This is the final part in a trilogy of defences for so-called ‘militant atheism’ – you can find the previous two articles, here and here.

The Problem of IDGAFS

As I have stated before, IDGAFS is an acronym for “I Don’t Give a Frack”. These are fellow nonbelievers who nevertheless treat “faith” as:

- something to be respected

- something to be treated with kid-gloves

- something that we, as critics of religion, don’t understand (in a psychological or “spiritual” way)

- something that, as non-theologians, we have no right/ no argument/ no knowledge to speak against because of the “deep” theological miasma we ought to traverse first.

We have seen that faith is not a virtue. However you define “faith”, however much you go into these notions, we can all agree that belief without evidence is not a good thing. When you can present clear, logical arguments and proof that the Bible is not true historically and is contradictory; that the Quran is as far from being a science textbook, as a can of baked beans; when presented with overwhelming evidence that events did not occur as the Bible said, there is only one thing to bridge that gap, to render that false-claim into a shining example of virtue. That takes the Kierkegaardian “leap of faith”.

Critics often claim that we do not understand faith – but we are only pointing out exactly what the faithful do, how they conduct themselves when faced with our claims, and what they actually write about. I’m trying not to reference, but forgive me this one point. Rick Warren writes in A Purpose Driven Life: “Surrendered people obey God’s will, whether it makes sense or not.” Several million copies fly off the shelves, yet we critics are called upon for not knowing anything about faith.

I have raised this point before: Why criticise the critics of religion? We do not need to be backhanded from those who are fighting for the freedom of humanity, to liberate ourselves from the chains in the shadow of  a falling “divine” icon. I have said that I do not accept a middle-ground in this debate. And I reiterate: One side in this debate is going to be right.

We have seen that all the criticisms by IDGAFs are laughable and I will now present them in short bursts of debunking.

Claims Against the Critics

1. Active atheism/religious criticism caricatures all religious belief and thinks everyone is a fundamentalist – The Strawman Fallacy.

This is usually aimed at us when we ascribe religion as a motivator for a horrible act: Reverend Paul Hill’s murder of the abortion doctor Dr. Britton; the murder of Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, probably by fundamentalist Muslims; the proud martyrdom of many Muslim men and women, fighting for their “god-given” land; mothers sending their children out to test for minefields because, if their child dies as a martyr, Allah will put all the family members straight into j’ana (Heaven).

Notice I said “a” motivator, not “the” motivator. I’ve selected some horrible but nonetheless true examples. The criticism then is this: These are “fringe” groups and you can not attack religion because of that.

We do not have to: Look at the ‘holy’ books and look at the religious leaders. The Quran states you should kill, not listen, disassociate, and scorn unbelievers (4:89, 4:101, 4:76, etc. etc.). And the Quran is the literal word of Allah, according to Islam.

The Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious and nation-leader, issued a fatwa for the death of Salman Rushdie (and all associated with the book) for The Satanic Verses: because it caricatured Muhammad and disrespected Muhammad’s wives (and other reasons) – though it was a work of fiction and the only caricaturing was rendering Muhammad into a fallible human being. Khomeini did this without reading or even seeing the book.

Jerry Falwell was known for constantly saying floods and earthquakes were his god’s punishment on the world, because of human depravity (caused by homosexuality and other things Falwell deemed “evil”). His pestilential minions followed suit, by issuing similar decrees from their pulpits. Remember this goes to millions of viewers, not just those gaping from the pews.

And people lap it up, because Falwell and Khomeini are men the faithful consider their “spiritual” leaders. And let us not forget the “meek” Church of England, with Rt Rev Graham Dow, the Bishop of Carlisle, saying in 2007 that the “floods that [...] caused chaos and death across the UK were caused by God after he was provoked by the introduction of gay equality.”

Somehow these men know the “mind of God” – and not even the poetic beauty ascribed by Hawking, but in a way to initiate their own perverse goals. If you are going to deny the link between religion and all these atrocities, please present your case. No one is saying religion is the sole cause, but you can’t deny its power in making “good people do evil things”.

We do not caricature the faithful, the faithful have caricatured human sensibility. It is this we attack, criticise and deem disgusting for our species. There is no Strawmen here, only failed human intellect and reason which we bring to your attention.

2. You are just as fundamentalist as those you attack – tu quoque (pronounced: to kwoh kway)

Can you be a fundamentalist atheist? First, IDGAFS and other critics must point out which books atheists uphold as absolute, perfect and infallible. And we must not forget the stupidity of considering atheism as some sort of group or movement: It is not. Everyone is an atheist – but presumably, being an atheist of the monotheist god is somehow different to other gods.

