AN INTERESTING ARTICLE by Lois Lee and Stephen Bullivant in New Scientist (March 3rd) discusses the sociological explanation for religion and atheism. Sociology explains religion as an embedded tendency in the human psyche that responds to certain basic concerns but that withers away when confronted by scientific education, writes WILLIAM REVILLE
However, this hypothesis must be at least partially defective because it makes some predictions that are not fulfilled in practice. There is no parallel sociological analysis of atheism.
The conventional hypothesis would predict that today, 350 years after the Age of Enlightenment began, almost nobody would adhere to religion in Europe. But this is far from the case. The official EU Eurobarometer Poll on Social Values, Science and Technology (2005) asked people to opt for one of three categories: (A) I believe in God, (B) I believe in a spirit or life force, (C) I don’t believe in God or in any spirit or life force. In the following list, the figures that follow each country represent the percentage of people in categories A, B and C respectively: Europe as a whole (52, 27, 18), Malta (95, 3, 2), Poland (80, 15, 3), Italy (74, 16, 9), Ireland (73, 22, 4), Finland (41, 41, 16), UK (38, 40, 20), France (34, 27, 33), Netherlands (34, 37, 27).
So religion, although in decline, remains widespread. But what about religious belief among educated people – is the picture different here? Well, yes and no. Studies show a positive correlation between education and lack of religious belief, but the correlation between extent of education and irreligiosity does not hold up. For example, the World Attitudes Survey 2005 (quoted by Lee and Bullivant) shows that belief in God is slightly stronger among degree-holders than among those with only second-level education.
Religion clearly satisfies some deep human need. Throughout history, all societies have practised religion. But atheists have always existed also. What is it about the atheistic mind that resists this deep-seated human tendency towards religion? The sociological study of religion has not answered this question or explained the role atheism plays in social dynamics. This is probably because, as Lee and Bullivant suggest, the founders of sociology – including Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Karl Marx (1818–1883), Max Weber (1864–1920), Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) and Auguste Comte (1798–1857) – were all atheists and were preoccupied with explaining the “irrational” human tendency towards religion. Freud explains God as a psychological father figure, Marx famously described religion as “the opium of the people”, Durkheim explained religion as the human pursuit of social cohesion, and so on.
Whatever about atheists generally, a new variety of atheism, sometimes called New Atheism, certainly seems to have a distinctive mindset. Atheism as a philosophy, although asserting that religion is based on a false premise, is not necessarily aggressively antagonistic towards religion. But the New Atheism is aggressively anti-religion and numbers some prominent scientists in its ranks. It is led by scientist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. Dawkins has attracted many prominent supporters, including writers Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, philosopher Daniel Dennett, scientists Peter Atkins and PZ Myers.
The New Atheists attribute much of the evil in the world to religion and they want to rid the world of all varieties of religion – even the mildest and most “reasonable” forms. Extreme forms of religion are undoubtedly problematic, but New Atheism seems not to take into account that perhaps the only people who might moderate the zealots are their moderate, thoughtful co-religionists.
The mind of the New Atheist is characterised by arrogant certainty, dismissing all religion as nonsense. This was demonstrated by Peter Atkins, the renowned British chemist, in a recent debate at UCC with Irish Times columnist John Waters on science and religion. Atkins began (I quote from memory) by claiming that “religion scorns reason” – in fact, mainline Christianity has always valued reason. Commenting on his own general argument, he declared, “I know I am correct”. When asked about eminent scientists who believe in God, he said that these scientists are unable to overcome their childhood religious conditioning. He had no comment on Christian scientists such as Francis Collins, leader of the US public human genome project, who was raised in a non-religious environment. Atkins also declared that “philosophers are useless”.
I know many atheists who disagree with thoughtful Christians but respect their position. The thoughtful Christian likewise respects atheism. I suspect that most atheists are as embarrassed by the New Atheists as thoughtful Christians are by young earth creationists.
William Reville is UCC associate biochemistry professor and public awareness of science officer at UCC: understandingscience.ucc.ie