Atheism is an ideology that has its god too! And where do I stand?

The face of the Jewish God according to Michelangelo

Almost all of atheists in the world proclaim loudly that atheism is neither an ideology nor a belief or a faith. Really? 

If according to you all my atheist friends, atheism is not an ideology, then I can conclude that you do not understand what ideology is. Literally, “ideology” is the “logic” of any “idea” one maintains. If atheism is not an ideology, it means all of you atheists do not have any idea about it, and don’t have any logic whatsoever why your idea is such and such. So, let me ask you atheists, are you sure that atheism is not an ideology, not an idea that has its logic to make it meaningful to those who adhere to? I hope you live not in denial again and again. 

I am sure that you atheists want me to give you a full definition of ideology. Ok, here it is, quoted from Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics. Ideology is

“Any comprehensive and mutually consistent set of ideas by which a social group makes sense of the world. An ideology needs to provide some explanation of how things have come to be as they are, some indication of where they are heading (to provide a guide to action), criteria for distinguishing truth from falsehood and valid arguments from invalid, and some overriding belief whether in God, Providence, or History, to which adherents may make a final appeal when challenged.”/1/

So, I hope you now to be widely open to accept the fact that atheism is an ideology. But, ok, if atheism is not an ideology, the alternative is that atheism is a faith, in the same meaning Christianity is understood by almost Christians. Almost all Christians do not want Christianity to be considered ideology. They say, Christianity is not an ideology created by humans, but a revelation sent by their God to be accepted faithfully as infallible by faith alone. If atheism is a faith in the same way Christians view their religion, alas this faith of atheism itself is an idea too that has a logic of its own―in other words, in this regard, atheism is an ideology whose validity is based on faith.

If atheism is the debunking of theism, the antithesis of theism, then it is scientifically necessary for all of atheists to demonstrate that their debunking of theism is true or valid by giving any valid empirical evidence. While theism views God to be in existence, then, as the debunking of theism, atheism maintains that God doesn’t exist. If atheists always ask theists to provide empirical evidence for the existence of God, then, scientifically speaking, atheists too should provide empirical evidence that God doesn’t exist. The atheistic claim that God doesn’t exist is scientifically valid only insofar as atheists can provide empirical evidence that God doesn’t exist. Thesis and antithesis are scientifically valid only insofar as both can provide empirical evidence for their respective different positions. The usual mantra of atheists all over the world that the burden of proof falls only on theism, not on atheism, is only a mantra, not a scientific statement. If you atheists view atheism as a scientific position in contrast to theism, so you are obliged to give empirical evidence for your atheistic position. Don’t live in denial again and again.  

Of course you atheists need another clarification to make you well-informed. Asking atheists to provide empirical evidence of the non-existence of God is entirely different from asking someone to prove that dragon or unicorn factually exists. Asking atheists to prove that God does not exist is scientifically necessary because they claim that atheism is a scientific debunking of theism or a scientific antithesis of theism. Insofar as I know, until now in the modern world, there are no official world religions that we call Dragon Religion or Unicorn Religion. Of course I know that dragon is a fictive animal that has an important role in the symbolic world of Chinese religions; but no Chinese will call their religions as Dragon Religions. Therefore, none wishes to make her/his life busy to scientifically debunk the Dragon Religions which do not exist in the real life.

Of course, we all know well, both theism and atheism cannot provide valid empirical evidence altogether for each claim about God, either God does exist or God doesn’t exist. To conclude, both theism and atheism are two different BELIEFs or FAITHs. The former is the belief or the faith that God exists; the latter is the belief or the faith that God doesn’t exist. In other words, theism is a religion of the existence of God; atheism is a religion of the non-existence of God. I am going to justify this strong contention of mine.

But, please now understand me that I do not want to make the definition of atheism complicated and extremely difficult to grasp. Everyone in the world of atheism, insofar as I have found, has each own definition about what atheism is. This is an indication of confusion and arbitrariness in the ideology we call atheism and in the communities that support it. Normally, atheism (from the Greek word a-theismos) is defined as a belief or an ideology that views god does not exist. Short and clear and honest. But, as a matter of fact, one god has been removed, other gods appear to have the power to rule the world.

