Gray doesn’t say this in the Fin piece: perhaps it’s in the original article. In any case it’s nonsensical. Would someone who has ceased to believe in Santa be likely to go around vehemently insisting that Santa doesn’t live in the North Pole?

Immaculate Conception, by the way, refers to not to the virgin birth but to Mary’s having been conceived herself without original sin. Pardon me if you already know this; most people don’t.

The fact that atheism has been a largely European, anti-Christian phenomenon is hardly surprising, since the Enlightenment occurred in the context of European Christendom.

Not believiing in God is no more dogmatic than not believing in the Easter Bunny.

I certainly agree wholeheartedly with your closing paragraph. But I would dispute the claim by Gray that atheism “emerge(s) only in reaction against monotheism”. It’s certainly true that atheism has emerged mostly in the West, which has been characterised by Christianity. But, as you otherwise suggest, atheism as a sustainable intellectual position is largely generated by Science, and especially by Darwin and various cosmological discoveries, the net result of which is that one doesn’t need logically to posit a deity to explain the origin or development of the universe. Atheism is therefore a logical/rational conclusion (although not the only possible one) flowing from assessment of the objectively verifiable facts uncovered by Science, not a “reaction against monotheism”.

Of course, some argue that Science itself, as a product of the Enlightenment, could only have arisen in a monotheistic milieu that included the sorts of individualist, questioning strains of thought that came to exist at the time of the Renaissance. But that’s another question.

I do disagree with you - I think the psychology of this phenomenon is common - Gray makes the point that a lot of dogmatic atheism is stuck at a sort of adolescent level - the time at which people originally rejected faith. It makes sense that if our construct of religion has a determinate context, then our rejection of that construct will be in counterposed terms. I don’t think the Santa analogy holds, as the worldview is much more all-encompassing and being raised religious normally inspires much more emotional affect than hearing about Santa.

Ken, I don’t disagree that atheism is a possible rational conclusion, though I’d suspect that agnosticism is possibly a more defensible conclusion from the same premisses. I’d be inclined to agree also that science also arose from a “monotheistic milieu” - as you say, that’s another debate - but I think it reinforces Gray’s argument. But I don’t think we’re far apart here. I also would suggest that the dissemination of science as a practice and body of knowledge as part of the process of modernisation to non-Western cultures also provides the cultural conditions of possibility for the transmission of atheism as a belief set (not to mention also Western political ideologies - whether Liberal or Socialist).

But this is the only sense I can attach to the notion of an Atheist Catholic. By contrast, most reflective ex-catholics I know shed their doctrines quite naturally from about the age of sixteen, in ascending order of implausibility, i.e. starting with guardian angels and ending with God himself. We continue to marvel the mysteries of the cosmos, feel no hostility toward the idea of spirituality or group celebration, and still get a buzz out of singing the hymns we learned.

Maybe my claim lacks a bit of nuance or has been made a little too strongly - but I would suggest that the influence of a Catholic upbringing persists even if not dogmatically. Hence the phenomenon on the “cultural Catholic”. I still think that an initial socialisation at a young age into a body of belief with an all-encompassing worldview will continue to have effects throughout life despite increasing distance from that belief, and I don’t think that invalidates my argument.

Most christian atheists are entering the Uniting denomination judging by their beliefs.

Ken,
Darwin doesn’t challenge any christian belief as God put little emphasis on how he created the Earth rather he concentrated on why and for whom he created it.

The rhetoric the US uses is the enlightenment’s rhetoric. I consider the US Republic the triumph and the end of the enlightenment. When Bush gets up and talks about freedom and liberty it is very Madisonian/Jeffersonian and entirely fitting within the philosophical underpinnings of the US Republic. Bush’s issue is that the rhetoric doesn’t match reality. It is powerful rhetoric none-the-less.

Another aspect of American society is just how religious it is. Most industrialized nations have shed religion as they have grown in wealth and liberty. Except the US. When I was at Montpelier (Madison’s house) in Virginia, the guide went to great pains to explain that Madison did believe in God. When I said, “He was Deist right?” She dodged the question.

The “under god” issue in the pledge of allegiance is an ongoing problem in the US. To a Deist and probably the most important of the founding fathers (other than Hamilton), the notion of a nation being under the eye and guiding hand of god is repugnant.

To match modern American societies desire for religiosity in their lives and government has meant that the founding fathers have been mythologised into wanting religion in their government. Since many of them were young, radical thinkers trained in the enlightenment and science, founding fathers such as Madison saw little need for God in their life or government.

Really, what Gray is talking about is more like a condition of possibility (in the Kantian sense) or a cause at a relatively deep historical level or several times removed, if you like.

As to the American founding fathers, one should also note the rejection of an established church that happened progressively in State constitutions after the Revolution. I agree with you about their intentions and philosophy, but Jeffersonian Deism and the founders’ particular brand of Enlightenment rationailsm lost the argument pretty quickly - which had a fair bit to do actually with the rapid democratisation of American politics and society after the “Jacksonian Revolution”.