Though it seems unnecessary for this discussion, we must not forget where this term comes from. According to Karen Armstrong, fundamentalism is a recent phenomena. It was done to defend against the rational inquiry, promulgated by science and logic. But, as CP Farley writes, “Religious truths had always been considered beyond logic, but the fundamentalists transformed them into literal truths.”

In what way, do nonbelievers or atheist writers do this? I do not even know what is absolutely true, nor do I think I will ever know. Can the same be said for those who hold the Quran as the perfect word of Allah? Perhaps, but that would go against the teaching of Islam.

As nonbelievers, we do not work with certainty but remain impassive to absolutes. We have no books, gods or holy men who command us. You can not be absolute and dogmatic in your lack of belief in fairies, gods or goblins. It is also for this reason that atheism for the monotheist god can never be a religious movement, group or cause. (It is not even a thing in and of itself)

3. You can’t criticise that which you do not understand. You must first get to grips with the deep theological notions, which have hundreds of years of scholarship before you can dismiss it as nonsense – The Courtier’s Reply

We do not think religion is stupid, any more than we think a fiction-writer is a professional liar. I have a deep interest in religion because it is part of makes us human. We look at it anthropologically, study it objectively. (This is actually the reasonable proposal for every religious parent set out by one of the so-called Four Horsemen, Daniel Dennett.) But its truth-claims and claims to “divine” knowledge are what we question.

We do not ignore or deny the years of scholarship, but we fail to see how or why it’s necessary. Your average believer would not be interested in spending hours wading through tome after tome, on how their god is one but three. The majority of believers would not be interested in reading the annals of cognitive gymnastics, the gymnasium of which was set out by Aquinas, et al. Most of it is terribly unhelpful, uninteresting and – of course – untrue. The bottom line is simple: There is not a single good reason for believing that the monotheist god exists. And no amount of ancient gymnastics is going to change that.

And finally…

4. Atheism is a positive position – it is “There is no god”. I don’t think I can say that. I am uncertain and would rather remain agnostic – The Great Agnostic Mistake

As we’ve seen, we do not deal in certainty. We are inherently sceptical and critical of those who claim certainty. To say, then, that atheism is about certainty is to forget that atheism is simply a “lack of belief in a god/gods”. You can then slip in Allah, Yahweh, Loki, Tyr. To say that we are certain or positive of the non-existence of Allah or Loki is tantamount to saying we are endorsing that which we are against: Certainty and absolutism. That is bad logic. (This is similar to the claim that atheism is a religion, though critics are not silly enough to raise that point – see Claim #2)

Nevertheless, though an “agnostic” might acknowledge every point we make, they won’t declare themselves atheists. Yet, agnosticism says nothing about belief: It works on knowledge. I myself am agnostic about the existence of all gods, but I do not believe the god of the Bible or Quran – That makes me an atheist.

“Agnostics” are simply atheists who think:

1. If you are an atheist, you have to be an outspoken critic, hater, or debunker of religion.

2. That atheism is a movement or a positive position “There is NO god”, which is as bad as religious faith in god.

But this is not true. You are an atheist, but just hate that the label entails people treating you with the mindset of the previous two points. We should be working toward the notion that it’s okay not to be a monotheist. You can be an atheist (in a passive form), which means you never have to deal with any of the things we, as outspoken critics, have to.

It is just erroneous to think there is such a position as “I don’t know” with the monotheist god. There isn’t. Either you believe the monotheist god is watching you, loves you, hates your enemies, or you do not. Either the Bible is the word of god or it is not. Either Muhammad spoke to Gabriel, or he did not. You might take the latter as what you believe and that would be the reasonable position – but it does not mean you hate religion, or that you have to be outspoken. In these times however, every voice helps.

In these ways, the term ‘militant’ falls away. In these ways, with these thoughts, we can understand that saying ‘militant’ or ‘fundamentalist’ is a mistake when attributing it to atheism. You might not like what some atheistic-writers say, but criticise them for that. Do not criticise the notion of atheism as a faith-position, as a positive position, as a religious movement. There are better criticisms. IDGAFs must join our mission for the freedom and liberation of our species, where every man and woman can be respected, treated equally and find depth and beauty in reason. It is possible. But being backhanded by would-be allies only stifles our steps toward that goal.