My Atheism (Revised)

I have started to write something about my world view and my reasons for that viewpoint many times. Many times I have begun to sketch out what I want to say, and many times I have gone no further. I mean, why should anybody be interested in what I have to say? But then, I thought, I would not be writing for anyone else, I would be writing for me. In the act of writing sometimes things become clearer. And my world view, my 'philosophy' could so with some clearing up.

I think I will start with my atheism, why I hold that view and why I dislike the label 'atheist.'

In a story that I have told before, I can more or less pinpoint the moment that I began my development as an atheist. I was 13 years old, my family lived in a council house (public housing – but very good) in a tiny rural village in Lincolnshire, England. The village is called North Owersby. My brother and I were raised as free Methodists. The Wesley brothers were born at Epworth, also in Lincolnshire and Lincolnshire was a bedrock of Methodism.

My family consisted of my mother, who didn't work outside of the domestic scene, my father, a lorry driver at that time, and my younger brother. My brother was 10 years old. Both my brother and I attended Chapel on Sunday evenings and Sunday School (held at the Chapel) on Sunday mornings.

The Chapel building, which was built in 1881, still stands. It is no longer a Chapel, however. It has been converted to private dwellings. I remember it well. The smell of it. The coldness of it. The echoing acoustics that it had. I also remember it being full to capacity, with people standing at the sides and the rear, on Sunday evenings.

The local Minister was, as are most Methodist ministers, part-time. It was he who ran the Sunday school. There was often a guest Minister to take the service in the evenings.

Well, my brother and I attended this Chapel for many years. As a very young child, I regularly won a prize for good attendance or reading a passage from the Bible well, or some such. The prize was almost always a book. Usually a 'Bible Tales for Children' type of tome.

Anyway, after I was maybe 10 or so I became fascinated by two topics – astronomy and dinosaurs. It was unusual for a child to develop an interest in these particular topics way back in the mists of the late 50's – early '60s, there was simply no information aimed at children at that time, unlike today. I think these interests sprang from a growing interest in science-fiction (I was 10 when 'Dr. Who' started, and the various puppet shows by the Anderson’s had caught both my and my brother's attention). My parents also subscribed to a weekly encyclopaedia called 'Knowledge' that built up into 20 odd volumes I think. I was also a huge fan of 'Dan Dare' and a character called 'Jet Ace Logan'. From these sources, my interest was awakened and stimulated and fed.

BUT – in my desire to know more I found books in the library too, often aimed at an adult audience, and I struggled my way through them.

At some point, I found the 'scientific' explanation for stars, planets and dinosaurs more convincing than the 'religious' explanation. Remember, I was getting 'religious' stories pushed at me every week, and I could compare them.

There is almost certainly a hell of a lot of stuff I am not remembering at all, or remembering inaccurately. But this is the narrative I have developed from the data I have, flawed though that certainly is.

One day when I was 13 years old I was reading a rather heavy-going textbook on astronomy and I took it to Sunday School with me. My teacher didn't like that, but Sunday School is voluntary so he didn't make much of it. I had been reading about spectra, and how the rainbow is an example of one. My teacher chose to tell us the story of Noah and how the rainbow was a 'sign from God' and such. I stood up and said, 'That is not true'. I remember a 'discussion' of sorts where I tried to present the 'scientific' explanation to the other children present.

I don't know, or cannot recall, how that went. My Sunday School teacher was a gentle and kind man, so I don't think anything unpleasant happened. I do know that he called by our house later and said that maybe I was too old for Sunday School now. I never went again anyway.

At the age of 13, then, I was ready to reject the religious hypothesis in favour of the scientific hypothesis.

Why?

I have used the phrase 'peasant pragmatic scepticism' in other contexts. That is how I would, roughly, describe the 'culture' I was raised within. The community I grew up in was small, close-knit, very 'agricultural' and, yes, quite religious. The 'religious' element was not obvious and didn't seem to come up in everyday life at all, even though the Chapel was full on Sunday evenings. Most people were open and friendly, pragmatic and sceptical. Sceptical in the sense 'That is all well and good, but show me before I believe it,' and I believe that it was this attitude that prepared me to ask the questions that led me to, at least, agnosticism.

Whatever the reason, my curiosity plus a healthy scepticism led me to take the scientific model much more seriously than the religious model. However, for a long time, I toyed with the religious model as well, trying to make it fit the scientific world-view. In the '70s and '80s in England, there were some very liberal theologians, including the Bishop of Durham (David Jenkins 1984 to 1994), who held opinions and beliefs that were only a hairsbreadth away from atheism. Jenkins, I think, was actually misrepresented greatly at the time by hostile media.

Anyway, I played with various religious ideas and became interested in Buddhism (of course!). By the time I was 30 years old I had given up on religion altogether and was an atheist. I will admit to a residual admiration for Zen Buddhism that is still with me, and I have developed an interest in Stoicism, which is a sort of Western version Zen. It is not very widely known about, but that is changing. I think the 'mystical East' nonsense that grew very strong in the 1960s may have had something to do with its invisibility.

By the time I was 40 years old I was a confirmed Strong Atheist. I still am.

I dislike the label 'atheist' because it gives the impression that all atheists are alike, and we most certainly are not. It also gives the impression that atheism is a structured theory or ideology, and it is not. Atheism comes, as we know, from Greek and means 'No Gods'. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods.

That is it.

Atheists do have things in common. Most atheists are from the better-educated members of society, for example. They are also more likely to be male, European, and under 35 years of age. Well, I have post-graduate education, I am male and I am European. I am, however, not under 35. Atheists are more likely to be humanists, social-democrats and liberal. I would call myself a Humanist, but that requires definition, and I am neither a social-democrat nor particularly 'liberal', at least in the modern sense of the word.

These demographic statistics only demonstrate the background of people who self-identify as 'atheist', but nothing else.

At the risk of sounding pompous I regard my own view as 'post-theist'. In this regard, I cannot recommend too highly the book Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Michel Onfray (ISBN2-246-64801-7)

I regard all theology as empty air and the issues it discusses as meaningless, until and unless there is material evidence available.