The Seven Cs of Atheism

Atheism is a lack of belief in gods, nothing more. The list could be derived from the principles of freethinking or secular humanism.

I agree with Ed and Aj

Every newborn baby is an atheist. Merely being an atheist is nothing special.

And really–conservative? Gack.

It seems everyone else is saying what I first thought. I don’t like the assumption that ‘atheist’ means ‘active member of the atheist movement’ and the values that implies. I definitely think most of us in the movement would approve of those values, but this seems to edge dangerously close to what Greta Christina warned about when she talked about the doomed nature of atheist’s specialness.

Agree with AJ, and agree with everyone who cringed at “conservative.”

i think the traditional “conservatives” might have to coin a new term for themselves if that’s the definition.

While I understand where he’s coming from in applying the term “conservative” the reality is often quite different. Many atheists were culturally conditioned NOT to be atheists. The fact that they are willing to challenge that conditioning and break the mold makes them distinctly not conservative.

“rather die than describe myself as conservative.”

“I agree with Ed and Aj”

“conservative? Gack”

I am, as an atheist, appalled to see those people (who I usually agree with) showing such a level of childishness by getting hung up on terminology. You people whining about the usage of the term conservative remind me of the “conservatives” misuse of the term “Theory.”

I’m sure the author of this list didn’t even think about lumping atheists into the same group as fundies, and the focus it has warranted is disapointing to say the least.

I might add that this national obsession with “Liberal Agenda” and “Conservative Values” is nothing but destructive. I have seen (all too often) otherwise rational people disregard ideas and opinions that are sound and well reasoned because they were offered by people who are on the other side of this debate. We are all Americans.

Carl Sagan said in Demon Haunted World:

“In our time, with total fabrication of realistic stills, motion pictures, and videotapes technologically within reach, with television in every home, and with critical thinking in decline, restructuring societal memories even without much attention from the secret police seems possible. What I’m imagining here is not that each of us has a budget of memories implanted in special therapeutic sessions by state-appointed psychiatrists, but rather that small numbers of people will have so much control over news stories, history books, and deeply affecting images as to work major changes in collective attitudes.”

Am I the only one seeing this happen. The country is becoming polarized by relatively small groups of people to loath one another.
Control over this country has been far more widespread than probably Sagan could have dreamed. We are not meant to agree with each other all of the time. If we did this would be a very boring planet, but such venomous disregard for our fellow citizens is disgusting.

I’m not saying to agree with the political or religious stances associated with the more common use of the term “conservative,” but to be so hateful is sinking to a level of intolerance I would expect out of Falwell or Fred Phelps, not the “freethinkers” of the world. This ignorance based hatred is something I thought atheists were supposed to be above.

Although I relate to the 7 c’s I do think back to that funny George Carlin skit where he condenses the 10 commandments down to (I think) a single commandment. Perhaps the “7 C’s” can also be condensed down.

@Dean

I am, as an atheist, appalled to see those people (who I usually agree with) showing such a level of childishness by getting hung up on terminology. You people whining about the usage of the term conservative remind me of the “conservatives” misuse of the term “Theory.”

You said it better than I would have. I actually guffawed when I read their comments. In a “laugh at” kind of way.

You people are tilting at the wrong windmills.

Which ones would I remove? All of them. They have nothing to do with atheism and everything to do with a specific brand of philosophy. I can easily find counterexamples to each of the points.

The Scientific Catholic,

Clarity- I’ve met many, many atheists who weren’t clear in their thinking process. They have doubled back on previous statements,and using the argument “Prove God exists. If you can’t, he doesn’t exist.”

I haven’t met many atheists who believe in the non-existence of gods, let alone those that state if you can’t prove something exists then it doesn’t. I think that’s not true because I don’t believe that atheists willing to debate you would be that bad at it. You’ll find plenty of atheists here that aren’t like your strawman atheists.

Another minor point, I don’t understand how people are usually forced to choose between religion or science. I don’t believe most of the stories of the old testament. I believe they might serve as a moral guideline at most. But science and religion can go hand in hand, but most people are so determined to prove something wrong, they can try to make a connection

Science follows methodological naturalism, it ignores supernatural explanations, and purpose questions without agents based on previous knowledge. The reason for this is that science’s mission is to gain testable, reliable, universal, empirical knowledge. Religion is the opposite of that.

It’s claimed that religion doesn’t overlap science. Yet anyone who claims a virgin gave birth does not honestly believe that. If a tomb was found labelled Jesus, and DNA was found that had half a woman’s genome and then something never seen before for the rest, the Roman Catholic Church would not make the announcement “Nothing to see here, religion doesn’t overlap science”. Not to mention that any theist by definition believes in a god that interacts with the observable universe.