I do whole heartedly agree with Mark’s conclusion. I think at the heart of dogmatism (whether it be belief/non-belief) is a fear that one’s convictions are wrong. But we live in a society where flexibilty in how someone views the world is taken for sign of weakeness so I am not hopeful that Mark’s third alternative will be as common as needed.

It’s ironic that Europe culturally disestablished Christianity of its own cultural volition anyway and that the religious liberty leaders were from what is now the last European culture in the world in which Christianity is so closely linked to politics and governance.

I read The Faith of George W. Bush a few months ago. I was taken aback when the author told the story of how Bush the Elder got in real trouble with powerful pentecostalists because he - a non-demonstrative Episcopalian - wouldn’t say he was “born again.”

I suppose one can speak of dogmatic atheism, especially if it - or its culturally ancillary baggage - imitate the normative proselytism one associates with Christianity. It’s not as though atheists seek converts outwardly like televangelists. More importantly in the modern era, moral relativism, situation ethics and postmodernist hand-wringing about truth are indeed taught, handed down and used to influence public policy.

There is more than a mirror-image of religiosity there and more than a little dogmatism displayed by the hierarchs of the New Religion when challenged.

1. It doesn’t make sense to reject a basic proposition, e.g, that God exists; and then expend effort in refuting a subsidiary proposition, e.g. that God is a Trinity, or that Mary was conceived without original sin. Unless you’re a bit mad.

2. In his famous debate with Fr. Copleston, Bertrand Russell defined an atheist as someone who beleived the non-existence of God could be demonstrated. But the non-believers to whom this definition applies could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand, so it’s not a useful definition. What most atheists mean by the term is that they have not encountered persuasive evidence that any sort of God exists. This is a simple default position, not a dogma.

3. Paul Sheehan has a set-piece that he recycles at random intervals, arguing that the opposition to Bush and his evangelical supporters is motivated by atheist bigotry. If I reacted strongly to your post it’s because it seemed to echo that theme, however faintly. It feels like a variant of the anti-American, anti-semitic stuff that’s been going round lately, although this is probably the last thing you intended. It’s hard enough work trying to argue a case about politics or religion without having to first fend off charges of prejudice.

No worries about vigorous debate - you’re spot on that I’m totally at odds with Paul Sheehan and not at all of the opinion that atheist bigotry is at the heat of the opposition to Bush.

CL - the other irony is that John Courtney Murray is now deeply out of fashion and that the curial maneouvring and the backlash against Dignitatis Humanae after the Council led to a continued push to intervene in secular politics. There are faint echoes of this in current Spanish politics.

Thanks, Irant, for a thoughtful comment. I’m also not sanguine about the likelihood of my third alternative succeeding but keep on plugging away.

(Of course, the UCA doesn’t do exclusion, so I do turn up at the church at Xmas, just to make Mum happy, I guess.)

On the other hand, becoming dogmatic about it seems pretty counter-productive. Active proselytising, for any creed, tends to piss most people off and often invokes a reactionary response.

Also, atheism often gets confused in the minds of detractors with paganism or Satanism, to the point where they get their arguments in a tangle and end up making themselves look even sillier.

At least atheism isn’t the dirty word in Australia that I get the impression that it is in the USA, where in many parts there is an active prejudice against atheists, so most tend to label themselves with the weasel words “secular humanist” or “unitary universalist”.

The causes and motives of the suicidal assaults on Washington and New York are not fully known, but for unbelievers they were acts of self-destructive terrorism that no secular mind could commit. With the retreat of Christianity in Europe, it may have seemed that unbelief was also in decline. In the event, unbelief has been given a new lease of life by a savage reminder of the persistent intensity of faith.

He doesn’t develop the point in the body of the article but concludes as follows:

Discussing the September 11 attacks at the start of the series, Miller commented that only people who believed they would survive bodily death could have committed such acts, involving as they did the certainty of death for themselves. It is a curiously innocent observation, leaving out of consideration the secular fanatics - communists, Nazis and others - who, without ever doubting that death is the end, were ready to die as well as kill for the cause. A contempt for life - one’s own and that of others - is not the exclusive privilege of religious believers, and in the 20th century it was more commonly found among adherents of secular faiths. After the disasters of the 20th century these secular creeds went into a steep decline but, with the emergence of a virulent form of fundamentalism, a moribund tradition of evangelical unbelief has undergone a revival. Happily, the atheist revival depends for its vitality on the primitive religiosity to which it is a response, and when that sputters out we can look forward to being rid of unbelief as well.

Call me one of those souless sceptics, I’d like to see some data. I’d take an anecdote or two to start with. The American Atheist website and other sources online report church attendance rose after the attacks and then settled back into normal levels. God knows those atheists don’t get too many free kicks, you’d think they’d be trumpeting any great social change in their direction.

I find the article (and Gray in general, from what I’ve read before this) too top heavy with generalisations and grinding axes to be much help.