Is "Rabid Atheism" As Bad As Rabid Religiosity?

I posted on Facebook in response to a news item that Sylvester Stallone had sent his family to Haridwar in India to perform a "shradh" (Hindu funeral rites) for his son Sage, in the hope that his son's soul would attain peace.

I posted that in order to comment on the human need for comfort in times of grieving, which a purely rational way of thinking (which is what atheism is) cannot provide, even though it is probably the truth.

I said,

Atheism is too bracing a truth to offer needed comfort to grieving people. That explains why religion continues to have such a hold on humanity. The Hindu ceremony is no more valid than a Christian funeral service, because there really is nothing after death. But I do understand why Stallone would seek out ways to find comfort.

In response, I received the following comment:

How do you know there's nothing after death? Have you been there and back? Rabid atheism is as stupid as rabid religiosity. I would leave individual souls to seek out their own truth, whatever that turns out to be.

Let me answer this in two parts.

First, atheism is not a belief. It is the refusal to believe in ideas that have no evidence to back them up. Perhaps the term "atheism" is too emotive for many people. Let's just call it rationalism then, with no loss of accuracy.

Do you believe that after you shut down your computer, Windows (or whatever your operating system is) continues to run somewhere "up there"? You surely know that an operating system, although an intangible thing ("software"), only runs when electricity flows through the hardware circuits of your computer. When the computer is down, the operating system simply cannot be running.

This isn't a far-fetched analogy for human consciousness. Functional MRI has mapped the exact regions of the brain that are responsible for our thoughts and feelings. One area of the brain "lights up" when we are trying to solve a mathematical problem, another part lights up when we are trying to remember the words to a song, yet another lights up when we are being creative. Similarly, different parts of the brain are active when we have different feelings, such as happiness, sorrow, and anger.

Research has also shown that the brain consumes energy when experiencing thoughts and feelings. It is very like a computer that requires energy to process information. In fact, it's an exact analogue.

Now, if all thoughts and feelings are, as proven by scientific investigation, the result of activity in brain cells, doesn't it logically follow that when brain cells decompose and die, they will no longer be capable of sustaining thoughts and feelings?

Isn't it therefore highly unlikely that there is no such thing as a thinking, feeling, disembodied soul? Just because the belief in a soul is widespread, it does not mean it is true. On the contrary, it simply means the majority of humanity is not thinking logically. This may be a hard idea to accept, but as the saying goes, truth is sometimes bitter.

Second, here's why rationalists can't simply "leave individual souls to seek out their own truth".

Implicit in the question is the argument that beliefs, however irrational, are benign personal affairs that should be no one else's business.

Indeed, personal beliefs are every individual's own business, except when they manifest themselves as impositions on other people.

This is exactly what religious beliefs do. They don't remain benign, personal beliefs for long.

"My religion tells me that women should cover themselves from head to toe. So I will force women to cover themselves from head to toe even if they don't want to."

"My religion says apostasy is a crime punishable by death. So if someone from my faith says they no longer believe,  they must be killed."

"My religion says this path is the only way for your soul to be saved. So because I love you and want your soul to be saved, I will disparage your faith and try to convert you to mine."

"My religion says the cow is holy and eating its meat is a sin. So I am justified in lynching you because I think you may have eaten a cow's meat."

This is why rationalists cannot sit back and let people maintain their irrational beliefs. Because sooner or later, those "personal" beliefs start to affect the lives of other people who do not share them, and who have a right not to share them.

So no, there is no such thing as "rabid atheism". Uncompromising adherence to logic is not rabidity.

And no, atheism is nowhere near as bad as religiosity.

Rationalism As A Tool For Literary Criticism

As a rationalist, I'm always thrilled to see incisive analysis based on hard logic applied to subjects whose treatment has traditionally been reverential and unquestioning. Religious and quasi-religious texts have generally escaped critical analysis, but so too have some established classics in literature.

