Eduqas Atheism A* grade notes

Eduqas ↗︎
Philosophy ↗︎

For AO1 you need to know:

Atheism & agnosticism
The rise of New Atheism (anti-theism) and its main critiques of religion:
- Non-thinking
- Infantile worldview
- Impedes scientific progress
Religious responses:
- Defending relationship of religion with science
- Increase in fundamentalist religious activity regarding morality and community
- Religious apologists in media

For AO2 you need to be able to debate:

The success of atheistic arguments against religious belief
The extent to which religious responses to New Atheism have been successful

AO1: Atheism & Agnosticism

A/theism describes your belief state:
A theist believes in God.
An atheist does not believe in God.
A/gnosticism describes your knowledge state:
An agnostic would not claim to know for certain whether God exists.
A gnostic would claim to know for certain whether God exists.
A gnostic atheist is sometimes called a strong atheist: someone who does not believe in God and claims to know that God does not exist.
This is a relatively rare position because it is difficult to be absolutely certain of a negative claim.
To know for certain that something does not exist seems to require extremely extensive knowledge: that it exists at no time or place in reality.
This is especially difficult with God, who is traditionally understood as transcending the physical world and therefore lying beyond the normal reach of empirical investigation.
Though there are some atheists who would fit this, at least for some versions of what God involves.
Mackie’s logical problem of evil aims to show that the existence of the God of classical theism is logically impossible if evil exists, which supports strong atheism.
An agnostic atheist is sometimes called a weak atheist: someone who does not believe in God but does not claim to know for certain that God does not exist.
Evidential forms of the problem of evil, like that of Hume & Rowe, argue more for this sort of position.
They don’t claim that God is impossible, just that the evidence is against God’s existence.
The New Atheists generally take this position.
Dawkins says that, on a scale where 7 means absolute certainty that there is no God, he is a 6.
Most atheists are weak atheists in that they argue simply that there is insufficient justification for belief in God and therefore that belief should be withheld.
This view is typically grounded on an empiricist epistemology, that knowledge is based on experience.
Weak atheists often invoke the “burden of proof”, that justified belief requires some degree of evidence.
If we lack evidence for something, we lack a basis to believe it.
It’s not necessary to provide evidence that it doesn’t exist; disbelief is sufficiently justified by the absence of evidence.
Russell’s teapot illustrates this position.
He asks us to imagine a teapot orbiting the Sun somewhere in space.
We have no evidence that it exists, but neither can we conclusively prove that it does not.
Russell argues that this does not make belief and disbelief equally reasonable.
The absence of evidence for the teapot leave us with no good reason to believe in it.
So, when there is no evidence or proof on either side, it is not simply a matter of choosing whichever belief we prefer.
Weak atheists argue that belief requires justification; where sufficient justification is absent, withholding belief is the more rational response.

AO1: Militant atheism / anti-theism & the rise of New atheism

Response to the supposed incompatibility with science
A common religious response to the supposed conflict between religion and scientific progress is that the conflict mainly exists for religious extremists.
McGrath argues that it is unfair to reject all religion because of the ‘lunatic fringe’ who impede scientific progress.
Mainstream Christianity claims there is no necessary conflict between religion and science.
Francis Collins exemplifies this: he is both a Christian and a scientist and supports developments such as stem-cell research.
McGrath points out that Christianity has long recognised that the Bible contains allegorical and analogical language as well as literal claims.
Collins likewise argues that fundamentalist literalism is inconsistent with scientific knowledge.
“[Genesis] was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God.”
Polkinghorne agrees that literalism is scientifically and theologically mistaken because the Bible contains many different genres.
The Catholic Church also accepts evolution as compatible with Christian belief.
Increase in fundamentalist religious activity relating to morality and community
New Atheism has challenged traditional religion and its place in society.
One response has been a backlash in which some religious groups become more conservative or fundamentalist in order to defend traditional values they believe secular culture is undermining.
New Atheists often criticise Christian attitudes towards issues such as homosexuality, abortion, gender roles and stem-cell research.
However, rather than persuading all believers to liberalise, such criticism can strengthen the determination of some groups to defend traditional teachings.
Religion can therefore become a stronger source of identity and community in opposition to secular social values.
This is especially visible in parts of American Christianity, where conservative religious groups remain politically active on issues such as abortion and sexuality.
For example, religious conservatives strongly supported the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow individual states to restrict abortion.
New Atheism can therefore have the unintended effect of strengthening some of the conservative religious movements it attacks.
Increase in religious apologists defending religion in the media
Much of the conflict between New Atheism and religion takes place culturally through books, television, debates and online media.
The popularity of writers such as Dawkins and Hitchens created greater pressure for religious thinkers to defend Christianity publicly.
This has increased the prominence of religious apologists: thinkers who defend the rationality and value of religious belief.
Examples include William Lane Craig, Alister McGrath and Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
They respond to New Atheist arguments about science, morality, evidence and the harmfulness of religion, often arguing that sophisticated Christianity is different from the fundamentalist religion New Atheists attack.
Public debates have therefore become an important part of the modern relationship between religion and atheism.
Williams’ debate with Dawkins illustrates the increasing pressure on religious leaders to defend Christianity within a more secular and openly critical public culture.

AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology

The scientific method provides what the current evidence gives us most reason to believe.
Whereas, Dawkins argues faith is an excuse to believe what one wants.
E.g., in the doubting Thomas, Jesus implies the less evidence a believer needs, the more blessed they are.
Christian epistemology makes a virtue of blindness to evidence which can harm society (e.g. resisting embryo research & blood transfusions).
More broadly, faith imposes a child-like reliance on authority, opposed to the critical thinking needed for a healthy democracy.
A population with unscientific epistemic habits is more vulnerable to emotional manipulation by political demagogy.

Counter

However, McGrath responds that this overlooks the role of natural theology.
E.g., Aquinas’ 5 ways aim at a posteriori inductive proof of a higher power, supporting faith in the Christian God as reasonable.
Rational people are persuaded towards belief later in life by this, including McGrath himself and Antony Flew.
So, faith is not unscientifically blind but reason-supported and evidence-sensitive.
We could say the 5 ways are incorrect, but cannot say they are dangerously irrational.

Evaluation

However, Dawkins’ misunderstandings aside, natural theology is still irrational.
God’s arguments at best prove some higher power.
So, using them to support faith in a particular God unscientifically stretches them beyond what they can show.
Natural theologians argue this leap is where faith has its proper application.
Yet this concedes that belief goes beyond what evidence justifies.
McGrath assumes rationality is secured by granting a role to reason.
But using reason to support faith is rationalisation, not rationality.
Hume’s dictum of empiricism states the wise person proportions their beliefs to the evidence.
Only that secures rational belief sensitive to the ever-changing balance of evidence.
Religious belief may be consistent with the evidence, but it is not proportioned to it.
So, even sophisticated theology still promotes a harmful unscientific mindset.

AO2: The harmfulness of religion

Dawkins characterises the old testament God as an “ethnic cleanser … misogynistic, homophobic, infanticidal, genocidal” and “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”
The implication is that worshiping such a God reflects and perpetuates violence and prejudice.
He points to our evolved tribal tendency to favor members of our group and distrust the ‘other’.
Religion exacerbates this by splitting us into believers and non-believers, illustrated by the history of religious conflict.

Counter

McGrath counters that Dawkins unfairly focuses on fundamentalists.
Religion is distorted by extremists to legitimise their prior prejudices.
No worldview can be justly blamed for its misuse by the motivated reasoning of fanatics.
McGrath adds: Jesus is biblically presented as our role model.
He embodied agape: selfless love of all regardless of background (e.g. good samaritan).
Christian ethics thus orients us away from our propensity to dehumanisation.