Attempts to accommodate religion by conciliate it with science are ultimately continuing the trend of God of the gaps theology. Neil Degrasse Tyson said it better than I ever could, science is halted by religion. Religion has had a long tradition of falsely explaining natural phenomena. Even if theists reject ideas of design and miracles, cosmology and neuroscience are in the realm of science, but I haven’t met a theist that doesn’t believe that an intelligent agent created the universe and doesn’t believe in souls.

Compared to the children squalling about being called a word they don’t like and the pedants who feel the need to remind us, yet again, what atheism is & isn’t, the fuzzy, optimistic inappropriateness of Berkshire projecting his ideals onto a shared fact of cosmological intellectual honesty gets a pass.

I refuse to describe myself as “conservative”. Besides the political meaning of that term, I don’t think it’s very “conservative” to reject the mainstream religious beliefs held by most people .

Meanwhile, that list is more applicable to skeptics (and perhaps secular humanists) than to atheists. Atheism is simply lack of belief in gods. That’s all it is.

I’m a god eating atheist, I’m not conservative. Even if there were gods, I would hunt them down and kill them.

Anyone who thinks atheists are, by definition, clear and consistent has not watched Bill Maher in Religulous and then sat down and read some of his anti-vax stuff.

I hate things like this. It’s so self-aggrandizing. It’s like the group who wanted to lump all atheists, skeptics, agnostics, and free-thinkers under the term Brights, implying that anyone who did profess or practice religion was Dim. Yeah, way to win friends and influence people.

Many people are atheists because it’s just so much easier. I wanted to be part of a faith community. I wanted to believe in some divine mystical supernatural source of love and acceptance. I tried a mainstream religion, a Neo-Pagan religion, and I even invented my own out of whatever was handy in fantasy books (St. Vidicon of Cathode, anyone?). I just couldn’t sustain the effort.

TychaBrahe,

It’s like the group who wanted to lump all atheists, skeptics, agnostics, and free-thinkers under the term Brights, implying that anyone who did profess or practice religion was Dim.

Just as the term “gay” implies anyone heterosexual is “sombre”.

Well, I liked it. And I agree with the statement that “Atheism is a conservative position”. The knee-jerk reactions of many of you to the ‘c’ word put you in the same category as Ann Coulter’s “all liberals hate America”. Conservative (small c) and liberal are philosophic positions, not political parties.

I just de converted and it is a wonderful thing to let go of the fear and really live. Fear dominated my live. The struggle is over I can finally be my self. Not a mindless Robot.

There are several conceptual mistakes with this piece. No doubt statements like this will continue to be repeated until enough minimally philosophically astute atheists and humanists insist on higher standards of thought.

1. None of the traits listed in the piece are either necessary or sufficient to be an atheist. You can arrive at atheism, for instance, out of mere rebellion to religious authority, or to fit in with a local culture.

2. Atheism itself is ONLY a conclusion the question of the existence of a god or gods. It logically entails no statements about the personal qualities of atheists, their values or social goals.

3. These traits are valued by the best thinkers in virtually all intellectually engaged belief systems.

What explains these confusions?

1. The unexamined conflation of philosophical atheism with movement or lived atheism. Philosophical atheism might presuppose clarity, consistency and being contradiction-free. After all, these are standards of philosophical reflection. But this doesn’t mean actual atheists necessarily embody these traits. This confusion also pops up in the usage “positive atheism.”

2. The confusion of mixing idealized value and actuality. Take “contradiction-free.” Surely this is an ideal of critical thought. But making the claim that this is what atheism is as a philosophical position can’t just be assumed or posited like a value statement can. It has to be argued for. Maybe the entire philosophical case for atheism in its best expression IS contradiction-free. But again, this doesn’t mean that all or any given expression of atheism can be merely assumed to be so.

Lastly, saying that atheism in the philosophical sense is contradiction-free becomes increasingly trivial in a secularizing world. What matters a great deal more to human life are the contradictions between our ethical values and how our social systems (political, economic, educational, etc.) actually function.

Locating and resisting these contradictions is a vastly broader and more difficult project, and often much harder to understand. This is where the most serious humanist work is at. Somewhere down the list of humanist priorities is the task of reducing religious errors, insofar as these violate truth or don’t serve human flourishing. But atheism is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for creating a better world. Think about it. Critical thinking is vastly more important than atheism for that, and critical thinking just might have the added benefit of reducing irrational religious belief. But you don’t have to be a critical thinker to be an atheist, or consistent, or have courage, etc.

Ultimately, I have no idea what purpose is served by a statement like “The Seven Cs of Atheism”, other than to perpetuate the very kind of thinking that our movement is supposedly trying to combat in the first place.