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Atheists, please read my heathen manifesto

Atheists protest in Tacoma, Washington. Photograph: Joshua Trujillo

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Sunday 25 March 2012

Atheists are too often portrayed as bishop-bashing extremists and

any meaningful debate with the religious becomes impossible. How

can this be remedied? At the Guardian Open Weekend, Julian

Baggini presented his 12 rules for heathens

In recent years, we atheists have become more confident

and outspoken in articulating and defending our

godlessness in the public square. Much has been gained

by this. There is now wider awareness of the

reasonableness of a naturalist world view, and some of

the unjustified deference to religion has been removed,

exposing them to much needed critical scrutiny.

Unfortunately, however, in a culture that tends to focus on the widest

distinctions, the most extreme positions and the most strident advocates, the

"moderate middle" has been sidelined by this debate. There is a perception of

unbridgeable polarisation, and a sense that the debates have sunk into a stale

impasse, with the same tired old arguments being rehearsed time and again

by protagonists who are getting more and more entrenched.

It is time, therefore, for those of us who are tired of the status quo to try to

shift the focus of our public discussions of atheism into areas where more

progress and genuine dialogue is possible. To achieve this, we need to rethink

what atheism stands for and how to present it. The so-called "new atheism"

may have put us on the map, but in the public imagination it amounts to little

more than a caricature of Richard Dawkins, which is not an accurate

representation of the terrain many of us occupy. We now need something else.

This manifesto is an attempt to point towards the next phase of atheism's

involvement in public discourse. It is not a list of doctrines that people areasked to sign up to but a set of suggestions to provide a focus for debate and

discussion. Nor is it an attempt to accurately describe what all atheists have in

common. Rather it is an attempt to prescribe what the best form of atheism

Become a fan ofGuardian Comment

Julian Baggini

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should be like.

1 Why we are heathens

It has long been recognised that the term "atheist" has unhelpful

connotations. It has too many dark associations and also defines itself

negatively, against what it opposes, not what it stands for. "Humanist" is one

alternative, but humanists are a subset of atheists who have a formal

organisation and set of beliefs many atheists do not share. Whatever the

intentions of those who adopt the labels, "rationalist" and "bright" both suffer

from sounding too self-satisfied, too confident, implying that others are

irrationalists or dim.

If we want an alternative, we should look to other groups who have reclaimed

mocking nicknames, such as gays, Methodists and Quakers. We need a name

that shows that we do not think too highly of ourselves. This is no trivial

point: atheism faces the human condition with honesty, and that requires

acknowledging our absurdity, weakness and stupidity, not just our capacity

for creativity, intelligence, love and compassion. "Heathen" fulfils this

ambition. We are heathens because we have not been saved by God and

because in the absence of divine revelation, we are in so many ways deeply

unenlightened. The main difference between us and the religious is that we

know this to be true of all of us, but they believe it is not true of them.

2 Heathens are naturalists

Heathens are not merely unbelievers: we believe many things too. Most

importantly, we believe in naturalism: the natural world is all there is and

there is no purposive, conscious agency that created or guides it. This natural

world may contain many mysteries and even unseen dimensions, but we have

no reason to believe that they are anything like the heavens, spirit worlds and

deities that have characterised supernatural religious beliefs over history.

Many religious believers deny the "supernatural" label, but unless they are

willing to disavow such beliefs as in the reality of a divine person, miracles,

resurrections or life after death, they are not naturalists.

3 Our first commitment is to the truth

Although we believe many things about what does and does not exist, these

are the conclusions we come to, not the basis of our worldview. That basis is a

commitment to see the world as truthfully as we can, using our rational

faculties as best we can, based on the best evidence we have. That is where

our primary commitment lies, not the conclusions we reach. Hence we areprepared to accept the possibility that we are wrong. It also means that we

respect and have much in common with people who come to very different

conclusions but have an equal respect for truth, reason and evidence. A

heathen has more in common with a sincere, rational, religious truth-seeker

than an atheist whose lack of belief is unquestioned, or has become

unquestionable.

4 We respect science, not scientism

Heathens place science in high regard, being the most successful means

humans have devised to come to a true understanding of the real nature of

the world on the basis of reason and evidence. If a belief conflicts with

science, then no matter how much we cherish it, science should prevail. That

is why the religious beliefs we most oppose are those that defy scientific

knowledge, such as young earth creationism.

Nonetheless, this does not make us scientistic. Scientism is the belief that

science provides the only means of gaining true knowledge of the world, and

that everything has to be understood through the lens of science or not at all.

There are scientistic atheists but heathens are not among them. Science is

limited in what it can contribute to our understanding of who we are and how

we should live because many of the most important facts of human life only

emerge at a level of description on which science remains silent. History, for

example, may ultimately depend on nothing more than the movements of

atoms, but you cannot understand the battle of Hastings by examining

interactions of fermions and bosons. Love may depend on nothing more than

the physical firing of neurons, but anyone who tries to understand it solely in

those terms just does not know what love means.

Science may also make life uncomfortable for us. For example, it may

undermine certain beliefs about free will that many atheists have relied on togive dignity and autonomy to our species.

