Are you an anti-theist?

I wouldn’t say I’m precisely an anti-theist, but I do feel some solidarity with them on a lot of issues. I believe that most people would be better off without religion, provided they had the intelligence and intellectual commitment to see that religion really isn’t necessary for things like providing a moral foundation or giving your life meaning. But there are a lot of people who simply wouldn’t get to that point if they weren’t religious. So in some ways, I guess I feel like religion almost functions as a kind of “easy mode” for providing answers to those difficult, haunting questions of existence. And, to that extent, I can’t really begrudge people that.

But in society as a whole, it doesn’t just stop there. I recently read through the 2016 Republican Party platform, and it’s loaded with appeals to the value of faith, advocating “faith-based programs,” and pushing for policies that seem to only have religious reasoning behind them. In other parts of the world, fundamentalist Muslims are committing persistent acts of terror and mass murder, because they believe their religion gives them the right to rule the world.

It should go without saying that I’m opposed to that type of religion, but then, so are a lot of theists. I don’t think “anti-theist” means just being opposed to the specific implementations of religion or god-belief which are harmful; my understanding is that it means holding the position that religion is harmful in general. To some extent, I understand and sympathize with that position. I’ve seen the harmful effects that religion can have.

But I’ve also known a lot of people (from back in the day when I used to be a believer myself), for whom religion does seem legitimately benign. While I don’t believe those people truly need religion to be loving or selfless, or appreciate the beauty of a sunrise, they seem to be practicing religion in a way that isn’t hurting anyone. I don’t see the need to take that away from them (not that I could even if I did want to).

At the end of the day, saying that all theism is bad, because of ISIS or the theocratic Dominionist movement in American politics, is just as much a hasty generalization fallacy as saying all atheism is bad because of the bloody regimes of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. To me, the problem with all of those things is neither theism nor atheism. I believe the real problem is dogma. What really causes harm is when a person holds onto harmful beliefs in a way that makes them immune to criticism, where no amount of evidence will change a believer’s mind.

If your goal is to believe whatever is actually true, then you don’t mind your beliefs being put under scrutiny, because that might help you arrive at beliefs which are more true than what you previously held. But if you believe dogmatically, then you’re given to understand that you already know the Truth, so there’s no point in being open-minded to other beliefs. After all, if you already have all the right answers, then the only possible result that changing your beliefs could have is to make them less right. Is it any wonder, then, that people who think this way are not open to hearing the other side of an issue?

When people have this mindset about their worldview, it insulates them from an honest examination of what real harm they’re causing in the world, because they’re acting on premises and assumption that they might realize aren’t actually true (if only they opened those beliefs up to challenge). That, to me, is the real problem. Dogma is the enemy; dogma is the force which really causes the most harm in the world.

However, that being said, I do think that religion is one of the most powerful purveyors of dogma, and so it’s not hard for me to understand why some other people would believe that “religion poisons everything,” and wish for a world without it.