Atheism as a religion

I recently met a retired teacher, an intelligent man who, in the course of a conversation, mentioned that he was an atheist. I said nothing, respecting his beliefs (or lack thereof). I wondered at first if he mean "agnostic," then, reflecting on the confidence with which he spoke--and the fact that he was not a listener--I decided, No, he knows the difference, and he has made his choice.

Sam Harris, one of the prominent New Atheists who have published books in the past decade criticizing religion, is a neuroscientist who values reason above all and, while  dismissing any notion of God, prefers not to call himself an atheist.

Yet in his latest book, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion, excerpts of which I have read, he seems to have found that reason is not enough to explain the meaning of life and reality. It seems that emotion--that often suspect, "effeminate" entity foreign to the scientific mind--has its place, though Harris would not put it this way.  The self-transcendence that he finds in art or nature is not, he insists, irrational. Reason for him is still the dominant player.

Like the Romantic poets of England and the Transcendentalists of the American nineteenth century, and many since, Harris has found satisfaction (happiness?) in some form of transcendence of material reality, independent of religion.  Yet he insists on the primacy of reason, and it is reason, divorced from feeling, that keeps him safely among the "atheists," free from what he sees as the corruptions of religion.

At least, Harris is more open and positive than Richard Dawkins, the British author who has become rich and famous attacking God and belief and who is the subject of a recent New Republic article ("The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins"), which suggests that his atheism has become its own type of narrow religion.  For Dawkins, et al, science is unquestionably right and has all the answers there are to understanding man and his world. He would agree with the behaviorist B. F. Skinner, who once said that the goal of science is the destruction of mystery.

To me, as a theist, the loss of mystery--that sense of awe found in the mystical tradition as well as in art that evokes the unknowable and unknown, is tragic.  The great poets and writers, following Aristotle, always connect head and heart, always write or create with feeling as well as ideas. And at their best, they evoke the unknowable mysteries of humanity in a way that neuroscience will never rival.

Yet thinkers like Dawkins and Harris find reason and science to be supreme and thus cut themselves off from an essential part of the human experience--the emotional need to be connected to something beyond themselves. As such, they cheat themselves, hoping to find a glimmer of something vaguely "out there" while fearful of believing in God. Their rational arrogance blinds them.

In thinking of Harris, Dawkins, and the atheist I recently talked with, I wonder, What God do they not believe in?  The simplistic God "up in the sky" that children learn about?  Why don't they read more widely in philosophy (even medieval thought) and see that God is being itself, the "ground of our being," the inescapable presence that's all around and in us? If they would read Teilhard de Chardin and other scientists who have explored the connection between faith and science, maybe they would be more open to a fuller understanding of the Mystery.

In the meantime, some of the new atheists, like a few in California, feeling the need for some community on Sunday mornings, have established "churches" of sorts, where positive thinking is practiced. It may sound absurd for atheists to meet in "churches," but does it not indicate the human need to go beyond the isolated, rational mind and reach out to others?  And in reaching out to others, and caring about them, are we not embracing love and thereby affirming that life has purpose and meaning? If so, we can talk about, even believe in God.

That organized religion, included Catholicism, has often failed to articulate an understanding of a loving God is clear from a recently influential book by Walter Kasper on mercy, which is influencing the deliberations among the bishops in Rome this week. Cardinal Kasper writes: Theologians have too often had difficulty making sense of God's compassion: "The proclamation of God who is insensitive to suffering is a reason that God has become alien and finally irrelevant to many."

So it is up to believers to articulate a fuller understanding of the mystery of God as the source of existence and compassion in a way that makes sense to a skeptical world: no easy task!

Who Needs Religion?

When my university colleagues in the Department of Philosophy dropped religion from the curriculum as a major some years ago, I told the dean, who was sympathetic to my concern, that no self-respecting university should be without a religion department.

His concern, of course, was with numbers: few, if any majors; courses under-enrolled meant lack of funding and so religion must go. Some on the faculty, being agnostic or atheistic, probably cheered because they believed that religion historically has done more harm than good and is actually at the root of most of the world's conflicts and problems.

But this trite old argument, still widely heard, is to ignore the enormous contribution of religion to civilization. It has from ancient times provided humankind with a source of meaning and of community as well as wisdom and ritual and beauty. It has been there to remind people of virtue. Can one find happiness without being and knowing the good? Ask Aristotle.

Or, more easily, ask Alain de Botton, the often clever Swiss pop philosopher who resides in London and writes engaging, witty books like the one I enjoyed a decade ago:
How Proust Can Change Your Life (even if I was not entirely persuaded that he could). He has now come out with Religion for Atheists, which apparently tries to show that the secular skeptics should borrow a few ideas from religion---notions like kindness, tenderness, community, and "making our relationships last."

Calling himself a "gentle atheist," de Botton has great respect for the intellectual contribution of religion, by which I think he really means the Judaeo-Christian tradition, in contrast to the best-selling atheists of recent vintage like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who have attacked religious belief as folly. So I welcome this effort to emphasize the positive aspects of religion in our history and culture, including its impact on art.

De Botton apparently believes that religion is capable of changing the world as few secular institutions can, and it helps us emotionally so that we feel less alone. The notices for this new book also promise some practical ways in which religion, like reading Proust, can change our lives. I will have to see the specfics, but I am doubtful how serious the author, who respects religion but not devotion or dogma, really is.

What intrigues me the most about this original approach to religion is that it counters the view of many that the childish creeds of faith are the mark of simple minds, as if Augustine and all the other great religious thinkers were intellectually deficient. The usual opponents of religion don't read theologians or religious philosophers yet conclude that believers are dim-witted. Try reading Karl Rahner or Charles Taylor. Or Pascal, the great 17th century mathematician, scientist and author who had the humility to mistrust the intellect and to respect the wisdom of the heart.

I hope de Botton convinces his secular readers that religion provides the only effective means of cultivating the values we need. But I wonder how useful or practical religion can be when shorn of its supernatural doctrines, its vital heart. Who needs a religion made up of spiritual platitudes?