The famous astronomer late Carl Sagan, in his book Broca's Brain, has a concise definition of what atheism is:

“Those who raise questions about the God hypothesis and the soul hypothesis are by no means all atheists. An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed. A wide range of intermediate positions seems admissible, and considering the enormous emotional energies with which the subject is invested, a questioning, courageous and open mind seems to be the essential tool for narrowing the range of our collective ignorance on the subject of the existence of God.”/2/ 

It seems that you atheist friends think that the various gods in religions are factual entities, physically exist in the sky, but are unobservable by our empirical instruments. Why do you think so while, on the other hand, you don’t believe that God exists? Your position is contradictory in itself.

For me, the theistic gods are not physical entities dwelling in the sky at all, but rather the theological concepts humans make to unveil the unobservable side of the universe, if this side exists at all. As the content of the theological concepts, these gods are part of the theistic ideology. So, gods exist in the realm of theistic ideology, in other words, gods are ideological entities too, or ideologies themselves. So, when you atheists are extremely angry with the gods of the theistic religions, you actually are angry toward ideological concepts humans have made! It is very weird to see that almost atheists unconsciously view themselves as being at deadly war against actual divine beings living in the sky.  

In atheism, gods-ideologies have been replaced by non-gods ideologies. If the non-god ideologies atheism have are absolutized and elevated very, very high, then the “non-god” in atheism changes into alternative gods. So, I find myself justified if I say that atheism has gods too, in the sense that atheism too has elevated ideological values that are of the same level with elevated ideological values of theism. What matters the most in every ideology is that each has the highest value, meaning, has god. Whether the gods of any ideologies are metaphorical or factual, is dependent on the mind of the people who believe in these gods. 

Dear my atheist friends, I want to emphasize again that I don’t equivocate the word “god” in this writing of mine. Very clearly, for me, “god” is a theistic concept in theology, in the same way as the word “market” is an economic concept in free-market capitalism. Viewed from ideological studies of religions, the word “god” doesn't refer to an entity physically and ontologically dwelling in the sky, but refers to the highest value in any theistic religions, in the same way as the American or European cultural idea of goodness is referred to by atheists as the highest value in their belief system named ideological atheism. 

No ideological systems in this world do have no gods. In capitalism, the god being worshiped is money, capital and free market. In Americanism as a civil religion the god being honored and glorified is the state, the USA constitution and the people of America. In democracy, its god is the voice of the people and the positive laws. In liberalism, god is secularity and free speech and free mind. In theism, god is the personal entity imagined to live in heaven.

Thus, what is the god in atheism? The god in atheism you believe in could be one of these possibilities: 

• either the atheism itself imagined by atheists as the perfect and final ideology;
• or the best and most perfect god in the universe after this god kicked out the gods of religions to nowhere; 
• or a certain cultural idea of American or European goodness; 
• or even the dreams of atheists themselves about science being the servant of the atheistic Lords;
• or the individual atheists themselves who glorify themselves very high, and then are followed and obeyed blindly by their pupils and followers; 
• or even, sadly, the rage and hatred atheists often reveal toward religions and religious believers. This atheist God has the name Religiophobia. Those are, minimally, the gods of atheism, in my opinion.  
• But, I think, for now I can add another mantra of atheists, which functions as another god in atheism, namely, their statement of belief or their statement of faith they have constructed, that is, “Atheism makes no claims. It is a lack of belief and nothing more.” What is very funny is that they even are really unaware of the fact that this statement is a claim and a belief too. They seem to be unaware of the fact that atheism, as does theism, has many fictions or myths. I have listed here at least 32 fictions or myths atheists actually embrace. Incredibly indeed!

