Atheists are often assumed to be intolerant, immoral, battered, blind to the beauty of nature, and categorically closed to the supernatural.
Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism could not be “allowed” because, he said, “the promises, agreements, and oaths which are the obligations of human societies can have no power over the atheist.”
That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. Tellingly, 87% of the population claims to have “never doubted” about the existence of God; less than 10% identify themselves as atheists–and their reputation seems to be deteriorating.
Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to identify the myths that prevent them from playing a greater role in our national development.
1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.
In contrast, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that this can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness in the afterlife. Atheists tend to think that life is precious. Life is fulfilling for those who feel truly and completely alive. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they do not have to last forever to be so. Atheists tend to find this concern about meaninglessness … very … meaningless.
2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.
People of faith often argue that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with Fascism and Communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic in their fundamentals and generally evoke cults of personality indistinguishable from religious cults of hero worship. Auschwitz, the Gulag, and the battlefields were not examples of what happens when people reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial, and nationalist dogma in the highest stage of agitation. No society in human history has ever suffered from its people becoming too reasonable.
3) Atheism is dogmatic.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so endowed with the gift of foreseeing humanity’s needs that they may have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. Atheists are simply people who consider this claim, read the books, and find the claim unconvincing. They tend to take nothing on faith, not to be dogmatic, they reject unsubstantiated religious beliefs. Historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: “I claim that we are both atheists. I only believe one less god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
4) Atheists think that everything in the universe arose by chance.
No one knows why the universe came into existence. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently talk about “beginning”; or “creation” of the universe in general, since a detached concept of time is involved for this idea, and here we are talking directly about the space-time continuum.
The idea that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly presented as a critique of Darwinist evolution. Richard Dawkins explains in his excellent book, The God Delusion, that this represents an extraordinary misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we do not know exactly how early Earth chemistry led to species, we do know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not the result of simple chance. Development is a combination of random mutation and natural selection. Darwin came to formulate the concept of “natural selection” by analogy with “artificial selection” performed by livestock breeders. In both cases, selection exhibits a very non-random effect on the development of any varieties.
5) Atheism has no connection with science.
While it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God–so some scientists seem to be doing it–there is not a single question in which, with proper scientific reflection, there is not a tendency to destroy, rather than strengthen, religious faith. Take the American population as an example: most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the national Academy of Sciences do not. It follows that there are few ways of thinking that are less conducive to religious faith than science.