Ramblings of a Godless Heathen

Atheism and religious extremism are both on the rise - it's time we talked about it

  To be an atheist in the United Kingdom today is a thankfully easy thing. The 2011 census states that a more than a quarter of the population officially have no religion, and a poll this April revealed that only a third of Britons believe religion has a positive role to play in the country, while over a quarter believe it has an actively negative effect. However, religious extremism is also on the increase - the exodus of British Muslims to fight for IS in Iraq and Syria and the rising social media popularity of Protestant extremist groups like Britain First prove that.

  In a Britain where both extremes of attitude to faith - total disbelief and total belief - are becoming more common, it is important to talk about this, even if it does provoke discomfort to do so. The champions of what is often (mis)termed 'militant atheism'  - people like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens - have reached the point now where they are alienating as many people as they convert. It is perhaps time then for a less charged discussion. Here goes...


What's in a Name?

  To start with, let's define some terms. We'll kick off with the aforementioned 'militant atheist' - a nonsense term if there ever was one. A militant is someone who takes up arms in the name of a cause; very few people have ever taken up arms in the name of not believing in a god - why would you? (And no, Stalin doesn't count. Don't go there.)


  Atheist means simply someone who does not believe in any gods. To be clear, it does not mean they believe there definitely aren't any - just that, on balance, they think there is insufficient reason to believe there are. What people mean when they say 'militant atheist' is usually antitheist - i.e. someone who is opposed to religious belief. It is entirely possible to be an atheist without being an antitheist. 

  Theist, as you probably guessed, is someone who believes in at least one god - they may believe in many more. The word for this is polytheist, whereas someone who believes in a single deity is a monotheist. Some faiths have a concept of multiple aspects of a single deity having semi-independent existence of their own - e.g. Hinduism and most denominations of Christianity - which is known as pluriform monotheism. 

  Agnostic is a more ambiguous term - technically it describes anyone not 100% certain that god(s) either exist or that they don't, which includes most atheists and most theists. More usually, however, it is used to describe someone who is halfway between the two - i.e. someone who considers the probability of the existence of god(s) to be as likely as it is not. These people are pretty rare, in my experience.


Who's Who?

  The three most important faiths within the UK, according to the 2011 census, are Christianity (59.5%), Islam (4.4%) and Hinduism (1.9%), with 25.7% of the population having no religion. Within Christianity, the most important denominations are Anglicanism (62%), Roman Catholicism (13.5%), Presbyterianism (6%) and Methodism (3.4%). 

[statistics from a 2005 estimate]

  The British Social Attitudes Survey suggests a somewhat different picture, however. The 2013 edition put Christianity on 41.6%, Islam on 4.6% and Hinduism on 1.5%, with a majority (50.6%) stating they had no religion. There are numerous possible causes for this discrepancy - more up-to-date data, a smaller sample size, the elimination of the problem of parents putting their own faith as their children's on census forms etc. (it should be noted, however, that the margin of error in the Survey was only 1.72%).


What I reckon...

  I am, and have been more or less since the age of fifteen, an atheist. This does not mean, as noted above, I am certain no gods exist - what it means is that I have never seen any particularly compelling evidence to prove that any do. The claim that one or more supernatural entities exist, hidden from our sight, and control many aspects of the world and human life seems to me to be quite an incredible one. It requires, therefore, some fairly incredible evidence - evidence which is not apparent to me.

  Though I was raised a Christian (of somewhat hazy denomination - mostly Anglican with a bit of Methodist thrown in for good measure) I was never a particularly devout one, and - following a brief period of heightened religious awareness in my early teens - more or less slowly lost my faith over the course of a couple of years. It simply seemed to me that the only reason I believed in God was that I had been told he existed, without any independent corroboration of the fact. Whilst I am open to any evidence any theist might care to proffer, so far I have seen nothing even remotely convincing.