For an example of how a quasi-religious epic like the Mahabharata can be interpreted if one is only willing to approach it without reverence is illustrated by Seshadri Kumar's answer to the question on Quora, "What was the sole [motive] of Krishna behind the Kurukshetra war?"

As an example of a traditionalist Hindu answer (which is a supreme shrug of the shoulders - "God works in mysterious ways"), one Quora member says

Bhagavad Gita (Chapter IV-7)

"Whenever there is decay of righteousness O! Bharatha And a rise of unrighteousness then I manifest Myself!"

This sholaka form Bhagvad Gita answers the question why a war was essential; it was done to re-establish the Dharma and to teach the generations to come that whenever there is rise of Adharma, establishment of Dharma would be done by the Lord himself or by his messengers. 

Another member answers in a similar vein

At the beginning of the Mahabharata, there's an anecdote on how mother earth comes to Vishnu, to request Him to reduce her burden. Similarly, the rishis ask Him to save them from Kamsa. And Vishnu decides to take a poornaavatara. He descends to Teach and Establish Dharma and Fight and Destroy Adharma.

Seshadri Kumar cuts through to the heart of the matter, not letting the claimed divinity of Krishna get in the way. And his answer is illuminating.

I applied similar logic when discussing Shakespeare's play Hamlet with my son, and in the process, I discovered the major character behind the entire play, who only has a small role in the play itself!

Shakespeare's plays have enduring appeal because they speak to people in a highly personalised way. They are ambiguous and nuanced, and they lend themselves to alternative interpretations depending on the reader's point of view. Indeed, the same person revisiting a Shakespearean play many years later would get a different message from it.

This was indeed my experience. I had first read Hamlet long ago in my youth, and when I discussed it today, I found I was thinking about it very differently. When I was much younger, I took the entire play at face value and thought I had been able to appreciate it for what it was. I couldn't have been more wrong. Today, I realised that I had changed enormously as a person since I last approached the play, and consequently, it seemed a completely different story. The big change in my life has been my move away from being a religious believer to being an atheist or a rationalist. And when I thought of Hamlet today, I realised that the one aspect of the story that stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb was the ghost of the old king.

As a rationalist, I now know that supernatural phenomena like ghosts simply don't exist. So did Shakespeare do nothing more than write a silly ghost story?

Not so fast.

I applied the same logic that Seshadri Kumar did to the Mahabharata. I assumed that the play was literally true, i.e., that the characters all did see and do the things they have been depicted as seeing or doing.

Now, the play became a lot more interesting. If there was no ghost, then who was it that Hamlet, Horatio and the soldiers saw at the beginning of the play? It must have been a flesh-and-blood person, but what was his identity?

To answer that question, we need to ask ourselves what the ghost actually did. And the answer to that question is that the ghost incited Hamlet to kill his uncle in revenge for the murder of his father.

Now why would someone impersonate a dead king to incite the murder of the current one? Well, as the detective at the scene of a murder might ask, who stands to gain from the crime? Who is the beneficiary? And indeed, the answer is clear at the end of the play. It is Fortinbras, prince of Norway, who arrives in Denmark in time to see the ruling family dead and the kingdom ready to fall into his lap.

Who is Fortinbras anyway? He's the son of King Fortinbras of Norway, who was killed by the elder king Hamlet. The younger Fortinbras has been gathering an army to attack Denmark in revenge, but has been restrained by his uncle the current king of Norway.

Now that's very interesting. So Fortinbras wants to attack Denmark under its current king Claudius, avenge his father's death and win territory for his kingdom. He's thwarted by his uncle in his plans to attack Denmark outright, and so he goes on a campaign against Poland instead, for "a little patch of ground that hath no profit in it but the name". The campaign against Poland is therefore just a smokescreen. Although Fortinbras made a vow before his uncle "never more to give the assay of arms" against Claudius, it's clear he intends to achieve his purpose by other means. Denmark is always his primary target.

