Amateur Atheists

There are few things that annoy me more than atheists who seek to intellectually destroy any hope for faith and yet have never put much thought into their own assertions. As of late, the topic of concern has been social moral order. I will begin with the caveat that even under religious doctrines, the details of morality are less than ideally clear, and oftentimes the basic tenents of religion have been misused in such a fashion as to utterly obliterate basic principles. However, my intention is to show that there is at least a hope for some form of stable moral order under Christianity which is not feasible sans divinity.

Nietzsche understood the difficulty of eschewing God from the scope of human society. The terror of nihilism was a powerful force to overcome, and many simply do not have the mental fortitude necessary to do so. Modern atheists seem intent on saying that humanity could let go of the 'shackles' of religion and continue as normal. Unfortunately, this positions fails to consider two critical components of moral order: an ethical scale, and ramifications when ethical principles are violated.

First, we look at the ethical scale of good versus evil. At the moment, there seems to be some general agreement about basic ideas of what constitutes an appropriate activity and what does not. Killing someone who insults your mother is perhaps not the best course of action, and forcing a child to participate in sexual activity is typically frowned upon. On what basis, however, do we call these things 'bad' or 'wrong'? If the only thing determining this is our own instincts, our own drive for survival, there is nothing evil about it. Perhaps we could argue these things are inconvenient or inefficient, but this is hardly the same thing in my mind. Right and wrong beg for some kind of greater sense of appropriateness. To eschew the divine and make gods of ourselves, we now face the task of redefining all that is appropriate. The inertia of society has never been enough to deter opportunists, and further invalidating notions of right and wrong simply open the door for everyone to define these concepts on their own. With no reference point, my ideas of appropriate are equally as valid as anyone else's. Any attempt to create general principles around the furtherance of human society at large depends wholly upon one's concept of the goal of society at large, and thus is just as fluid. With God, we can at the least say there is a fairly concrete basis for morality, and simply continue to argue about the details rather than ask if the system can exist at all.

While religions tend to be murky about what precisely good and evil are, they are quite adept at saying what happens if you do evil. Heaven and Hell, in various forms, are present in virtually every system. This is primarily a question of incentive. If I do something wrong, what is the cosmic response? Without any form of divine response, there is no reason to do what is right. If we were able to peer into our genetic code and find inscripted therein the ten commandments of sociobiology, many would say we could function off of that. I contend that, without ultimate ramifications, there is no reason to do good. Survival is not enough of an incentive for some, and most of the time wrong seems to be rewarded anyways. Even if the activity is such that one does risk life and limb, a good chance of being able to avoid punishment may overcome that fear. Damnation has never been enough to hold back everyone, but at the very least there is some kind of knowledge that this is the possible result of their actions. Take away all punishment, and all the incentive to do good is gone. Whether or not I should do everything, I can do everything, and that 'freedom' is a dangerous thing for all of us.

Most counter arguments that I have heard stem from a single argument: humanity is better than that. I would love to agree, but I simply can't. Intellectuals like to assume that most people are as intelligent as them and compassionate people like to assume that most people are as generous as them. These assumptions are well-intentioned, but far too often outside of the scope of statistical reality. Overwhelmingly, humanity is ignorant and self-seeking when it has the opportunity to be so. I'm not saying we are by nature evil. I wholly believe that humanity is by nature neutral. Unfortunately, it is much easier to recognize the benefits of evil, and even harder to counter them.

Thus, I conclude. Moral order cannot be sustained without a greater reality as its source. If one wishes to argue it is possible, the entire notion of good and evil must be tossed out the window and reconstructed. Then, whatever results from that must be made so potently enforced in this world that no one dares transgress. Even this may not mitigate the purposelessness felt by most people who cannot construct for themselves a reality with sufficient meaning to live in. The fall of religion is, in my humble opinion, the fall of society as we know it.