  Following the loss of my faith I became fairly antitheistic for a brief period. I would now consider myself somewhat less so, but I do believe the existence of religion causes a few problems. My opposition is not really to the kind of personal spiritual belief which characterises many ancient polytheistic religions and the so-called New Age beliefs of the twentieth century. Whilst some of these ideas do strain my credulity - frequently well past breaking point - they do little real harm. No, my main concern is organised religion.


The Dangers of Organised Religion

  I would define organised religion as one which has a hierarchy within it - where certain people are placed above others in the religious pecking order. They also tend to have what you could consider the 'traditional' trappings of religion - holy books, places of worship, formal prayers and rituals. The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England are the two clearest examples of this kind of set-up, but it also includes most other Christian denominations, as well as most Judaic, Islamic, Sikh, Buddhist  denominations, and many others besides.

  The issue with these kinds of hierarchical religions is they impress upon their members the idea of obedience - blind obedience, without question. The problem is especially marked when children are introduced to such organisations - the human impulse to listen to and take heed of the advice of our elders, essential for survival in early humans, allows indoctrination and exploitation of young people. Vulnerable adults, such as those with severe learning difficulties or mental illnesses, are also easy targets for these hierarchies. The upper echelons of such religious groups - Archbishops, Cardinals, Ayatollahs and the like - are able to exert massive influence over vast swathes of people.

  This is a form of social control. Throughout history, the unelected leaders of religious organisations have wielded enormous power over the populations they ostensibly serve. They have also frequently collaborated with governments to the detriment of the people - the complicity of the Catholic Church in the atrocities of the fascist regimes in Italy and Spain  in the twentieth century (though less so in Germany) being perhaps the most dramatic example of this. Ultimately, the fact that anyone wields such power without being democratically elected is concerning.


Blind Faith

  This leads me to another (linked) problem with the more dogmatic religions - the accepting of doctrine on blind faith alone. This occurs in most religions, to varying degrees, but it is particularly pronounced in Wahhabi Islam, Orthodox Judaism and Christian denominations such as Mormonism (and in other Christian Churches before the secularisation of the late 20th Century). There is a fine line between these extremely dogmatic faiths and dangerous cults and extremist groups. It is no coincidence that IS, for example, are followers of a particularly extreme form of Wahhabi. 

  The practice of accepting doctrine on the basis of faith - i.e. without independent evidence - is inherently worrisome. It begets a mindset which is easily corruptible - even if the faith itself is benign. Stalin, for example (see, he does come in somewhere) received training as an Orthodox priest; since the population of the Soviet Union was predominantly Orthodox Christian before the Revolution, he and the other Soviet leaders were able to exploit this to inculcate a culture of blind obedience to the Stalinist version of Communism. Indeed, he revived the Church in 1942 in order to assist in the war effort. 

  Unquestioning obedience to authority and acceptance of doctrine without supporting fact is how demagogues build up support for their ideologies without challenge, and it is a mindset which is fostered by the dogmatism of many religious groups. Sceptiscism is the sign of a healthy, enquiring mind -  nothing should be taken on faith alone.


Conclusions

  I hope I have outlined clearly my own beliefs and just two of the principal issues I see with organised religion in the 21st century. This is not to say there are not others, and it is certainly not to say that religion does not have its positives. Talking about faith, why one is or is not religious, and what the issues are which one sees in people of differing beliefs to oneself is still something of a taboo in British society today - but it shouldn't be. Only by having a frank, honest and open dialogue can we resolve these issues and challenge the extremist positions taken by some individuals. Faith - or lack thereof - is a protected characteristic under UK anti-discrimination laws, but that shouldn't mean we can't talk about it and criticise it if need be.

  if we don't, after all, we've seen what the consequences can be.

The Secular State

  Declaration of Interest: I am an atheist.

  A proper one, too - not an agnostic, in a kind of amorphous muddle as to whether there's a God (or indeed, gods) or not, but a full-nine-yards, there-is-no-God, when-you-die-that's-pretty-much-it, Jesus-was-just-an-ordinary-chap-if-he-even-existed-at-all-which-has-recently-had-doubt-cast-upon-it-as-an-historical-hypothesis kind of atheist. That said, I'm perfectly willing to reconsider this view if any decent evidence is to the contrary is thrown my way, but - until that point - atheist I shall remain. 