It is now in order if I refer to the humanist Richard Carrier who criticizes the leaders of the New Atheism, e.g, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Michael Shermer, as those who hold bad epistemology for their understanding of reality. Here is what Carrier has stated,

“Epistemology is that branch of philosophy that is concerned with how you know something is true. One characteristic that is shared by all religions, even the most harmless and liberal religions, is a bad epistemology. . . . So our singular aim should be not the combating of religion alone, but the combating of all bad epistemologies. . . . The first goal of humanism, therefore, must be the pursuit of installing in ourselves the best epistemology we can find, which must be an epistemology that is itself self-testing and self-improving—so that if it is flawed, we will be steered constantly toward finding those flaws and fixing them. . . . Escaping religion is not enough. If you stumble into a secular ideology that is just as false and just as harmful as any religion, you have made no relevant progress. You’ve just replaced one kind of religion for another.”/3/ 

Where is the position of mine? I take the agnostic position. Agnostic means that we presently cannot know precisely whether the transcendent dimensions exist or not. I intentionally do not use the term “gods”, but the “transcendent dimensions” instead to refer to the realms that theists understand as the supernatural realms in which their various gods are believed to exist.

But considered from the concept of the multiverse (according to string theory, there exist 10⁵⁰⁰ universes, our own included) and the 26 dimensions this theory predicts, and the infinity resulting from the simple mathematical calculation (one divided by zero resulting in infinity), and the existence of the growing Cosmic Consciousness as one of the solutions to the Schrödinger Cat Paradox in quantum mechanics, we can believe that the transcendent realms could exist― it is called the “transcendent” realm because this realm is beyond the universe of our own, beyond the four dimensions in which we now are living, beyond the cosmic boundary that entraps us presently, reaching to the infinity whose contents, forms, dimensions and essence we can never understand totally. 

But, what is infinity? For me, infinity is the scope, the dimension, the room, the space, the quantity, and even the quality, which are always, always, always beyond the limits and the borders humans want to make. Because of infinity, there are always dimension, room, space, scope, quantity and quality that are always bigger, larger, greater, deeper, wider, than those humans can imagine about.  

In the second paragraph of chapter 13 of his book entitled The New Flatlanders: A Seeker's Guide to the Theory of Everything, Eric Middleton writes, “The challenge was to make sense of a spiritual reality beyond the reductionism of the three-dimensional world picture of Richard Dawkins, who focuses on the physical, ruling out any dimensions of the spirit. We shall move beyond the positivism of Stephen Hawking where only what can be tested and proved is true, to the models of transcendence in today's physics.”/4/ 

In some ways, I have the similar idea with Middleton’s, but I am of the opinion that physics one day in the future can demonstrate empirically, not only mathematically, the existence of the transcendent dimensions which, according to string theory, consist of 22 dimensions (our own 4 dimensions of spacetime excluded). Physicist Brian Greene, in his book The Elegant Universe, says that one or more of these extra-dimensions (that is, 26 minus 4 dimensions) may well be comparatively large even infinite./5/  

Sure, for the time being, we don’t know about the nature of those transcendent realms; but they probably exist. We should wait until our sciences advance to be able to describe empirically those realms. In this meaning, I am agnostic. 

The agnostic position is always science-based. This position causes anybody who embraces it to be open presently to the possibility that the transcendent God exists or that the transcendent God doesn’t exist; therefore, all agnostics cannot deny the full right of religions to exist and the full right of atheism to exist. 

As agnostic I, therefore, do hope that theism and atheism could in the present cooperate to build together the peaceful world we together inhabit now. Eliminate hatred and rage directed to one another forever! Our entire planet belongs to currently more than seven billion humans who embrace different and even contradictory ideologies competing to one another. Only people who presently can live harmoniously in diversity can manage well our one planet for the future generations.

Jakarta, 23 February 2015

Ioanes rakhmat   

Notes 

/1/ Ian McLean and Alistair McMillan, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996; 2nd edition 2003; 3rd edition 2009). 

/2/ Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain: Reflection of the Romance of Science (New York: Random House, 1974, 1979), p. 365.

/3/ Richard Carrier, “Why Atheism Needs Feminism”, Freethought Blogs.com, at http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/6788.

/4/ Eric Middleton, The New Flatlanders: A Seeker’s Guide to the Theory of Everything, (West Conshohoken, PA.: Templeton Foundation Press, 2007), p. 134.

/5/ Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999, 2003, first edition), pp. 184 ff.


 

My Open Letter to the Supporters of the New Atheism Concerning the Holy Books of Religions

Christopher Hitchens 

So far as I can observe, atheists all over the world always shout out that all the holy scriptures of religions contain only terrible and fierce passages that unavoidably threaten the peaceful world. It is not an exaggeration if I say that they seriously want all the holy books and all religions be eliminated from the world! The indications about this are so obvious!

