Understanding the psychology of atheism

By admin · Sunday, August 30th, 2009

Atheists often maintain that religion is the cause of many, if not all, problems that face humankind. Moreover, atheists seem to believe that having faith in a supreme being is somehow childish and naieve, when seen in the light of humankind’s voyage through the evolutionary process. There is a certain arrogance inherent in modern secularism that tends to view past civilisations as necessarily more ignorant and backward than our own shiny new world of science and technology. However, it could hardly be argued that the ancient Egyptian culture or the Roman Empire were products of ignorance and ineptitude. And the artistic and architectural glories of the Middle Ages must have been inspired by something altogether more lasting than Dawkins’ passionate petulence.

Atheism as a state-enforced doctrine was tried and tested in the Soviet era, and communism as a whole is thought to be responsible for a hundred million innocent deaths. Quite an achievement, I’m sure. When life is regarded as not intrinsically valuable, let alone sacred and God-given, one opens to door to all kinds of Mengeleian nightmares. Just have a look at what science is preparing to get involved with in the cause of medical and genetic research. After all, eugenics is rational and strictly scientific, isn’t it?

I would concede that as a race, we humans are not expected not to change through the ages and certain religious practices of the past would now be considered less than enlightened and generally undesirable. And too often in days gone by the Church was all-powerful and this cannot be a good thing. But when atheists propose an eradication of anything that is metaphysical from the consciousness of people they must surely be barking up the wrong tree. Human beings are more than just their rational minds as all right-thinking people know. There are emotions, feelings, intuition, premonitions, hopes, fears, faith and, lest we forget, love. This dazzling ever-varying collection of mixed factors that make up a person cannot be reduced to a genetic unit whose only purpose in life is to pass on his or her selfish genes.

One can take issue with organised religion but faith and spirituality are facts of life and atheists had better deal with it.

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