A bit gloomy, but a happy end

One of the things I get increasingly irritated and worried about is the mounting tension between people who are religious and people who style themselves atheist, particularly “atheists” who style themselves as proponents of enlightened culture and science.

I am stressing here that it is a tension between people and their identities because, as far as I can see, the tension between these two supposed opposites at this moment both groups defend their stance from a misunderstanding of what religion can be.

My irritation and worry stems from the fact that to me, these two are not opposites at all, but instead cover very different aspects of life. To try to reconcile them is a futile effort. To use the one to prove or disprove the other is asking for trouble.

I hasten to add that my own take on religion is not a widely held one.

In Dutch we have a linguistic distinction between “godsdienst” and “religion”, where the first could be translated as “service to god(s)” and the second as a more neutral umbrella term for shared ideals. I use religion in the second sense. One theory is that the word “religion” is related to the verb “religare”, which is “to bind” or rather to “re-bind”, which, even if it’s not correct, has a good ring to it.

I also have a decidedly mystical view of religion, that is, I don’t feel one should look or have to look for “god”, “meaning”, or “purpose” outside oneself.To me this feels like a lack of faith in ones own capabilities and possibilities, which is a characteristic that I’ve noticed in a lot of the more traditional faithful. And this is regrettable, because if you start from the premise that you are lacking in some way, you will probably find ways to make this true.

Religion in this sense has nothing to do with trying to make sense of the world on a physical level. It won’t provide you with hard facts about how to build a house or chair, and it won’t tell you where we came from or where we are going to.

It can provide you with a means to get out of the mindtwisting questions like “What am I supposed to do?” and “What is good and what is evil?” by offering you a way to look inside yourself and find those answers for yourself. It can provide you a way to stand surely on your own feet and find your own morality and way in the world as it is.

Religion defined in this way has nothing to do with reaching out to an external agency,  but everything with an open search for your own morality. There still may be an outside source of power, mercy, grace, or whatever you may want to call it, but it is not necessary for your own search.

Now I know that a lot of religious people would not define their way in life in exactly these words, but I do know that a lot, a big lot are actually doing just this.

And this is where I feel a large part of the “atheist” camp is being severely unjust in their criticism.

This has probably a lot to do with not defining themselves and the things they attack correctly, which is particularly ironic, seeing that most of these people actively equal atheism with a scientific frame of mind.

One mistake is  confusing religious practicioners with religious dogma. Although it’s understandable, because it would make things so very nice and clear-cut, even my few examples point out that things just do not work that way. Religious practicioners come in many flavours, and you need to aim your arrows at the correct mark to make sense, especially if you are claiming to be scientific.

Another problem is that a lot of “atheists” actively portray all religious people as gullible, stupid people who are badly in need of a brain transplant. I feel that just mentioning the fact that Freeman Dyson is a sincerely religious man will falsify this claim to everyone’s satisfaction.

Moreover, atheism does not equal scientific. Atheism is a stance on an issue that is a priori not within the scope of science. Yes, there is abundant evidence that a lot of religious practice do not actually work. This however is not proof that a god does not exist, however much you may want it to.

Now, it may seem that I am taking a lot of potshots at atheism, but I’m not.

You may notice that I’ve consistently put “atheists” in quotation marks. This is for the main reason that it is my view that most of the people labelling themselves “atheists” are in fact no such thing, and have a different agenda.

In fact, most “atheist” discussions tend to degenerate into “you’re stupid, and I’m not” shouting matches. Which is probably why a lot of people who don’t have any idea of what exciting thoughts atheism can lead to choose to style themselves as such.

It’s very, very human to try and find a safe (this is important, you won’t find many outspoken atheists in extremely fundamentalist countries), but controversial indentity for yourself and to use that to prove how great you are.

But it’s a pity that these so-called proponents of atheism feel they must choose the way of exclusion and closedmindedness.

How great would it be if they would try and focus of what an atheist stance would have on morality and ethics. How great would it be to propagate the idea that being free does not have to make you a self-serving libertine, but can actually lead to new avenues of thinking and ways of looking at the world.

There’s a world of thought out there, and what irritates, but mostly worries me, is that apparently, even though we are in the midst of redefing our view of the world, we still instinctively reach for an outside enemy instead of just trusting our own strengths.

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Tags: atheist, dogma, misunderstanding, religion, science

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