So, now that we have a suspect and have established a possible motive for his act, let's look at the options one would have in Fortinbras's place, now that direct military action is ruled out. The most obvious route is to look for and exploit schisms within the Danish ruling circle. After sufficient investigation, the murder of the elder king Hamlet by Claudius must have been uncovered, and in the process a potential ally (prince Hamlet) identified. But Hamlet was oblivious of his father's murder and would have to be told. Why would he believe an outrageous story like that? What proof could Fortinbras furnish to Hamlet to convince him of Claudius's guilt? None at all!

That's probably why Fortinbras decided to use the stratagem of impersonating the king's ghost and telling Hamlet the story from the old king's point of view. As a superstitious man (like most people were in that society), Hamlet would not dare ask the ghost for proof. He would accept the story without question. And that is exactly what happened. With the seeds of doubt planted in his mind, Hamlet then set about doing all the things he had to do before the play ended. And once Denmark's ruling family lay dead, Fortinbras mysteriously appeared to claim the Danish throne and avenge his father.

A dark night, a bit of makeup, and an armor that hid everything about a face except for the eyes exposed by a visor - that was all that was needed. (It need not have been Fortinbras himself who impersonated the dead king. It could have been anyone from his entourage who had similar features.) The plan worked brilliantly. Hamlet was so convinced by Fortinbras's story that after some hesitation, he set about planning his revenge. The later scene of the ghost when Hamlet is alone with his mother is probably Hamlet being delusional. His mother can see no ghost. It is entirely in his own imagination, unlike at the beginning of the play, when Horatio, Bernardo and the soldiers can all see the ghostly figure in armour.

And so this is Shakespeare's clever story of Hamlet - a story of how the young prince Fortinbras of Norway avenged his father's death and won a victory over his enemy Denmark by setting the prince of Denmark against his own uncle. The entire play was about how Fortinbras's brilliant plan to conquer Denmark succeeded.

As with Seshadri Kumar's analysis of the Mahabharata, my own analysis of Hamlet from a rationalist point of view led to an answer that should really not be surprising in hindsight.

The Agnostic Argument - 9 (The Shibboleth For Rationalism Versus Bigotry)

Thanks to the Cory Bernardi affair, I have now understood how to identify a bigot.

But let me first rewind to a few days back, when one of my friends read a previous entry on this blog and remarked that anti-religious people could be as dangerous as religious fanatics. I was struck by that remark, because although it seemed plausible, I was sure it was not true. However, I couldn't prove my hypothesis in any convincing way. After all, the murderous Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were atheists, and they had more blood on their hands than the holiest inquisitionist or conquistador, and could give the various Islamic conquerors of India a run for their money.

That problem was stewing in my mind when the Cory Bernardi affair broke, and I suddenly had not one, but two, data points to help me find a resolution.

The better-known episode is the one that triggered Bernardi's resignation (or more accurately, his sacking). For those who don't follow Australian politics, Cory Bernardi is a conservative politician belonging to the opposition Liberal and National Party (LNP) and until recently a Parliamentary Secretary. In a recent debate in parliament over whether to liberalise gay marriage (the motion failed to pass, by the way), Bernardi made a speech against it, where he suggested that legalising gay marriage would open the doors to polygamy and bestiality.

This was too much for a lot of people, and LNP leader Tony Abbott relieved him of his position of Parliamentary Secretary for reasons of indiscipline. [My cynical take on this given Abbott's own strongly conservative views is that "discipline" for Abbott means not revealing your cards until after you've won election!]

There's also a recent but lesser-known episode that revealed the mind of Bernardi. After the weekend protests by Muslims in Sydney that turned violent, Bernardi said 

They [those who support immigration] proclaim multiculturalism as a triumph of tolerance when in fact it undermines the cultural values and cohesiveness that brings a nation together.  Our culture is built upon the two great pillars of Western civilisation – the rule of law and Judeo-Christian values. To allow these great strengths to be undermined by supporting calls for any form of legal plurality or the indulgence of cultural practices that go against our social norms is to abandon reason.