  Not that this should really make a difference to the subject under discussion, but I felt it was important to get it out of the way. I have, one might say, a vested interest in this topic. So does everyone else, of course, but we'll get to that.

  Now, what do I mean by 'secular'? The conservative elements within our society - i.e. the Conservative Party, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the vast majority of religious institutions etc. etc. - often demonise secularists as 'militant atheists'. What exactly they mean by this phrase is less clear, so I shall turn to the dictionary for assistance - the Oxford English Dictionary, specifically, just to appeal to their conservative sensibilities.

  Militant: Favouring confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause
  Atheist: A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods

  Therefore, the accusation seems to be that secularists are people who favour confrontational or violent methods in support of the lack of belief in God or gods. How exactly one could favour violent methods in favour of the lack of belief in something, I do not quite understand. I could see how one could be a militant anti-theist, which would involve violence in the active opposition to religion, but that's a different matter. Hmmm...could the conservatives possibly have made a ridiculous semantic error? Surely not! Such a thing would be impossible...

  In any case, the OED defines secular as meaning 'Not connected with religious or spiritual matters'. What a secularist is, then, is someone who supports the idea that an institution - in this case, the state - should not be connected with religious or spiritual matters. The destruction of Christianity, western morality and the entirety of civilised society is by no means implied - think of it as an optional extra. Indeed, you don't have to be an anti-theist, atheist or even an agnostic to be a secularist - religious people can, and should, be in favour of a state which is not connected to or affiliated with religious groups.

  The reasons for this are clear: the domination by any one religious denomination of state institutions will almost certainly lead to conditions within that state which favour that religious denomination. So, using the UK as the obvious example, the domination of the established Christian Church of England means that non-Christians (and, to a lesser degree, non-Anglican Christians) are all disadvantaged - whether they are believers or not. The only people who should not be up in arms from a practical standpoint are the CofE themselves - and surely they can see that the status quo is morally untenable.

  Put simply, the CofE has too much power. It gets twenty-six bishops in the House of Lords, making it the only institution in the country which is constitutionally guaranteed a say in our lawmaking process (the relatively toothless monarchy excepted). Justifications of this presence on the grounds of membership simply don't add up - by such a calculation, the RSPB is entitled to at least twelve seats in the House itself, but the clamours for this and other popular charitable organisations to be ennobled are tellingly absent. 

  Religion more generally has huge powers over education - around a third of all UK schools are controlled by religious groups, allowing them a huge ability to influence our children. Faith schools don't have to teach about other religions - this is indoctrination, pure and simple - and can select their pupils on the basis of faith, allowing them to exclude what are often the less advantaged prospective pupils. The state also provides tax-relief to religious groups, running into vast amounts - although the refusal of multiple freedom of information requests on the subject prevents us from knowing just how much is stolen from the taxpayer in this way. 

  A secular state would prevent taxpayers' money from being used to subsidise already hugely-profitable organisations; it would remove the anti-democratic presence of twenty-six men (and they are, of course, men - no female bishops allowed, remember?) from our Parliament whose presence their is predicated purely upon their already-privileged position within a dying church; and it would end the practice of religious groups controlling our children's education.

  Furthermore, secularism is the only truly effective way of guaranteeing equal rights for all. The aforementioned ban on female bishops in the CofE is just one example of how religious influence in our state institutions violates basic human rights; the fact that the head of state of this country cannot, for entirely anachronistic reasons, be a Catholic is another. A secular state would guarantee equal rights and responsibilities for all citizens, regardless of their faith or lack thereof.

  It is not an example of 'militant atheism' to demand that all people be treated as equal by the constitution - it is the central principle of democracy. Until we have a secular state, the UK's claim to be democratic is a patently false one.