Evaluation:

Ultimately, McGrath’s argument is true but misleadingly incomplete.
He risks committing a No True Scotsman fallacy, redefining “true Christianity” in a way that excludes violent interpretations.
This overlooks the flaws in the heart of the tradition, namely biblical passages which can motivate extremism.
E.g., subordination of women, condemnation of homosexuality and tacit endorsement of slavery.
So, extremists don’t simply misuse Christianity; aspects of the faith can also attract and enable them.
So, religion is both a symptom and a cause of prejudice.
McGrath claims theological reinterpretation of such passages address this.
But religion’s self-understanding as revealed eternal truth from a God makes such sophisticated reframing difficult.
Fundamentalists can always point to the prima facie meaning of problematic verses.
As Sam Harris put it, the problem with religious fundamentalism is the fundamentals of religion.
Religion will forever be burdened with the brute reality of its texts, which Mill described as “in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people”.

AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism

Dostoyevsky warned that if there is no God, everything is permitted.
Ratzinger argues that secularism collapses morality into human opinion and relativism.
This risks granting power over morality to the state, leading to 20th century totalitarianism.
Implicit here is a “dependence” anthropology, that ethics requires a transcendent ground.

Counter

Liberal political theory counters that state power is limited by democracy, rights and constitutional controls, without religion.
Kant developed an ‘autonomy’ anthropology, where moral law derives from rationality.
Liberalism can fail, E.g., Germany’s sinking into Nazism.
But empirically, secular democracies avoid totalitarianism more reliably than theocracies and typically have better social health markers in education, health and crime.
Correlation does not establish causation, but Sam Harris argues that secularists need only show that secular societies are compatible with flourishing.
That sufficiently challenges the claim that secularism necessarily produces nihilism.

Evaluation

Nietzsche shows how even if the ‘death of God’ caused some nihilism, that doesn’t justify Ratzinger’s conclusion.
Our dependence on religion might be conditioned rather than necessary:
Christianity encouraged us to associate value with transcendence and distrust moral autonomy.
Breaking free could cause moral disorientation, which Ratzinger points to as confirmation that transcendence was necessary all along.
But nihilism could just be a transitional crisis we could overcome.
If Nietzsche is right, Ratzinger’s argument has the logic of an abusive relationship:
It activates an insecurity religion itself cultivated, that we don’t know how to live without religion.
This encourages us to interpret the difficulties of independence through fear and regard life outside the relationship as hopeless.
History supports Nietzsche, because Ancient Greek philosophy developed non-nihilistic this-worldly ethics, as do modern secular philosophers.
This undermines the supposed necessity of transcendent value and supports the liberal autonomy view that humans can find the confidence to stand on our own two feet morally.

AO2: Faith schools & science

Dawkins argues faith schools exploit children’s dependence on adults before critical thinking develops..
He especially condemns threats of hell.
This can give children an unscientific mindset, accepting important claims through faith and authority rather than evidence and investigation.
Dawkins visited a faith school where he was told all pupils rejected evolution, while the science teacher struggled to explain why monkeys still existing does not conflict with human evolution.
This illustrates how religious schooling can obstruct scientific understanding and reasoning.

Counter

McGrath agrees that indoctrination is wrong, arguing beliefs should face evidence-based reasoning and blind faith is not truly Christian.
But he argues Dawkins’ reasonable point gets lost in the “noise of the hyped-up rhetoric”: calling religious upbringing ‘child abuse’ and implying religion survives only through indoctrination.
Faith schools done well could instead encourage critical examination of religious claims and inherited beliefs.

Evaluation

However, while Dawkins ‘Child abuse’ accusation is overgeneralised, it is not empty rhetoric, since some ex-Christians do require therapy to overcome fear of hell.
McGrath is right that arguments for religion exist, but few believers appear to acquire faith through them.
Studies suggest around 80% of religious people share the religion of at least one parent.
This is far higher than expected if belief were typically reached through independent reasoning.
Faith schools are part of this problem, forming children within one religious framework before they can really assess alternatives.
So, Dawkins is correct that faith schools involve at least a soft form of indoctrination.
Given how strongly religion tracks parental belief, it is plausible that religion would struggle to persist without social transmission exploiting children’s underdeveloped critical thinking and inculcating an unscientific mindset.
So, we should not grant parental religious influence the institutional reinforcement of faith schools.