You don't need to discuss atheism for a long time before you find yourself presenting, or being presented with, the claim that atheism is just a lack of belief in God. In that sense atheism isn't so much a preposition but more so the rejection of one, it's not defined by the presence of one thing, it's defined by the absence of that thing. Atheism would then be, not so much a thing in and of itself, but more a rejection of God and by extension religion, which means that atheism only has any meaning insofar as religion is itself a meaningful presence in the world. I myself used to present this kind of claim when I was seventeen or eighteen, but I have since stopped, keeping in line with this recurring theme of mine that in recent times I've been critical of many aspects of the atheist movement. This lack-of-belief talking point is one of them, and though I may have addressed it here and there, I figured that a slightly more in-depth approach made sense... So is atheism just a lack of belief in God? I say that it most certainly is not, at least in any meaningful and pragmatic sense. I also defend that this slogan is most often used when atheists are doing something that anyone remotely associated with any movement has to occasionally, and at times very reluctantly, do, which is playing defense.
I can't say I believe in God or in religion, and yet I've begun to resist calling myself an atheist. This is because I find myself being critical of the atheist movement in quite a few ways, to the point where labeling myself an atheist is at most misleading and at least slightly annoying because I then have to distance myself from views that I do not hold but that are commonly held by modern-day atheists. Additionally, and as it should be logically clear from my argument, when I refer to atheists I'm employing the term with reference to its social demographic, addressing people who would be active within atheist movements one way or another, instead of referring merely to a person's psychological state of belief. Because that's the first flaw with the argument... A religious person would claim that atheists believe this, atheists practice that, and the atheist would respond by saying that atheism is just a lack of belief in God. But at that point in the conversation the religious person isn't seemingly unaware or forgetful that atheism means not believing in God. At that point, what goes on in your head is quite irrelevant. The religious person is instead analyzing other aspects of atheists as a social demographic and seeing how they line up. The facts on the ground appear to be that you can accurately predict a person's beliefs on a wide variety of subjects just from finding out he's an atheist. In other words, of all the things you hold to be true, how many of them have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you do not believe in God?
You may appeal to the definition of the term, which you may see as a simple clear-cut thing, what with the notion that the prefix simply denotes the rejection of the primitive word, and so if there's no theism then there's also no atheism. This seems to presuppose that atheism is the natural or neutral state of affairs, and that if theism never existed, atheism would maybe technically exist but it would become seemingly devoid of meaning. Kinda like the old thing whereby an atheist claims to not collect coins but doesn't refer to himself as a non-collector of coins because there's no point in that. But I think there's another mistake here because, though it could be argued that there's no natural predisposition towards any particular religion, especially from the atheist perspective, I don't think it's as easy to argue that there's no natural predisposition towards theism itself. I think it's within reasonable parameters for even the atheist to defend that believing in a deity and in the afterlife is something so entrenched in human psychology that it became universal. Whereas atheism, though perhaps as universal in the sense that it seemingly appeared in people's minds all across time and cultures as well, never seemed to become the standard in quite the same way. I suppose that's a big claim I can't quite back up here, but I do suspect that a significant portion of people who call themselves atheists are nonetheless living their lives with some beliefs that can only be described as religious. And at the very least, if you do not collect coins then you are bound to have other hobbies.
A point I feel I can back up more strongly though is that atheism does inherently lead to other beliefs. In that way you can still hold on to the idea that it is just a lack of belief, but if so then it's the gateway belief into this new paradigm you find yourself in, and that paradigm contains active beliefs. On that point I think modern-day atheists are a bit disingenuous. If believing that a higher authority exists and gives us the law, watches over us, judges us and rewards or punishes us and so on, if that is an all-encompassing belief that changes how the religious person sees the world, then surely not believing in that same higher authority would lead to a significant difference. Arguing otherwise just seems strange to me, as evidenced by the fact that just like religious people offer psychological guidance to a new convert, then likewise so do atheists. Going from theism to atheism is, at least for a significant number of people, a shift that alters your entire perception of reality. And I wouldn't say it's a matter of social acceptance solely, I'd say it's also a matter of finding your place in the world after you reject the idea that you did have a divinely-created place to begin with. To me it seems clear that if believing in God informs most of your subsequent beliefs, then likewise not believing in God would do the same.
