Owen did a brilliant piece on Christianity yesterday. So today I follow it up with a piece on atheism, as published recently in the New Scientist:

Lois Lee directs the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. She is quoted as saying: “When people say’atheism is just another religion’, they normally mean it in a pejorative way. The subtext is clear: atheists are hypocrites. If atheism really is just another religion, its claim to be a superior way to run the world is thereby fatally weakened, and the criticism of religion – that it is irrational, dogmatic and intolerant – comes flying back, with interest. In this way progress towards a more rational and secular society is undermined.

Atheists have been treated with suspicion for centuries. Latterly the strident criticism of religion from Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) hasn’t helped. “The church of the non-believers” and a “crusade against god”, are descriptions used by critics of Dawkins, who is accused of portraying atheism as the only source of truth and righteousness and its enemies as “bad, bad, bad”; another religion, in other words.

Dawkins may be over the top, but his accusers may be protesting too much. The defining feature of religion is belief in god(s). Atheism defines itself as the absence of belief in god. How can it be a religion? That is like saying that “off” is a TV channel, or not-playing-tennis is a sport.

But some people think that atheists have not taken the charge seriously enough.

The truth is, they say, is that atheism is not simply an absence of belief in god, but also a set of alternative beliefs about the origin and nature of reality. Even though these belief systems diverge in their content and level of fact from religious beliefs, perhaps they originate from the same underlying psychological processes, and fulfil similar psychological needs. Religious ideas, for example, provide stability and reassurance in the face of uncertainty. They help to explain events and provide a moral framework. For these reasons, and others, they are intuitively appealing to human brains. Maybe brains that reject supernatural ideas simply soak up naturalistic ones, helping alleviate stress and anxiety, as religion does.

It is well known that religious people often turn to their beliefs to deal with emotional distress. Faced with reminders of mortality and issues of morality, both religious people and atheists reaffirm their beliefs. Religious people turn to god to help people regain at least a subjective sense of control and predictability. Atheists do it too.

In times of stress atheists tend to turn to scientific ideas, especially theories that emphasise orderliness and predictability over randomness and unpredictability, which suggests that religious believers and atheists are more psychologically similar than either would like to think. (a heavily edited article that first appeared in the New Scientist).

I think all this is wild generalisation, and unscientific generalisation at that. There are many people who really couldn’t care less about these ‘isms. I am one of them. Yes I have a set of beliefs based on Epicureanism. They are humanistic. I believe in treating everyone with respect and kindness, would like to see greater equality, believe in good education and a decent, secure living for all, good manners, and consideration. I totally deny turning to any ism in times of stress – just maybe agonising for two minutes, then working it out and getting on with life, which should be a joy, not a penance.