glue. Now, clearly this isn’t the only social glue present, but it has clearly shown itself to be an enduring one, and an effective one. What cultural glue is powerful enough to take the place of the dominant religion without itself being religious? A quick glance at some of the monuments in East Germany shows that while they took the idea that ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses’ quite seriously, to circumvent this problem, they created a highly ritualized pseudo-religion around Communism. Is that any better than what we are seeking to replace? Especially since in the US, the obvious replacement would seem to be some form of New Age. I have to question whether this system is superior to the paradigm that reactionary atheism is trying to fight against.
As a corollary to this, many secular warriors focus on the personal position: that they don’t need religion. I understand that completely, indeed, I was raised that way and I still very much find that system works for me. However, that invites the Zhuangzian-type relativism where what is good for one isn’t good for another. After all, if you care about what is good for you (from your perspective), you should also want to protect what is good for others (from their perspective) lest you to fall into the same sort of absolutist trap that causes many people to dislike Fundamentalist Christians so much.
But if we are making allowance for individual choice, what to do about those who find that radical theism represents the best choice for them? Well, we can quibble over the idea of ‘best’ but certainly the easiest and one that offers a satisfactory solution. Moreso, this type of thought exists on a sliding scale. While the easy answer of ‘God’ is appealing to many people, that answer can exist without the clusterfuck that is the Religious Right in America right now. So, rather than attack theism in general through atheism (which might not fit all people), wouldn’t it be better to encourage moderate theism?
Perhaps this is just the Daoist influence on my thinking, but to me trying to promote the antithesis of something only causes a reaction in the original movement that both strengthens it and radicalizes it. The example I always like to compare and contrast England and Germany with America and Turkey. Both England and Germany are Christian nations according to their national charters, whereas America and Turkey are secular according to their constitutions. But, if you look at the political rhetoric in those countries you would think it was the other way 'round! By trying to remove it from the national dialogue, religion has to force itself back in, and in a major way!
So, if atheism is to be used as a hammer to shatter the present Christian climate (especially in the US) what will rise in its place? Nothing is unsatisfactory on both a societal level as well as on a personal level for many people. It is the old Don Quixote stueck about a man with moonlight in his hands.
Humanism represents a tempting answer to this situation, but from the humanist groups I have seen IRL, it seems like it is a mish-mosh of whatever the individual wants it to be. That isn’t a community in any meaningful sense. Continuing in that vein, humanist groups don’t really meet that often. Unitarians sometimes manage to fix this, but in my experience (so, purely anecdotal), the more often a Unitarian group meets, the more likely it is to be taken over by mystic Christians or some other heretical group that doesn’t really offer anything better than the traditional group. Avoiding what one considers to be an irrational form of majority Christianity to embrace an irrational form of minority Christianity hardly represents a satisfactory solution.
When there is that shared element between people (like religion, nationality, local-sports-team-fandom, or whatever else you want) there is a common ground that has already been created between those people that doesn’t exist in something like, say, a bookclub. People come together with these things and produce a society. While the individual perspective shouldn’t be lost, I don’t think I am saying anything too radical when I say that the Apollonian is overemphasized in the modern world and the Dionysian has been all-but forgotten. This is especially troublesome since, after all, Apollo is the lord of dreams, whereas Dionysus represents social reality. So, basically what I am asking is: how, in the individualized world that many atheists promote, does one fight anomie? What is the future that they are striving towards?