Now it is the opportune time for me to address the atheist community worldwide directly, openly, smartly, eloquently and prudently, after for the last several years I maintained the silent position concerning their harsh attitudes and behaviors in waging lethal symbolic war against religions and religious believers.

Yes, I know that in every holy scripture there are harmful passages, including in the Jewish Bible. But if you read them through carefully, there are noble passages too in every holy book. So, be honest and be smart! If you atheists say that terrible scriptural passages have given birth to radical religious believers, why cannot you say that noble scriptural passages have yielded many noble religious believers too? Another point: Rather than establishing peace on Earth, the imbalanced judgment of atheists on the holy books of religions in reality threatens the peace of the world that all humans of good conscience wish to establish.

 Mr. Sam Harris, old does not always mean bad!

Dawkins and Harris and the late Hitchens etc etc have never gone to any accredited universities to study theology and to practice exegesis and hermeneutics in theological faculties for many years. But they pretend to know well about all things scriptural, all things theological, all things exegetical, all things hermeneutical, all things religious. And then, even worse, they claim boastfully, in the name of their Holy Atheism, that their own views about religions, theologies, scriptural passages, hermeneutics, exegesis, are most perfect, truest, most valid, infallible, and, weirdly, “holiest and most divine”, that must be accepted by the civilized world. To borrow the typical word atheists often use to mock religious believers, religious believers can also say, “Coommmmmeee oooon, Dawkins, late Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, etc, all of you are actually the bullshitters!” On the basis of this fact, I am safely justified to say that they are as fanatic and bigoted as those radical religious believers they are now attacking. In ideology they diametrically differ from one another, but in mentality they dwell in the same camps.

They probably don’t know that there is a discipline in theology that we call the scientific study of religions, including the social, cultural, ideological and anthropological studies of all the passages of holy books of all religions. If you employ these scientific methods in religious studies, you can know well that every passages in any holy books are bound historically, socially, politically, culturally, anthropologically, to the past, are the products of their social, cultural, political, anthropological and historical contexts in the past. To use the broad German phrase, we say that any ancient texts are bound to their Sitz(en) im Leben. 

Therefore, we cannot use every text of any holy books by displacing and removing them from their social, cultural, political, anthropological and historical contexts in the past, from their settings in life. To use responsibly all the scriptural passages, the user should have a “critical awareness of history”, if he or she wishes to avoid any arbitrary treatment of any holy scriptures. If you have this critical awareness of history, you will have the intellectual capacity to weigh up the relevance or the irrelevance of any scriptural texts for the modern life, without being forced to wage war against religions and religious believers as Dawkins, Harris, et al., and their pupils, are currently doing naively. Without employing this historical critical approach in understanding any holy books, they are all literalists, in the same way as all radical religious believers are literalists. This is one thing. 

The other thing is this: Without using this historical critical approach in interpreting any holy books of religions, what will happen is that they incorporate their own understanding, will, biases and ideological agenda into the ancient religious texts, and then claim that they have gotten the meaning of the texts being interpreted themselves though in fact what they have obtained is their own understanding, will, biases and ideological agenda which had been forcedly and silently incorporated into the texts previously. Formally, we call this approach eisegesis, not exegesis, usually found in any unsympathetic readings of ancient texts. In the scientific studies of religions, the accountable approach should be the sympathetic readings of ancient religious texts. Dawkins, Harris, et al., are very clearly outsiders, not insiders, so far as it is concerned with their behaviors, attitudes, conducts and approaches in dealing with the holy scriptures of religions. The term “passing-over” has been made to express the hermeneutical movement from outsider to insider approaches of studying and understanding any religions and their adherents. 

If I am not wrong, what atheists Harris and Dawkins and Dennett and so on are doing is this: they abusively and arbitrarily remove any scriptural passages from their interconnectedness with their social, cultural, ideological, anthropological and historical contexts in the past. As the result, they and their pupils treat any holy books at will, arbitrarily, only to serve their anti-religious mentality and atheistic agenda. Even worse, their pupils have the bad habit of removing any scriptural passages from their social, cultural, ideological, anthropological and historical contexts in the past, and then use them and publish them shamefully on the Internet to attack and insult religions and religious believers fiercely. I am seriously very sick anytime I see their stupid and fierce behaviors!

