That’s why I remarked that all universal generalizations are wrong. I bet there are, here and there, a few people whose attitude to Richard Dawkins is similar to a typical Roman Catholic’s attitude to the pope. But I’m pretty sure they’re rare. “Atheism has a rare failure mode where X happens” is not at all the same proposition as “In atheism, X happens”.
an example of practice that’s a bit ritualistic.
Oh yes, you reminded me of a category of unreasonable response I failed to mock in my original comment, so let me go ahead and mock it now.
“But atheists admire the writings of people like Russell and Ingersoll, which is like having sacred scriptures! And some of them do significance tests or always check the same things when they get into the car, which is like having rituals! And to be an atheist you have to not believe in a god, which is like having a body of doctrine you have to agree with! And many atheists expect there to be super-advanced aliens, or superintelligent AIs, now or in the future, and that’s like believing in supernatural superior beings! Etc., etc., etc.!” Nope. Those similarities are vague enough that if you’re willing to accept that sort of thing then everything “is a religion”. Software development is a religion: the scriptures are things like Kernighan & Ritchie or Knuth; the sacred places are maybe the Googleplex and (in memory only, now) Bell Labs; there are rituals like checking that all your tests pass before committing code to the version control repository; etc. Business is a religion: the prophets are famously effective businesspeople like Carnegie and Rockefeller in the past or Jobs and Elon Musk more recently; the system of ethics is the principle of always maximizing profits; the authority figures are CEOs; etc. Playing chess is a religion; the scriptures are opening manuals and books of famous games; there are lots of rituals like saying “j’adoube” before touching a piece you aren’t moving, and shaking hands with your opponent at the start or end of the game; the rules of chess somewhat resemble an ethical code and a body of doctrine; etc. I could go on for hours but I hope you’re bored already.
If a standard of comparison is broad enough to say that every institution or practice is “like a religion”, then the fact that it says atheism is like a religion is completely uninteresting.
motte-and-bailey
I’d agree if atheists were, when not being challenged by theists, busily engaged in worshipping the shade of Christopher Hitchens, or insisting that everyone has to read “The God Delusion” once a year, or otherwise behaving in ways that would plausibly count as religious. But I don’t see that; I genuinely think such things are really rare. There may be a bailey corresponding to the motte of just-disbelieving-in-gods (I put it that way because I do think the common claim that atheism means only not positively believing in any particular god has a whiff of motte-and-bailey about it, but that’s not something I’ve been arguing for or assuming) but if there is I don’t think it has anything to do with atheism being religion-like. (Things that might go in the bailey: the idea that religion is harmful as well as merely factually incorrect on the question of gods; admiration for science and maybe some preference for treating all questions in a broadly scientific manner; secularism.)
That’s why I remarked that all universal generalizations are wrong. I bet there are, here and there, a few people whose attitude to Richard Dawkins is similar to a typical Roman Catholic’s attitude to the pope. But I’m pretty sure they’re rare. “Atheism has a rare failure mode where X happens” is not at all the same proposition as “In atheism, X happens”.
Oh yes, you reminded me of a category of unreasonable response I failed to mock in my original comment, so let me go ahead and mock it now.
“But atheists admire the writings of people like Russell and Ingersoll, which is like having sacred scriptures! And some of them do significance tests or always check the same things when they get into the car, which is like having rituals! And to be an atheist you have to not believe in a god, which is like having a body of doctrine you have to agree with! And many atheists expect there to be super-advanced aliens, or superintelligent AIs, now or in the future, and that’s like believing in supernatural superior beings! Etc., etc., etc.!” Nope. Those similarities are vague enough that if you’re willing to accept that sort of thing then everything “is a religion”. Software development is a religion: the scriptures are things like Kernighan & Ritchie or Knuth; the sacred places are maybe the Googleplex and (in memory only, now) Bell Labs; there are rituals like checking that all your tests pass before committing code to the version control repository; etc. Business is a religion: the prophets are famously effective businesspeople like Carnegie and Rockefeller in the past or Jobs and Elon Musk more recently; the system of ethics is the principle of always maximizing profits; the authority figures are CEOs; etc. Playing chess is a religion; the scriptures are opening manuals and books of famous games; there are lots of rituals like saying “j’adoube” before touching a piece you aren’t moving, and shaking hands with your opponent at the start or end of the game; the rules of chess somewhat resemble an ethical code and a body of doctrine; etc. I could go on for hours but I hope you’re bored already.
If a standard of comparison is broad enough to say that every institution or practice is “like a religion”, then the fact that it says atheism is like a religion is completely uninteresting.
I’d agree if atheists were, when not being challenged by theists, busily engaged in worshipping the shade of Christopher Hitchens, or insisting that everyone has to read “The God Delusion” once a year, or otherwise behaving in ways that would plausibly count as religious. But I don’t see that; I genuinely think such things are really rare. There may be a bailey corresponding to the motte of just-disbelieving-in-gods (I put it that way because I do think the common claim that atheism means only not positively believing in any particular god has a whiff of motte-and-bailey about it, but that’s not something I’ve been arguing for or assuming) but if there is I don’t think it has anything to do with atheism being religion-like. (Things that might go in the bailey: the idea that religion is harmful as well as merely factually incorrect on the question of gods; admiration for science and maybe some preference for treating all questions in a broadly scientific manner; secularism.)