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 does not claim to know for certain whether God exists.
A gnostic claims to know for certain whether God exists.
A gnostic atheist, sometimes called a strong atheist, does not believe in God and claims to know that God does not exist.
This is relatively rare because it is difficult to be certain that something does not exist anywhere in reality.
This is especially difficult with God, who is traditionally understood as transcending the physical world and therefore beyond normal empirical investigation.
However, some arguments support strong atheism towards particular concepts of God.
Mackie’s logical problem of evil argues that the God of classical theism is logically incompatible with the existence of evil, supporting strong atheism.
An agnostic atheist, sometimes called a weak atheist, does not believe in God but does not claim certainty that God does not exist.
Evidential problems of evil, such as those associated with Hume and Rowe, fit this position.
They do not claim that God is impossible, only that the evidence counts against God’s existence.
The New Atheists generally take this position.
Dawkins says that, on a scale where 7 means certainty that there is no God, he is a 6.
Most atheists are weak atheists: they argue that there is insufficient justification for belief in God and therefore that belief should be withheld.
This is typically grounded in an empiricist epistemology, where knowledge is based on experience.
Weak atheists often appeal to the burden of proof: justified belief requires evidence.
If sufficient evidence for something is absent, there is no obligation to believe it.
The atheist therefore does not need to prove that God does not exist before withholding belief.
Russell’s teapot illustrates this position.
Russell asks us to imagine a teapot orbiting the Sun.
We have no evidence that it exists, but cannot conclusively prove that it does not.
This does not make belief and disbelief equally reasonable.
The absence of evidence gives us no good reason to believe in the teapot.
Likewise, weak atheists argue that 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 is that conflict between religion and science mainly exists among religious extremists.
McGrath argues 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 similarly argues that fundamentalist literalism conflicts 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 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 to defend traditional values they believe secular culture is undermining.
New Atheists often criticise Christian views on issues such as homosexuality, abortion, gender roles and stem-cell research.
Rather than persuading all believers to liberalise, this criticism can strengthen some groups’ commitment to traditional teachings.
Religion can therefore become a stronger source of identity and community in opposition to secular values.
This is especially visible in American Christianity, where conservative religious groups remain politically active on issues such as abortion and sexuality.
Religious conservatives, for example, supported the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade.
New Atheism can therefore unintentionally strengthen 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 through books, television, debates and online media.
The popularity of writers such as Dawkins and Hitchens created pressure for religious thinkers to defend Christianity publicly.
This 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.
They respond to New Atheist arguments about science, morality, evidence and the harmfulness of religion.
They often argue that sophisticated Christianity is different from the fundamentalist religion New Atheists tend to attack.
Williams’ debate with Dawkins illustrates the increasing pressure on religious leaders to defend Christianity within a more secular and openly critical culture.

AO2: Science vs religion on Methodology

The scientific method aims to believe what current evidence gives us most reason to accept.
Dawkins argues faith instead gives people an excuse to believe what they want.
In doubting Thomas, Jesus appears to praise those who believe without seeing.
This can encourage an unscientific mindset in which authority is valued above critical investigation.
Such habits can harm society when religious beliefs override evidence in areas such as medicine.

Counter

However, McGrath argues this ignores natural theology.
Aquinas’ Five Ways use a posteriori reasoning from features of the world to argue for a higher power.
Religious belief can therefore be supported by evidence and reasoning rather than blind faith.
Even if these arguments fail, they show religion need not be simply irrational.

Evaluation

However, natural theology still does not justify specifically Christian belief.
The Five Ways may at most establish some higher power, so using them to support Christianity stretches the evidence beyond what it shows.
Natural theologians often admit that faith is required to make this further step.
But that concedes that belief goes beyond the evidence.
McGrath therefore confuses using reason with being fully rational.
Hume argues that the wise person proportions belief to the evidence.
Christianity may be consistent with evidence, but it is not proportioned to it.
Even sophisticated theology therefore still promotes an unscientific mindset.

