Atheism Without Reason

This past week, a drama has been unfolding at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). It seems that they published a piece by an intern (Kat Grant) on the definition of “woman” in their newsletter, Freethought Today. You can read the piece here if you like, but I’ll spoil it for you: Grant thinks a woman is whoever claims to be one. Thankfully, they invited the distinguished biologist Jerry Coyne for a rebuttal defending the biological definition, but then hastily took it down, calling it “an error of judgement” that does not reflect their values. Understandably outraged, Coyne resigned from the FFRF honorary board, as did Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker.

While they are saying goodbye to FFRF, I think it might be a good time for me to say goodbye to organized atheism altogether.

This is not, to be clear, a goodbye to atheism. Despite the reports of famous re-conversions of former-atheists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, I cannot find God in my heart (or even a “God-shaped hole”). The switch has flipped; the myth has fully unraveled and been replaced by an understanding of the world that sits firm in my mind (far more comfortably than faith ever did). On this point, I don’t believe there is a way back for me. (I nearly wish I could manage some wiggle room here, if only so that I can understand what it is that my newly-religious friends are feeling and accepting. But no such luck.)

Still, I have become friendlier to the idea of religion as a social good as of the past few years, and now (more controversially), I even feel that there are intellectual benefits to faith too–or at least, to some forms of it. Much of this is informed by my experiences working within the atheist activism space, and by my resulting intellectual drift.

As some of you know, I had been involved in “movement atheism” for most of my career, primarily through my work organizing for the rights of ex-Muslims. I ran a nonprofit, produced videos, gave talks, held events etc, etc. I also worked with other organizations in the same space, collaborating on various projects through the years, and becoming friendly with many kind and thoughtful people.

Right from the get-go, however, I had felt a tension between myself and this new world. I sensed a staggering homogeneity in thought: everyone had the same social and political views as everyone else. I had never experienced this before—my high school buddies included committed Trotskyites and those who would earnestly argue that the Inquisition Wasn’t All Bad—even my former religious community was more heterodox. A few libertarians and old school liberals floated in and out, but otherwise, the secular world was progressive through and through. And worse, many of the younger generation were radicals who followed a highly intolerant brand of progressivism.

This was frustrating; I had always understood atheism to be a passive claim, a denial of the truth claims of religion and nothing else. The closest thing to a “value” I had any reason to expect from a fellow atheist might be a respect for the tools that led many of us to reject faith (reason/science) and for the freedom of speech and belief that allow us to be open about it.

And it is true that given the historical lack of social acceptance of atheists on the Right, one might expect that atheists would lean Left. But they didn’t just lean there, they fell in head first. I had ways to ease my discomfort: I could imagine that this was so because atheists were oriented around reality, and when compared to the religious Right, so was the Left. When the woke took over, I speculated that this was because atheists were having their compassion hijacked. When it came to Islam, perhaps they were simply misinformed.

That sufficed, until…gender.

I have never seen anything like it. In amazement, I watched scores of people I respected add pronouns in their emails, flags to their bios, and repeat circular mantras like “trans women are women”. The same people who laughed at religious credulity accepted the idea of a “gender” fully and without question, and worse–they suppressed all open discussion. Overnight, the same people who campaigned against blasphemy laws enacted their own version without a hint of irony. I watched long-standing figures in the movement be cast down for this crime of doubt; first by insane radicals on social media, but as the disease progressed, also by the most prominent organizations we had.

In other words, movement atheism had betrayed nearly every value it claimed to stand for.

I think of all the kind and generous people I had met there (including the heads of FFRF), and my heart breaks to see their fall. There are many, I’m sure, who are bowing only because the pressure to do so is enormous, and I can sympathize with this and wouldn’t wish a woke mob on anyone. I myself stayed silent far longer than I should have. But while I have compassion for the bullied, I am astonished at the zealotry of the believers, who are legion.

Most humiliating of all is the fact that atheists appear to be more likely than the religious to hold this particular unscientific dogma–a malfeasance heightened by the direct contradiction it poses to (alleged) core principles of reason and science.

It is because of this I now seriously ponder what I could not have imagined myself considering just a few years ago: the intellectual value of faith.

I wonder if I have greatly overestimated human reason. In the past, I had mostly thought about the “ceiling” that faith created–the ways in which religion hindered progress, scientific achievement and understanding. But now I think much more about the “floor” it creates, too. Perhaps without certain myths granting the power of the sacred to some fundamental truths (like the fact that there are two sexes), we would drift away from reality altogether. Maybe that is what is happening now. I could not have imagined it could be so. I was wrong.

But perhaps it is good to (once again) be humbled by a misjudgment, and to be forced to contend with the (occasionally contradictory and always fascinating) complexity of reality.