The comments in quotations are from a friend. My remarks are written after his.
“Yes, I did criticize the ‘New Atheists’ and of course, I was also criticizing 99% of all the atheists I’ve ever spoke with for their lack of philosophical awareness, which makes them not an alternative to religious fundamentalism but the other side of the coin, the secular side let’s say. Of course, that criticism still stands. The great Christian, Dostoyevsky, once expressed, speaking of the ‘puny’ atheists of his time, that he could, with his little finger, make an argument against God that would eclipse anything the ‘so-called’ atheists could come up with. What is interesting about that little story is it shows this sense of disappointment with the common throng of atheists.
“In terms of embracing the views of the ‘new atheists’, that is a little tricky. In terms of ’embracing’ anything I was saying, it is more accurate to say that they are propositions that I’m leaning toward, but it is not yet a slam dunk. As I mentioned, I’m intrigued by the questions. All too often I feel the weight of the question is not fully ascertained before one rushes headlong for a solution, then they speak eloquently of the solution without taking the question to its limits. Thus the point gets missed, in addition to the point that their solution is flawed and not up to the magnitude of the job, for example a child with a water hose trying to extinguish a 4 alarm fire. The ‘Death of God’ is a good example. The full magnitude of this seems to evade most people. I’m not saying I get the full magnitude of this but it has indeed become a ponderous abyss the more I stare into it, something difficult to convey to most people caught up in the flow of their busy lives.
“You’ve heard the quote by Voltaire that goes, ‘if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him’. I find the implications of this terrifying. What if it is the case that we cannot live without God? That as human beings we need God, the concept of God, the illusion of God, and without it we become miserable. No one seems to be content remaining in the abyss. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan vanquished to the abyss and he is not content there. He must live in constant rebellion. He entices Adam and Eve to rebel against God, thus the Fall of humanity. For thinking they could live outside of the law of God, they are expelled from Eden and death enters the world. But, the question raised by The Iceman Cometh, are human beings dependent upon illusion and lying to oneself in order to be happy. That new gods arise here and there as people cannot stand the full nothingness that their freedom entails, and rush to enslave themselves to this idol and that. Can we live without lying to ourselves?”
My response :
(1) we can live without lying to ourselves, though occasionally it’s necessary to lie to others;
(2) fallibility is not the same as lying;
(3) ‘atheism’ isn’t, in that the lack of belief does not constitute a belief, though there needs to be a word for a habit of thinking such that we don’t believe, but instead adopt reasonable standards for what we know, as opposed to what we’d believe;
(4) Dostoyesky exaggerated, in that credible atheists predated him and also were among his contemporaries;
(5) the solution to religious fundamentalism, if not also religion in general, involves expanding ‘secular humanism’ ( probably losing its name) so that it includes all lifekind, and dispenses with the notion of humanity as the measure of all things, so as to see ourselves (as individuals, communities, societies, and as a species), as a very small part of something—the universe(s)—incomprehensibly vast and complex;
(6) secular humanism and religion, are two sides of a coin, so to speak, of our collective over-estimation of the importance of our species. Atheism falls short if it bogs down in scientistic rationalism, and fails to come to terms with our dependence on nature. As you know, my own attempt to address this is to frame matters in terms of maximizing kindness on Earth; in my opinion, ‘atheism’ is far too much AGAINST religion, and far too little FOR a comprehensive philosophy thru which to, if you will, “maximize kindness” with a breadth of scope that includes all lifekind.
(7) it seems you’re reifying the so-called ‘death of God,’ and maybe forgetting that it’s a metaphor, and that metaphors can illuminate facts, but not establish them; skepticism regarding gods does not necessarily result from the absence of human purpose; I’d say the point of Existentialism is not that life is absurd and meaningless, but rather that human beings are better off to exert effort for creating our sense of meaning, as individuals, communities, and societies. A related point of Existentialism, in my estimation, is that meaning does not exist in the universe independent of living, (as far as we know) flesh-and-blood beings; that view occurs within the broader perspective of Philosophical Materialism; by contrast, non-materialists see purpose behind all phenomena of the universe, whereby there are not only patterns in nature, but conscious design;
(8) in light of that formulation in (7), it would seem to follow that humans can achieve a deeper sense of purpose thru thinking that the universe itself does not have purpose, but that seeking purpose is something that humans and other conscious beings do;
(9) but I’ll keep an open mind, and not be rigid or scientistic in my Philosophical Materialism; I can imagine some of the intensely rigorous perspectives on Earth’s living systems challenging the philosophical materialist view that (a) nature has patterns necessary for it’s functioning, though (b) it has no intrinsic, conscious design;
(10) But, in order to avoid excessive certainty, I must not cling too tightly to philosophical materialism, and instead bear in mind the key inquiry. Actually I’m wondering about whether humans can strive to maximize well-being and minimize suffering for all lifekind.
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