You cannot only read anything that has been written and has become texts; you must study scientifically all the written texts in their interconnectedness with their own historical, cultural, social, ideological and anthropological contexts in the past. The meaning of any scriptural passages, including the terrible ones, comes from the social systems in which these passages were first written in ancient times. You cannot give your own meaning to any scriptural texts only to serve your own will, agenda and ambition. If you only read and then claim you understand all of what you have read, five years old kids can make the same claim too.

So, you pupils of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, etc., tell your masters to study scientifically how to interpret and understand any scriptural passages in an accountable way. I could be ready to teach them about the scientific studies of religions and historical exegesis. I have a doctorate in this field. It took ten years for me to study first in Indonesia and then in Europe until I obtained my doctorate. Send this message of mine to them all. I apologize to say that they are not enlightened yet in religious matters. They have never been trained academically in the scientific studies of religions. So, it would be better for them to study for many years in accredited universities first before stating anything at will, mistakenly and boastfully about religious texts. 

If they persistently treat scriptural texts in an amateur way, rather than developing peace and mutual understanding between world communities, they are, instead, doing harmful things that actually threaten and eliminate peace in our world. Instead of establishing the sisterhood of man in the world, they make humans attack one another first in the symbolic world and then in the physical world.

Finally, let me now cite the short conversation between Mr. A and me on my Facebook to show you atheists that there is something more important and nobler for me than atheism. Here it is.

Mr. A: You study theology yet can’t recognize forgeries, blatant lies, mistakes and horrendous affirmations of violence? If you do and still believe these Stone Age texts are the revealed words of god you have completely wasted your time. 

IR: Mr. A, as are other metaphors outside any holy scriptures beautiful and inspiring, such as the metaphors of Hulk, Ultron, Doraemon, Spiderman, Superman, Iron Man, Batman, there are so many beautiful and inspiring metaphors in the Bible and in other holy scriptures too. Why should intelligent men discard all those good and noble metaphors because they merely exist in the Bible? I know very well about how to study the Bible and other holy scriptures scientifically. This knowledge makes me open to the existence of any holy scriptures in the world and I don’t foolishly hate them as atheists do. 

There exist 4 billion adults currently who adhere to various religions. To discount them in any missions to spread peace and serenity in the world, is to do unwise, unstrategic and stupid things. My mission is to try to enlighten religious believers so they can be smartly and prudently religious, and religiously smart and prudent. Understood? To achieve this end, I should also deconstruct the atheist notions about the holy books, and to show the short-sightedness of atheists in making judgment on religions. Clear? 

Mr. A: I don’t doubt you are a good man but religion is spread mostly through intolerance and violence. Apostasy in Islam is a death. Christianity was spread at the point of the sword and has repressed societies globally, not least my country Ireland. I firmly believe religion is not a force for good but a method of social control and is based entirely on man-made constructs.

IR: No. I love Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha among others, and I cannot discard holy books to be studied scientifically, and I cannot affirm that God doesn’t exist or that God exists. I open my mind to the possibility God exists or doesn’t exist. I have so many religious friends who show themselves as people of goodness, kindness, love, nobleness, friendship, peace, serenity, happiness, hope, faith, and they are friends of God. As Indonesians, we once had a very kind and open-minded Muslim president who defended the rights of minorities in our land. Atheists cannot convince me at all that religions are bad. I see very clearly that religions have two faces, the good face and the bad face; and I am trying to show believers the good face of their religions to be imitated, and the bad face to be left behind. Let me travel this road. 

Mr. A: Happy travels, Ioanes, but I prefer evidence for the choices I make.

IR: I have ample evidence of the good sides of religions. And I respect so much if other people decide to believe in God and to trust him for their lifetime. Tolerance and friendship and wisdom and critical mind are more important and nobler for me than atheism. 

Mr. A: Ditto. 

If you don't have ears, you can listen; but if you have ears, you cannot listen.

 

Jakarta, 22 February 2015

ioanes rakhmat