Pseudo-Atheists

Mencius has a great post up on our inundation with pseudo-atheists. He calls them Idealists, more common names would be secular utopians or non-religious left-liberals. It is quite the acute analysis. However, his hopes for the a non-Idealist future seem to me far less plausible. I wrote:

However, I would think your hope in the next generation is somewhat misplaced. Pure atheism is just too austere and unappealing a creed to ever gain much popularity, even among the elite. Young people, in particular, are just too inherently idealistic, in the larger sense, to ever embrace anything like it. They want to dream wonderful dreams and believe that they will come true. Sure, youthful rebelliousness will drive a few into the true non-Idealist camp, but not many. The hope that "the kids" will rebel against Idealism reminds me of the hope among traditionalist Christians that young people after the 60s would rebel against their parent's licentiousness, while totally neglecting the fact that such a backlash goes against the inherent tendencies of youth. Really, they actually expected young people to lead the charge against sex. Expecting young people to lead the charge against Idealism, I'm afraid, is not much less Quixotic. The best we can reasonably expect is a very mild blowback, a kind of Idealism Lite.

I would further note that it was the large cohort of young baby boomers that led to the aptheosis of Idealism in the 1960s. Much as young people today are somewhat more sexually conservative than their counterparts in the 60s and 70s, I think we can expect a moderate turn away from Idealism, but not much. There is still an awful lot of pre-marital sex going on out there. Mencius, does not explicitly say so, but I think he also places too much hope in the progress of scientific knowledge in the area of human nature. As the history of creationism shows, absurdity can long outlive its complete scientific refutation, so long as it exploits the innate biases of the human mind. We should expect no less from Idealism; it will live on, for most people cannot live without hope. If they cannot believe in a heaven "on the other side", if you will, then no matter what scientific evidence you present to them, they will want to build one on this earth. And they are going to give every benefit of the doubt to those who tell them they can.

I also take issue with Menius' assertion that traditional Christianity will disappear. First of all, as Razib would say, religion is natural and robust. That doesn't necessarily mean that Christianity will survive, but the example Razib uses is instructive. The Soviet Union battered away at Christianity for 70 or so years far more aggressively than most of our Idealist elites would even think of. And the result: Russia is not any less Christian than anywhere else in Europe. One could take the opposite tack and say that our current Idealist hegemony, combined with the soul numbing opiate of consumerism, will do the trick, but then the rest of Europe isn't any less Christian than Russia! It seems that traditional religion has a rock bottom appeal to about 10% of the population, with perhaps another 10% as fellow travellers. As Rodney Stark has demonstrated, traditional religion survives best because it gives you the most bang for your buck. Its high costs drive out cheaters and parasites. In fact, traditional religion's very alienation from mainstream society is part of its appeal. "Though they drive God from the earth, yet will we shelter him underground." Furthermore, a traditional religion like Christianity, with its rather definite theology, has an innate appeal to those who like leaven their flight into the numinous with a little rationalism. All these factor lead me to believe that traditional Christianity, while battered and embattled, is not going anywhere for the forseeable future. I'm afraid that, barring some catasrophe, the most likely scenario is a long, drawn out battle of inches between the battered remains of traditional Christianity and a soggy, watered down version of Idealism Lite. How this will wind up in the end, I really couldn't say, but I'm afraid true, non-Idealistic atheism is only going to be a bit player in the struggle.

I sometimes wonder how many real atheists are even out there. For example, Sam Harris doesn't seem to me so much an atheist as a religious eccentric, whose claims to atheism, so far as I can see, consist mostly of hating Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Dawkins waffles incoherently between being a left-wing Idealist and a hardcore scientific thinker, and Christopher Hitchens is just about the most inconsistent person I've ever read: I have no idea what he'll think on anything by next week. Likewise, one finds more even more sober thinkers like Stephen Pinker and Dan Dennett flirting with Platonism! Though not one myself, one of the things I respect about Razib Khan is that he really is a true hard core cold atheist. He will entertain no false hopes, even those for his own most cherished ideas. The eminent Alastir McGrath has written a great book on the declining appeal of atheism. I must quibble: what McGrath is describing is not the death of atheism in general, but the death of a particular form, that of what Razib calls "hot" atheism. Hot atheism is the idea that not only is traditional religion factually incorrect, but, in fact, a major cause of evil in the world. Religion is one of the main obstacles to stand between us and our great and glorious future. Not withstanding the recent spate of books from the likes of Harris and Dawkins, as McGrath demonstrates, this form of atheism is clearly in decline. The actual track record of atheistic regimes around the world has demolished any hope that politically empowered non-belief will make things any better in the real world. So, the only attraction of hot atheism really has left is the rebelliousness, the appeal of which tends to fade. (What it really means is that a few rock stars and such will declare themselves atheists to piss off the more conventional, but usually, by the third or fourth album, God will start popping up in the lyrics.) Being based on a much more plausible interpretation of reality, a much better future awaits true cold atheism. But only among a tiny handful of isolated intellectuals, mostly centred around university science departments, and who, however influential in the scientific world, will not have much influence in mainstream politics. The appeal of hot atheism to most people lay in its utopian hopes for a heaven on this earth, and cold atheism, whatever its merits, offers none of this. Where Mencius fits in all of this, I am not quite sure: he himself would doubtless wish to be classified as the coldest of cold atheists, and there is much to support such a claim, but his implausible trust in future generations leaves me to believe that secular utopianism has not yet been totally cleansed from his mind.