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Arrogance of the Atheist
When reasonable people believe something that seems patently untrue, we have a puzzle. Exactly the sort of puzzle I like musing about. In this post, I will offer my speculation as to why so many religious people believe that atheists lack humility. Although such claims are preposterous on the face of it, there may well be some underlying core that, while still wrong, makes some sense.
Who’s arrogant
Before continuing with way the assertion that atheists, relative to believers, lack humility, I’d like to very briefly review why we find that claim so laughable. There’s little new in this section, so I’ll try to be brief.
Arrogant Atheist: I am one of six billion of my species and one of trillions of living things on this planet.
Humble Believer: I am second.
Arrogant Atheist: I live on a small blue dot in the outskirts of one of billions of galaxies.
Source Granger MeadorHumble Believer: I live on a world created just for me and my kind by the creator of the universe.
Arrogant Atheist: I am the product evolution through natural selection, the same mindless (though non-random) mechanical mechanism that is responsible for all of the complex design found in life.
Humble Believer: I am created in God’s image.
Arrogant Atheist: My species is part of the natural world as are all other living things.
Humble Believer: My species has been granted dominion over all living things.
Arrogant Atheist: The universe doesn’t know or care that I exist.
Humble Believer: The Creator of the universe cares deeply about my individual choices.
Arrogant Atheist: I can have only a small effect on the universe though my actions.
Humble Believer: The Creator of the universe listens to my prayers in which I (humbly) suggest improvements to His plan.
Arrogant Atheist: The universe has no purpose.
Humble Believer: The universe was created for me and my kind.
Arrogant Atheist: Although I may have a few educated guesses, I don’t know how life started out or how the universe came into existence.
Humble Believer: I know how life and the universe were created.
Arrogant Atheist: When I die, I will be dead except for in the memories of others.
Humble Believer: I will live forever by the side of God.
Is the atheist view depressing?
Some may find this view of our place in the universe depressing. It’s not depressing; it’s humbling. Humility may be hard for some people. And this view inspired awe and wonder in the universe as a whole.
Origins of absurdity
I hope that I have made clear above why atheists find to accusation of arrogance laughable, and laugh at it we do. What is more of a puzzle is why such an ridiculous claim resonates with people. I believe the answer lies in the perception that atheists are defying God and tradition. Remember, of course, that from an atheists point of view, “defying God” makes no sense. Or it makes as much sense as “defying unicorns”. As I’ve pointed out earlier in my note about blasphemy we are not insulting God when we blaspheme (at least if we are right).
Moral Foundations
Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt and colleagues have outlined a notion of five (or six) innate and universal psychological foundations of moral sentiments. The crucial point is that while these five are universally accessible, some of them matter more to some people than to others.
Quoting liberally from the Moral Foundations website the five are
- Harm/care […] This foundation underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
- Fairness/reciprocity […] This foundation generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.
- Ingroup/loyalty […] This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it’s “one for all, and all for one.”
- Authority/respect […] This foundation underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
- Purity/sanctity […] This foundation underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).
It is easy to pose alternatives and additions to these five, but it should be noted that these foundations are support by fairly extensive and careful studies involving many cultures. So although these don’t correspond perfectly to my intuitions, Haidt has the data to support his classification.
Haidt and his colleagues have reported that in the US liberals tend to derive their moral values from the first two foundations while conservatives use all five more evenly. What I am going to discuss in considering the case of why many people feel that atheists are arrogant is foundation 4: Authority/respect
“Respect my authority!”
People get onto the path of atheism for many different reasons. For some it starts with a rejection of religion authorities. My mother told the story that she stopped going to services when she asked the rabbi why the women had to sit separately in a screened off section in the back of the synagogue. She was told that it was so that the women wouldn’t distract the men from the business of praying. She concluded from this that Judaism was a man’s religion invented by particularly stupid men. It’s not clear to me whether she became a complete atheist, or was more inclined to the the “spiritual but certainly not religious” view. But for plenty of atheists, what started them on that path was a rejection of religious authority.1
For some people, respect for authority and tradition is a big part of why they are religious. For some atheists, rejection of tradition and authority is a big part of their atheism. To someone who feels deep down that respect for authority and tradition are virtues, rejection of those traditions and authorities may well seem as arrogance.
I am not for a moment suggesting that atheists are arrogant. I hold to the view that I’ve outlined at the beginning of this past. Atheism is the opposite of arrogance. But it shouldn’t be a mystery why some people could genuinely hold such a ridiculous position.
Whether having a better understanding of what other people think enables better communication or whether it just helps satisfy my curiosity is a question I can’t even begin to speculate about.
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Note that for me it was different. I was never exposed to strong religious authority, but I will leave a discussion of how I made the move from “spiritual but certainly not religious” to becoming an unambiguous atheist for another post. ↩