And what would some of those beliefs be? I suppose there are quite a few but it is not my intention to all of the sudden make this article into a list. It just seems obvious to me that people try to live with some measure of coherence in their beliefs. If a man believes in God, and God dislikes blue, then we can reasonably expect that man to not wear blue shirts. This is not to say that a religious man wouldn't forgo this rule, either due to interpretation, ignorance, or even sin, but it is to say that belief in something is likely to lead to beliefs in other things, and those things would be in line with the primary belief. But with some modern-day atheists we are seemingly prevented from doing so, with atheism we have to act as though lacking the belief in a theistic god has absolutely no bearing on how the atheist sees anything at all about the universe, nature, human life, society, crime, redemption, and so on. To me it seems very obvious that if you keep digging you eventually find that a lot of positions commonly defended by most atheists are, one way or another, very likely to hinge on God not existing.
I'd say one of the reasons for this is that everyone likes socializing and joining communities, but nobody likes to be in bed with those communities when they're accused of unsavory beliefs, or when one of their members is accused of immoral deeds. It's funny how we can easily claim that any particular individual is capable of doing such great work for the so-and-so community, but as soon as that same individual does something wrong, then all of the sudden his actions have absolutely no bearing on the community as a whole. That is often when politically-minded atheists play the lack-of-belief card, but if the sheer number of atheists who share the same beliefs to the point where a monolithic community can arise isn't indicative of a common source then what is? What best explains that the vast majority of atheists do agree on a wide variety of varied various issues? I think those beliefs deriving from atheism is the best explanation, and thus this lack-of-belief defense is just a deflection tactic. It'd be like a christian being criticized for disowning his son for being gay, and when faced with criticism he'd answer – Gee, I'm being persecuted just for accepting Jesus Christ as my lord and savior!... I highly suspect at that point everyone would see this defense for what it is, but the same doesn't play for atheism. The answer would clearly be that, no, the man isn't being persecuted for the basic belief of christianity, he's instead being criticized for a particular action he undertook in accordance with his overall belief, which all seems very likely to occur within atheism as well.
Now thinking again about hobbies I get the idea that in many ways atheists absolutely despise gambling, even when it's such a juicy bet you win every time. It's like saying you love fighting games, you love everything about them, you love to play them, you engage with the community, and so on, but you describe yourself as an “a-Tekkenist.” And so someone gets curious, and in order to move the conversation forward asks you if you play Street Fighter instead. But you get all outraged saying – Hold up, buddy! I ain't never said nothing about no Street Fighter, all I said is I don't play Tekken!...
It would seem quite absurd. If you are appreciative of fighting games then it's reasonable to expect you would play some of the biggest games around. Of course the interlocutor could be wrong with his guess, but the fact of the matter is that more often than not it is indeed a correct bet, not to mention how eventually you gotta pick a damn game, you can't ride on being an “a-Tekkenist” forever, and presumably whatever game you do end up picking is gonna be logically coherent with your initial rejection... By analogy, modern-day atheists often get seemingly annoyed at their beliefs being guessed correctly, but it works not because of some kind of profiling, but because people realize that there is a logical progression from one thing to the other, and it seems likely that if a person does love fighting games, then he would choose at least one. But of course, choosing one is akin to choosing a team, and people resist that because it opens them up to criticism. And as any Tekken player with tell you, playing defense is always harder than playing offense.
As for me I've come to realize as much in recent years, which is why I've begun to resist such labels in favor of brief descriptions. I don't call myself an atheist, except perhaps occasionally in favor of even more brevity, but I prefer to tell people I don't believe in God. This is because, the way I see it, the impersonal definition of the term becomes very unhelpful when you apply it to people. When you come down to it you realize that if believing in God leads people a certain way, then not believing in God leads them another. I for one started to think this way when, in my years of disillusionment with the new atheism movement, I started to realize how many of my ways of seeing the world inherently contained a godless coat of paint. Conversely, I started to realize how the believers had lots of ways of seeing the world inherently contained a godly coat of paint. And I'm not at this present time arguing one is better than the other, though I could think about that on some other day. What I am arguing for now is that if you're gonna look at the world then it seems to me that whether or not God exists is your first question, and that all subsequent questions will hang on that. If religion is often criticized by atheists for being an all-encompassing system that informs all areas of your life, then I fail to see how not believing in God wouldn't likewise inform all areas of your life.
So is atheism just a lack of belief in God? If you wanna play logic police then sure, it's just a lack of belief in God, with the word “just” doing a lot of the heavy lifting. But if you wanna play common sense police, then no, atheism is, for better and for worse, much more than that.
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