Why am I a “reluctant atheist”? Simple – the idea that I should define myself what I don’t believe in, rather than what I do, is one I find increasingly… odd. Using the word “atheist” and making a point of not believing in God almost acknowledges that there is in fact a god in which I happen not to believe. In fact, it’s not that I believe there is no god, but rather I have no belief about any god.
Under normal circumstances, “God” wouldn’t be something I think about at all. But increasingly these days, all kinds of religious people are making their private beliefs a matter of public debate, which means that people such as myself have to stand up and say, ‘well, actually, I think religions are no better than fairytales’.
I’m not a militant, evangelising atheist, so I won’t be setting out 101 reasons why not to believe in a given god, and getting into pointless arguments with staunch believers – militant, aggressive atheism is another reason why I’m reluctant to refer to myself as an “atheist”.
Finally, I’m a reluctant atheist because, like all the other atheists I know, we would actually quite like a religion – any religion – to be true. The idea that somehow one chooses to be an atheist is a myth propagated by people who appear to feel threatened by the existence of atheism…
Instead I’m going to develop the concept of being ‘unreligious’, and look at what’s wrong with concepts such as “humanism” and words such as “atheism”.
I shall also use this blog to comment on religious items in the news as they take my interest from the point of view of someone who is regarded by those in authority as having “no faith”. The principle behind this is that if you put your head above the parapet, so to speak, you can expect someone to take a shot at you.
Atheism is defined as the belief that there is no god. You are what is called an agnostic — one who has no belief about God. In fact, the word for atheist means “no belief in God” and the word for agnostic means “no knowledge”.
I do not believe in, nor have ever believed in, any particular god, nor followed any particular religion. Thus by your definition – which, I agree, is the standard definition – I am an atheist.
But that’s the point I’ve perhaps not made very well: other people, ultimately religious people, will use the label to describe something which I do not believe in. Precisely because I do not have any religious beliefs concerning any god, I would not willingly define myself as not believing in “god”, not least because this presupposes that one actually knows what “god” is or which god, precisely. It begs the question: do you have any more labels to describe me, based on the other various things I happen not to believe in, such as Santa Claus, or unicorns?
In part, this is how “atheists” can fall into the trap of having to prove a negative: they’re often invited by a person with belief in a particular god to say why they don’t share their belief, which usually involves the “non-believer” in question to make an assumption about the god it is that they don’t believe in – surely an absurdity. It comes about because, once you have a label (”atheist”), it implies a positive statement or belief about the world, something which can be meaningfully said about the world, rather than an absence of belief or faith.
The history of atheism as a criminal activity is instructive here: the first recorded atheists were probably early Christians (Polycarp the Martyr springs to mind), because they refused to accept the official religious belief that the Roman Emperor was a god. Later, those accused of atheism – or indeed imprisoned or sentenced to death – were those who did not share the official Christian beliefs (or – famously in the case of Spinoza – official Jewish beliefs). As is often remarked, those who follow Middle Eastern religious traditions are all in fact atheists to a certain extent, because even the most devout theist will not believe in a variety of gods, even some versions of god within their own tradition. The “atheist” can only properly be said to exist in the mind of the theist.
For slightly different motives, however, we still live in a world where some people are keen to divide people with belief from those without, and so it is only with reluctance that I describe myself as an “atheist”.