Can you see a pattern here?

In his statement after the Muslim protests, his resort to the line about Judeo-Christian values immediately leapt out at me, since I am neither Muslim nor Judeo-Christian. Rather than try to analyse the situation and isolate the cause of the violent protests by asking, for example, if it was Muslim youth who were primarily involved, and if so, if it was unemployed Muslim youth, and so on, which could have led to some meaningful insights and a policy direction, he went in the opposite direction. Now he seemed to be tarring Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and all those who weren't part of the "Judeo-Christian value system".

Bigot alert!

[Aside: Rajiv Malhotra has the interesting opinion that Bernardi's "two pillars of Western civilisation" are actually at odds with each other. The Hellenic tradition of reason (the rule of law) conflicts with the Hebraic tradition of religion (Judeo-Christian values). That's why European history demonstrates such a tortuous path towards the separation of church and state. The two "pillars of Western civilisation" have to be kept apart like squabbling children.]

And that's exactly what Bernardi did again on the gay marriage debate. A rationalist would see the debate as one over whether an individual adult human being has a right to have their commitment to another adult human being recognised by law. That's what the gay marriage bill is about. To be perfectly fair, this definition leaves the door open to polygamy, but not to bestiality (or paedophilia, as one of his supporters suggested). And with the reference to bestiality, Bernardi crossed the line once more.

Again, bigot alert!

[The reason why the acceptance of gay marriage could lead to calls for the legalisation of polygamy, but not paedophilia or bestiality is that homosexuality and polygamy involve consenting adults. The other two do not, and so there is no slippery slope, as he tried to argue.]

And that finally gave me the shibboleth I needed to distinguish a rationalist from a bigot. A rationalist tries to narrow the argument to understand the core issue or principle being debated. A bigot unjustifiably widens the argument to advance a preconceived position.

Here's an example of how one could twist facts to make any case one wants. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

The bottle is the only thing in the picture that holds water

And so, coming back to my original question of whether an anti-religious person is as dangerous as a religious fanatic, it's not enough to say that a person is "anti-religious". Why are they anti-religion? That reason is key. There could be individuals fuelled by a dogma that is anti-religious, such as Communism. Communist ideologues would use any opportunity to blame religion by conflating issues to implicate it. That's bigotry.

On the contrary, a rationalist who is anti-religion arrives at that position after homing in on the core issue or issues with religion. In my case, there are 3 specific reasons why I oppose religion:

1. While there seem to be a few exceptions, religions generally exalt faith over reason. It always scares me to hear that someone is religious because I understand that to mean their actions are not directed by reason. Once people suspend reason, they can do irrational and horrific things.

2. The positive aspects of religion are not original. They can be independently derived from secular ethics as well. "Be truthful and honest", "don't harm others", "be compassionate towards others", etc., sound like secular common sense to me. Atheists believe in goodness too, so goodness is not an exclusive contribution of religion.

3. Many of the original aspects of religions are entirely negative. They are not justifiable either by reason or by ethics, e.g,. superstitions, cruel and demeaning practices, interference in aspects of personal life that don't concern others, such as a curious obsession with controlling the sexual behaviour of adult human beings, etc.

[There is an old Soviet joke about the two official Russian newspapers - Pravda (Truth) and Izvestia (News): "There is no pravda in Izvestia and no izvestia in Pravda." Similarly, religion offers nothing original that is positive and nothing positive that is original.]

The "best" religion, in my opinion, would be one that prescribed behaviour consistent with secular ethics, refrained from introducing superstition and needlessly intrusive regulation of personal behaviour, and encouraged free thought. I would gladly follow such a religion.

Come to think of it, such a "religion" exists, and it's called by a variety of names - rationalism, scientific thinking, agnosticism, etc. :-).