Atheists, Agnostics and Believers – Not So Different

If religion is the human effort to reconcile mortality, pain and uncertainty, then atheism and agnosticism are the equivalent efforts to reconcile reason, science and theology.

It was the rare individual who balked at religion and belief in some sort of God before the enlightenment.  As mystifying as the world was, with all its natural calamities, wonders, joys and heartaches, there seemed to be no way to comprehend it without a foundation of Gods, spirits, devils and supernatural events.  The variety and complexity of these attempts to understand the world make up the rich mythology of humankind.

In western civilization, the growth, power and ultimate corruption of the Catholic Church during the middle ages and renaissance led to the Reformation, beginning in the early 1500’s.  By the early 1600’s, the combination of religious chaos and political machination was too volatile to contain, and a thirty-year war of catastrophic proportion ensued, depopulating continental Europe by 20% according to many estimates.

After this devastation, coincident with a growing movement of scientific and philosophical inquiry known in history as the Enlightenment (late 1600’s to the end of the 1700’s), many educated men and women began to question the dogmas and orthodoxies of formal religion.  The elevation of human reasoning and the evidence of the senses eroded much of the unquestioning obedience to the church and new ideas about the nature of God and humankind were abundant.

Such luminaries as Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hume and many others developed ideas that undercut the authority of the church and called into question much of the earlier accepted theology of both Christianity and Judaism.

In this period, only the most radical thinkers questioned the existence of God, but many rejected the ‘irrational’ underpinnings of the Christian faith – the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, the resurrection, the trinity – and nurtured the concept of a more nuanced and less dogmatic religious belief.  This belief was coined deism. It acknowledged the existence of God but stripped away most of the supernatural and bureaucratic trappings – the priests, the doctrines, the liturgy – and gave each individual the freedom to relate to God in his or her own way.

The American democratic experiment was in great part influenced by enlightenment concepts.  As children of that intellectual heritage, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and many others were either deists or were influenced by deist concepts.  Thomas Paine wrote the following:

'The opinions I have advanced ... are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation, by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues – and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now – and so help me God.'

In the 1800’s new scientific revelations further challenged, and to some extent, undermined the claims of established religion.  The newly established geological age of the earth and Darwin’s writings on the Origin of the Species and evolution called into question most of the stories of the ancient religious texts.

Some seekers of truth began to completely reject the notion of God, calling themselves atheists.  Others termed themselves agnostics, finding a middle ground in an ambiguous belief in ‘something’ but not embracing any specific form of religious thought or deity.

Both atheists and religious people, displaying that peculiar habit of humans to be self-righteous and judgmental, excoriated their foes with ridicule and disdain.  Neither group could conceive of how the other group could ascribe to their belief system.  Agnostics generally abandoned the entire exercise of religious inquiry, setting it aside for ‘future study’, perhaps in retirement!

One of the key questions that religious people pose is how the world would function without the moral authority of a God and His or Her religious institutions.  The investigation of this question is underway, as most of Europe and a growing number in the USA have ceased attending any regular, formal religious activities.  Initial reports seem to indicate that Europe has not devolved into an immoral, chaotic hell.  Indeed, some of the most ardent atheists and agnostics are involved in very noble pursuits such as Doctors Without Borders and other very moral endeavors.

Morality is a complex topic, but it is clear that our concept of morality has evolved, as we no longer consider it moral to stone or burn heretics, urge imperial conquerors on with prayers, or accept slavery as a God-ordained institution.  Perhaps it is best for us to use our combined human intellect and inquiry to refine our moral compass, rather than rely on ancient, questionable edicts.

In the final analysis, the three groups - atheists, agnostics and believers - have more in common than one might suspect.  As human beings, we are all faced with the overwhelming task of making sense of the world.  It seems that humanity has generally benefited by our search when it is sincere and in good faith.  There is still more mystery in our universe than fact in the big questions, and we must all live with a certain amount of ambiguity.  If we come to different conclusions about God and religion, yet contribute to the human community and do our best to avoid harming other people or ourselves, can we not call ourselves brothers and sisters and accept our varied, abstract musings without condemnation?

What God or Spirit or Divine Force, if there should be one, would not be proud of the passionate efforts of all humanity to make sense of its world?  Let us embrace the variety of thought and experience and each seek a path that is of rational or spiritual comfort.