Atheism 2.0…
If you’ve read our book, Coffee Shop Conversations, you will remember that today’s “spirituality” and “boutique religion” is driven by secularism. This secularism allows a picking and choosing of favorable aspects of religion that appeal to us or are useful to us because, ultimately, those religions aren’t true and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Alain de Bottom gives a talk at TED on Atheism 2.0. And you can hear this idea in the opening minutes. He lets the cat right out of the bag. It’s refreshing when secularism admits what it’s doing.
But listen to the talk. Hear all the “usefulness” of religion that atheism can borrow. In an era in which people are walking away from religion and all of it’s “rituals,” the secularist and the atheist are discovering that rituals are important for human life. Without it, secularism has “gaps,” Bottom admits.
In the Q&A, Bottom says that, while the missing ingredient for atheists in borrowing form religion is a higher spiritual being and mystery, he says that isn’t important. It’s not about the HIGHER BEING, it’s about the FEELING that can be gained through science and pondering the dizzying size of the universe.
Here are his words:Absolutely. I, like many of you, meet people who say things like, “But isn’t there something bigger than us, something else?” And I say, “Of course.” And they say, “So aren’t you sort of religious?” And I go, “No.” Why does that sense of mystery, that sense of the dizzying scale of the universe, need to be accompanied by a mystical feeling? Science and just observation gives us that feeling without it, so I don’t feel the need. The universe is large and we are tiny,without the need for further religious superstructure. So one can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit. [italic mine]
Notice the shift: religion says there’s actually something going on that is more than the material world. Bottom turns that thing into a feeling. He says, “One can have so-called spiritual moments without believe in the spirit.” Talk about redefining terms… a spiritual experience without the spiritual? Is that akin to a wine experience without the wine or a friend experience without a friend? Is that the point? Does that coincide with honest human experience? Would a man who lost his legs in war be just as happy to know he hopped into a simulator and had a walking experience without actually walking? If it’s a feeling you are after, the secularist simply says “look at big things and you’ll get the spiritual feeling.”
In Christian terms, this is weird and unworthy of us. At the end of the day, when the world is against you and you have no feelings at all, you can know there is Someone who loves, who sees, and who will bring justice. Looking at the universe will not bring you this any more than buying a wedding ring for yourself does not mean there is a marriage partner who loves you. Buying a picture of a judge to hang on your wall doesn’t mean real justice took place for the man who kidnapped your child.
This is classic secularism at work, setting up a flat cardboard look-alike without any substance. Ultimately it sounds hollow because it lacks the big thing that religions offer: this world is here for a reason and, apart from the will of other men, you have a place in it.
January 26th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Interesting, will watch that talk, helps to hear where people are coming from!
Also intereting to hear of rituals as important. Can I ask what you mean by rituals?
I’ve been doing some reading (one book in particular, “The End of Religion” by Bruxy cavey), all about religion as a word that Jesus would likely not use to describe Christianity as it is about Him as a person not a set of rituals.
It’s left me thinking about all the goods and bads of it. I see ritual as dangerous and am always wary as it’s easy to fall into habit and feel the need to DO things to EARN God’s love! However, I have also benefited from learning about rituals in different christian denominations.
Would love to know what rituals you might consider important to life?
(Sorry I know this is off topic, if you’d rather stay on the atheism theme, no worries!
)
February 4th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
C. J. thanks for asking for my point of view on this.
In our fundamentalist and evangelical culture, these have become negative buzzwords. People have a general understanding of what they mean in those circles. As you spelled it out well.
But those meanings are not the only meanings in larger culture. Rituals are things you do repeatedly so that you can become a better person… and even more so, so that you do not forget.
Examples of general rituals people do in our culture: Birthdays, New Years, Anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July, Martin Luther King Day. Now for each of those, you can picture pretty easily what people do for those rituals. They mark the seasons, they help us remember something important, something about us, our culture, our values. Most clean people have a ritual of brushing their teeth before bed.
Israel had many of these. And God actually commanded it. Christians have rituals like Christmas, Easter, the Lord’s Supper, Baptism, Marriage ceremony, Memorials and burying for the dead, etc. Most church services have a ritual… welcome, singing, announcements, preaching, etc. Christians meet on the first day of the week, Sunday, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus who also rose from the dead. This too is a ritual.
So rituals are good. They become bad when we twist rituals into something they were not intended to do. Like celebrating Valentines Day itself instead of the one you love. Or celebrating Christmas, hoping God is paying attention.
Jesus may not have used the word “religion” as he may not have had that concept. But there were “religions” as we understand them today in that time period. In Scriptures day it was often a competition of the gods… one nations or regions gods trying to outsmart and defeat another’s. We see that at Mt. Carmel with Elijah.