Heathens are therefore properly respectful of science but also mindful of its

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. .

5 We value reason as precious but fragile

Heathens have a commitment to reason that fully acknowledges the limits of

reason. Reason is itself a multi-faceted thing that cannot be reduced to pure

logic. We use reason whenever we try to form true beliefs on the basis of the

clearest thinking, using the best evidence. But reason almost always leaves us

short of certain knowledge and very often leaves us with a need to make a

udgment in order to come to a conclusion. We also need to accept that

human beings are very imperfect users of reason, susceptible to biases,

distortions and prejudices that lead even the most intelligent astray. In short,if we understand what reason is and how it works, we have very good reason

to doubt those who claim rationality solely for those who accept their

worldview and who deny the rationality of those who disagree.

6 We are convinced, not dogmatic

The heathen's modesty about the power of reason and the certainty of her

conclusions should not be mistaken for a shoulder-shrugging agnosticism. We

have a very high degree of confidence in the truth of our naturalistic

worldview. But we do not dogmatically assert it. Being open to being wrong

and to changing our minds does not mean we lack conviction that we are

right. Strength of belief is not the same as rigidity of dogma.

7 We have no illusions about life as a heathen

Many people do not understand that it is possible to lead a meaningful, happy

life as a heathen, but we maintain that it is and can point to any number of

atheist philosophers and thinkers who have explained why this is so. But such

meaning and contentment does not inevitably follow from becoming a

heathen. Ours is a universe without guarantees of redemption or salvation and

sometimes people have terrible lives or do terrible things and thrive. On such

occasions, we have no consolation. That is the dark side of accepting the

truth, and we are prepared to acknowledge it. We are heathens because we

value living in the truth. But that does not mean that we pretend that always

makes life easy or us happy. If the evidence were to show that religious people

are happier and healthier than us, we would not see that as any reason to give

up our convictions.

8 We are secularists

We support a state that is neutral as regards people's fundamental worldviews.It is not neutral when it comes to the shared values necessary for people of

different conviction to live and thrive together. But it should not give any

special privilege to any particular sect or group, or use their creeds as a basis

for policy. Politics requires a coming together of people of different

fundamental convictions to formulate and justify policy in terms that all

understand, on the basis of principles that as many as possible can share.

This secularism does not require that religion is banished from public life or

that people may not be open as to how their faiths, or lack of one, motivate

their values. As long as the core of the business of state is neutral as regards

to comprehensive worldviews, we can be relaxed about expressions of these

commitments in society at large. We want to maintain the state's neutrality on

fundamental worldviews, not purge religion from society.

9 Heathens can be religious

There are a small minority of forms of religion that are entirely compatible

with the heathen position. These are forms of religion that reject the real

existence of supernatural entities and divinely authored texts, accept that

science trumps dogma, and who see the essential core of religion in its values

and practices. We have very little evidence that anything more than a small

fraction of actual existent religion is like this, but when it does conform to this

description, heathens have no reason to dismiss it as false.

10 Religion is often our friend

We believe in not being tone-deaf to religion and to understand it in the most

charitable way possible. So we support religions when they work to promote

values we share, including those of social justice and compassion. We are

respectful and sympathetic to the religious when they arrive at their different

conclusions on the basis of the same commitment to sincere, rational,

undogmatic inquiry as us, without in any way denying that we believe them to

be false and misguided. We are also sympathetic to religion when its effects

are more benign than malign. We appreciate that commitment to truth is but

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also of supreme importance. We are not prepared to insist that it is

indubitably better to live guided by such values all ied with false beliefs than it

is to live without such values but also without false belief.

11 We are critical of religion when necessary

Our willingness to accept what is good in religion is balanced by an equally

honest commitment to be critical of it when necessary. We object when

religion invokes mystery to avoid difficult questions or to obfuscate when

clarity is needed. We do not like the way in which "people of faith" tend to

huddle together in an unprincipled coalition of self-interest, even when thatmeans liberals getting into bed with homophobes and misogynists. We think it

is disingenuous for religious people to talk about the reasonableness of their

beliefs and the importance of values and practice, while drawing a veil over

their embrace of superstitious beliefs. In these and other areas, we assert the

right and need to make civil but acute criticisms.

And although our general stance is not one of hostility towards religion, there

are some occasions when this is exactly what is called for. When religions

promote prejudice, division or discrimination, suppress truth or stand in the

way of medical or social progress, a hostile response is an appropriate,

principled one, just as it is when atheists are guilty of the same crimes.

12 This manifesto is less concerned with distinguishing heathens from others

than forging links between us and others

Our commitment to independent thought and the provisionality of beliefmeans that few heathens are likely to agree completely with this manifesto. It

is therefore almost a precondition of supporting it that you do not entirely

support it. At the same time, although very few people of faith can be

heathens, many will find themselves in agreement with much of what

heathens belief. This is what provides the common ground to make fruitful

dialogue possible: we need to accept what we share in order to accept with

civility and understanding what we most certainly do not. This is what the

heathen manifesto is really about.

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