<underfire> Atheism and Peace

[Melani McAlister]

Oops, sorry. I misnamed Michael Goldhaber as Michael Goldfarb, the correspondent for National Public Radio.

MM

Melani McAlister
Associate Professor of American Studies 
 and International Affairs
George Washington Univ. 
mmc at gwu.edu

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----- Original Message -----
From: Michael H Goldhaber <mgoldh at well.com>
Date: Monday, November 20, 2006 4:37 am
Subject: <underfire>  Atheism and Peace
To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org


> Mary,  et al.,
> 
> Mary Keller wrote:
> > From this perspective the a-theist is signifying the significance  
> > of their
> > location in the world. When someone tells me, as you did, that they  
> 
> > are an atheist  I hear "I don't need God. I don't count on  
> > transcendentals. I am happy to become worm food. I'm not looking  
> > for wings."  From  my perspective the atheist and the theist are  
> > both exercising the cognitive desire to  map out the significance  
> > of their location in the world.
> 
> Mary, I mistook your original position, it would seem, but here you  
> mistake mine, and that of many atheists. [FOOTNOTE: Taken literally,  
> 
> a disbelief in god does not necessitate a disbelief in an afterlife  
> (e.g., the original Buddhism, in which to be released from the cycle  
> 
> of reincarnation was a major goal) nor vice versa (Torah Judaism has  
> 
> “G-d”  but no mention of an afterlife; on the holiest day of Yom  
> Kippur, one prays only “to be inscribed in the book of life for  
> another year,” i.e. not to die within the year.) But ignore these  
> subtleties.]
> 
> Atheists believe there is no god. This has nothing to do with what  
> they would like. Further, as an atheist, along with many others, I  
> would not be happy to become worm food, in two ways. First, “I” will  
> 
> not exist after death (except in the minds of others). My dead body  
> will not contain not myself; the self will have ceased.
> 
> Second,  the prospect of death does not make me happy, but, no matter  
> 
> what I might want,  heaven does not seem to be available as an  
> alternative.  Many atheists wish to avoid death simply by remaining  
> alive. Some, such as Ray Kurzweil, think that we have reached, or  
> shortly will reach, a time, when, at least for a fortunate few, life  
> 
> expectancy increases by more than a year every year, due primarily to  
> 
> medical advances, so living “forever” may become a scientific  
> possibility.
> 
> Thus, for many atheists, life, at least their own, can become an  
> “ultimate value.” Like other ultimate values, if taken alone, this  
> can be dangerous. Some people may ruthlessly harvest others’ organs,  
> 
> for example. However, most recognize that acting to prevent murder  
> and against violence can be mutually beneficial. Thus, I think it is  
> 
> no accident that where religion has most waned, in Western Europe, we  
> 
> also find, on the whole, quite little support for war, in comparison  
> 
> with the past.
> 
> The commonplace proverb “there are no atheists in a foxhole,” can be  
> 
> taken two ways. The common one, of course, is that being in foxhole  
> under fire leads to prayer. The other is this:  Without religious  
> feeling, why give up your life, the most precious thing you have?
> 
> The fact is that much of western Europe’s long history of war and  
> conquest was quite explicitly religious: the “reconquista” of the  
> Iberian peninsula, the various crusades, the eastward expansion of  
> the Teutonic knights, the thirty-years’ war, much of the move into  
> Mexico, Cnetral  and South America, the Puritans in New England, the  
> 
> American Civil War, etc.  Perhaps later the religion of “the  
> nation” (the “Motherland” or the  “Fatherland”)  or the pseudo- 
> religions of Nazism or Marxism (both of which imposed belief)  to  
> some degree held sway. Now with social democracy, and no imposed  
> religion, nor imposed atheism, Western Europeans seem to have become  
> 
> much more peace-loving.
> 
> Here in the United States, most military recruits and support for the  
> 
> current war come from areas where religion is also strong — chiefly  
> the South and Midwestern and other rural areas. But, implicitly, even  
> 
> Bush recognized, for all his rhetoric that “we are at war,” that  
> ordinary Americans are sufficiently atheistic in reality that they do  
> 
> not want to make any personal sacrifices whatsoever in this war.
> 
> 
> 
> Best,
> Michael
> 
> 
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