AO2: The harmfulness of religion

Dawkins describes the Old Testament God as an “ethnic cleanser … misogynistic, homophobic, infanticidal, genocidal” and “the most unpleasant character in all fiction”.
His point is that worshipping such a God may reinforce violence and prejudice.
Humans already have an evolved tribal tendency to favour their own group and distrust outsiders.
Religion can intensify this by dividing humanity into believers and non-believers, as religious conflict illustrates.

Counter

McGrath argues Dawkins unfairly treats fundamentalism as representative of religion.
Extremists may distort Christianity to legitimise prejudices they already possess.
Christianity can also oppose tribalism, since Jesus models agape across social boundaries, as in the Good Samaritan.
It can therefore challenge rather than encourage dehumanisation.

Evaluation

However, McGrath risks a No True Scotsman fallacy by treating violent Christianity as merely a distortion.
Biblical passages concerning women, homosexuality and slavery can themselves support prejudice.
Extremists therefore do not simply misuse Christianity; aspects of Christianity can also attract and enable them.
Religion can be both a symptom and a cause of prejudice.
Liberal reinterpretation cannot fully remove the problem because fundamentalists can appeal to the prima facie meaning of scripture.
As Sam Harris argues, the problem with religious fundamentalism can therefore lie partly in religion’s fundamentals.
Religion remains burdened by texts Mill called “in many respects barbarous”.

AO2: Whether secularism tends towards nihilism

Dostoyevsky warned that if there is no God, everything is permitted.
Ratzinger similarly argues secularism reduces morality to human opinion and relativism.
This can leave the state free to define morality, helping explain 20th-century totalitarianism.
His view assumes a “dependence” anthropology: morality needs a transcendent foundation.

Counter

Liberalism argues state power can instead be restrained by democracy, rights and constitutional limits.
Kant offers an ‘autonomy’ anthropology, where rational humans can recognise moral law for themselves.
However, secular democracies generally avoid totalitarianism more reliably than theocracies and often perform well on social measures.
As Sam Harris argues, secularists only need to show that secular societies can flourish.
That disproves the claim that secularism necessarily ends in nihilism.

Evaluation

Nietzsche gives a deeper reason to reject Ratzinger’s conclusion.
Even if the ‘death of God’ initially causes nihilism, this does not show transcendent morality is permanently necessary.
Christianity may itself have conditioned people to associate value with transcendence and distrust moral autonomy.
Losing religion could therefore create a temporary crisis because people have been taught that life without God is meaningless.
Ratzinger then mistakes this disorientation for proof that religion was necessary all along.
Nietzsche’s critique gives this argument the logic of an abusive relationship: religion cultivates dependence, then treats the difficulty of independence as evidence we cannot survive without it.
Ancient Greek and modern secular ethics show coherent this-worldly morality is possible.
This supports the liberal view that humans can stand on their own two feet morally.

AO2: Faith schools & science

Dawkins argues faith schools exploit children’s dependence on adults before critical thinking develops.
He particularly condemns threats of hell, which may encourage an unscientific mindset in which important claims are accepted through faith and authority rather than evidence.
Dawkins visited a faith school where he was told all pupils rejected evolution, while the science teacher struggled to explain why the continued existence of monkeys does not conflict with human evolution.
This suggests religious schooling can obstruct scientific understanding and reasoning.

Counter

McGrath agrees that indoctrination is wrong and argues Christian beliefs should face evidence-based reasoning.
However, he thinks Dawkins’ reasonable criticism gets lost in the “noise of the hyped-up rhetoric”, particularly his description of religious upbringing as child abuse.
Faith schools could instead encourage pupils to examine inherited religious beliefs critically rather than simply accept them.

Evaluation

However, although Dawkins’ accusation of ‘child abuse’ is overgeneralised, it is not empty rhetoric, since some ex-Christians require therapy to overcome fears of hell.
More importantly, although McGrath is right that arguments for religion exist, few believers seem to acquire religion through independent reasoning.
Studies suggest around 80% of religious people share the religion of at least one parent, suggesting social transmission plays a major role.
Faith schools reinforce this by forming children within one religious framework before they can properly assess alternatives.
Dawkins is therefore right that faith schools involve at least a soft form of indoctrination and risk encouraging an unscientific mindset.
Parental religious influence should not therefore receive the additional institutional reinforcement of faith schools.