In today’s culture, religion is a word that relates to various faiths and their practices, beliefs, etc. I have my masters in philosophy of religion. Every religion has beliefs and practices. Most relate to the supernatural. So when talking about categories of thought, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, Wicca, Judaism… these are all religions. The problem is not something being a religion… the problem is when we think all religions say the same thing or when we misunderstand the point of their beliefs and practices.
So in modern terms, yes Christianity is a religion. And when people say it’s “not a religion, it’s a relationship” they are using the word “religion” differently than most people have used it over the last few hundred years. You can still practice a religion and do so by grace with a relationship with God. Practicing religion is not trying to earn God’s favor, though someone can twist it into that (as the Pharisees did with their additions to the law and living apart from the One behind the law).
So when you speak to anyone in our culture, if you go on CNN, if you find yourself speaking about this question in the university classroom, you can use my definition and everyone will understand. If you use “religion” to say you are trying to “earn God’s favor” most people will look at you cross-eyed. Because that’s not what “religion” means. That’s the definition that the 20th century evangelicals have given it in their church talk. That’s not always a bad thing… but it can be a confusing thing.
I hope this short explanation has helped expand what I mean.
February 1st, 2012 at 6:03 pm
This is really weird…because I just got done listening to that very TED talk. And I got a completely different thing out of it.
First, I don’t think he was talking about secularism, persay, but more so atheism 1.0, which is the strident atheism that cannot abide even the singing of a Christmas carol with any religious overtone (the example he makes mention of right away in his talk).
In a sense, he is talking about an atheism that looks for the good in religion, as opposed to an atheism that is looking to attack religion.
And…I thought that was a wonderful thing. I wish the same for religion—that, say, evangelical Christianity was able to look out and see the good things in other systems, instead of looking out upon “enemies” we are warring against.
Also, I think that a “feeling” is a fine way to describe that spiritual sense of wonder, mystery, and magic. Nothing he said about that raised my hackles…
Looking into the stars and being amazed is something that can be spiritual…whether one believes that the God of the Israelites created those stars, believes in the Hindu cosmology, finds meaning in the Aztec, Australian aborigine, North American Cheyenne, Norse or ancient Greek creation stories…or believes in a non-deity-centered explanation.
There doesn’t need to be a religion involved in order to have a sense of meaning or purpose or to have an experience that is considered “spiritual.” And let us not forget that many religions and religious experiences have HARMED and squelched the human’s desire for meaning and purpose.
All that to say…I listened to the talk, found it interesting and was heartened to hear what I hope is the turn of a new atheist outlook. If we all set down our guns and stop believing we have to be at war with each other…maybe we can get somewhere! And so then I found myself wondering…did we listen to the same talk?
February 4th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Molly, I got all that out of the talk too. I was looking through the grid of his philosophical assumptions. I don’t think he was criticizing secularism… he was definitely criticizing Atheism 1.0 as espoused by Richard Dawkins (the Oxford joke), though I’ve heard Dawkins say some of the same things.
He was adhering to today’s secularism as his MO in Atheism 2.0, borrowing language form secular spiritualists (which we discuss in Coffee Shop Conversations). And his use of the word “spiritual” is unfortunately unhelpful for what he’s really believes. Spiritual things have always related to something non-material. Your explanations of different points of views of the stars in different religions all believe in the supernatural. Atheism doesn’t. To describe a feeling as a spiritual when you don’t believe there is anything spiritual is to erode the meaning of the word. We can use “wonder” or “joy” or “awe.” But to use the word “spiritual” is like saying I ate an egg today and called it hot fudge. Both may relieve hunger but both are not the same thing.
Have your read Lewis’ Abolition of Man? In his first chapter, “Men without Chests” he speaks into a 1950s version of this very talk… The waterfall itself loses its meaning…. All the wonder meaning is inside us now. And even that meaning is secretions of juices to make us feel that way.
I do hope for a more friendly atheist outlook, just as I hope for a friendly evangelical outlook. But I also hope for a true honesty that while they may pick and choose pragmatic benefits of certain religious practices, let’s not ignore what the moderator raised so keenly: that when people are talking about religion and the spirit they are not referring to practice but to a profound Spirit of some kind for which and by which all the practicing makes sense. HIs question was the right one. And the speaker failed to answer it directly but punted it to feelings using the wrong words.
I don’t think anyone needs to be in a religion to have a sense of purpose or meaning. And I agree that many religions have hurt others, including versions of my own. That was not the point of my critique.
What I heard in this talk, I’ve seen going on for quite some time. Not only in practice but also in dismissing the meatier question by using spiritual language sans the spiritual.
I’m not at war with atheists. They can believe whatever the want. But when they dress up and call it seething else, it should be pointed out. I would hope the same would be pointed out when religious people do it.