There are three major stances concerning God, gods, and the supernatural:
A person believes in the supernatural
This point of view holds that something exists beyond the natural world. This can be a god, several gods, spirits, a deity, or deities — a worldview that is commonly called theism1. It can also be a meta-physical life force, cosmic order, first cause, or reason for existence. Religions are typically centered on the worship of such supernatural entities.
A person takes no specific stance towards the belief in the supernatural
This point of view is commonly referred to as agnosticism3. In its strict definition, agnosticism just says that the existence of the supernatural cannot be known4.
What about other definitions of these terms?
The notions of “atheism”, “theism”, and “agnosticism” are by no means agreed on universally, and definitions vary from source to source. The Pew Research Group, for example, finds that 21% of American self-declared atheists believe in God5. Thus, these people use the word “atheist” in a different way than we do in this book.
When we use the word “atheism”, we are speaking of the position that rejects belief in the supernatural678. This does not mean that this definition is the only one, let alone the only “true” one. In particular, it does not mean that those who call themselves atheist would have to give up their belief in God. They shall believe whatever they wish, and call themselves whatever they wish — they are just not the people that this book talks about. This book will later argue that words are just arbitrary names, and that what counts is the concept itself, and not the word that we use for it. We just need a word for the phenomenon of disbelief, and “atheism” seems a natural choice.
Currently we are a minority, and as long as we are a minority we need a name.
What is the supernatural?
The supernatural is anything existing outside the natural world9. We will later give a more precise definition of the term. For now, we just enumerate things that are considered supernatural: gods, spirits, angels, and so-called higher powers. This includes, for example, the shen spirits of the East Asian religions, the god of Judaism, of Islam, and of Christianity, as well as other gods. It also includes concepts of the afterlife, a meta-physical cosmic order, any notion of a cycle of rebirth, and the idea of a divine destiny.
Human-made objects such as cars and toothbrushes are not considered supernatural. Feelings, emotions, thoughts, and other abstract things such as the water cycle or numbers are not considered supernatural either. Something can be intangible but still natural.
What is a god?
A god or deity is a supernatural being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or the fate of humans10. This definition includes the god associated with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, but also other gods of other religions, such as a moon god in certain Indigenous religions or the Four Heavenly Kings in variants of Buddhism. Those who practice the Wicca faith believe in a male god and a female god; the Bambuti believe in a forest god; and variants of Hinduism believe in an entire pantheon of gods. We give a formal definition of gods later, and discuss different gods in today’s religions in the Chapter on Religion.
Who is the Abrahamic god?
God, as painted by Cima da ConeglianoCima da Conegliano, 1510
The Abrahamic god is a particular god, who is revered in Judaism, Islam, Christianity, the Bahai Faith, and Spiritualism. He is considered the supreme being, the creator and ruler of the Universe, and the source of all moral authority10. Common attributes ascribed to him include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), and benevolence.
The description of this god as “Abrahamic” stems from the fact that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all trace their roots to the prophet Abraham. For simplicity, we will sometimes refer to the Abrahamic god simply as “God” (with a capital “G”). We will later devote an entire chapter to him.
What is theism?
The Buddha is not a god. But Buddhism believes in rebirth, which is a supernatural concept.
in the Wat Suan Dok Temple, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Theism is the belief that there is some supernatural being1. In the Western world, theism commonly means belief in God, the supreme being in the Abrahamic religions. Yet, theism can also mean belief in multiple gods, as in some variants of Hinduism.
Theism is just one of the facets of belief in the supernatural. For example, most variants of Buddhism (and related spiritual practices) have no god in the Abrahamic sense. But Buddhists do believe in supernatural concepts such as Samsara (the cycle of birth and death), Karma (the force that drives Samsara), and Nirvana (the liberation from Samsara). The same goes for modern philosophies that posit a supernatural cause or qualities for natural phenomena. For example, one of these philosophies sees “God” as a name for the first cause of the Universe. This viewpoint does not postulate a deity, but it posits a supernatural beginning to the world. Atheism rejects not just theism, but all of these supernatural beliefs as well678.
It is only afterwards that a new idea seems reasonable.
To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable.
What is religion?
Symbols of faith (left to right starting at the top row): Bahai, Buddhism, Christianity, Chinese Folk Religion, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Neopaganism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism CC-BY-SA Sowlos
Religion is the worship of a god or the supernatural11. Religions usually come with an entire belief system, cultural values, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and moral values. We will define the concept of a religion formally later, in the Chapter on Religion.
Depending on how they are defined, there are about 9 major world religions with more than 10 million adherents: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism/Taoism/Chinese Folk Religion, Judaism, Christianity, Spiritualism, Sikhism, Islam, and Shintoism. We will offer an extensive overview of today’s religions and their history in the Chapter on the World Religions.
By the definitions we are using in this book, every religious person is a believer in the supernatural. However, not everyone who believes in the supernatural necessarily follows the cultural and moral values of a religion. Some people believe in a supernatural power but explicitly reject the framework and validity of organized religion. Examples for such belief systems are Deism, Spirituality, and metaphysical philosophies. And vice versa, some people are “culturally religious” without committing themselves to a belief in the supernatural. This means that they identify with a religious tradition, its cultural values and/or even its moral code, but do not believe in its theological or metaphysical commitments. They can even be atheist.
What is agnosticism?
Agnosticism is the stance where one does not take any particular position towards belief in the supernatural1213. The supernatural could exist, it could not exist, or it could be an ill-defined concept in the first place. An agnostic simply has no particular view regarding the supernatural.
By this definition, everybody who does not actively believe or disbelieve in supernatural beings is an agnostic: babies (because they cannot form active beliefs about abstract concepts like the supernatural), people who do not care, and all those people who never heard of gods or imagined the existence of the supernatural. For the purpose of this book, agnosticism will also refer to the stance of anyone who would reply “none” when asked for their religious beliefs but who are not atheists.
There is a different, epistemic, definition of agnosticism, which we discuss below. We will also consider later why atheists are not agnostics.
A claim to knowledge needs to be substantiated;
ignorance needs only be confessed.
What is epistemic agnosticism?
In common discourse, the word “agnosticism” means that a person has no particular stance towards the belief in the supernatural. However, agnosticism can also mean the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims is unknown or even unknowable. This concerns in particular theological or metaphysical claims regarding the existence of things like gods, the supernatural, or the afterlife4. We will call this stance epistemic agnosticism.
Epistemic agnosticism is a theory about knowledge. It is not actually concerned with the existence of supernatural beings. Epistemic agnosticism says that we cannot know whether such entities exist or not, but it does not say whether we should believe in them or not. These two things are different: We can still believe in something we can’t know. For example, we can believe that the light in a refrigerator turns off after the door is closed (even though we can’t know whether it is off).
Similarly, one may acknowledge that it is impossible to prove God’s existence, but nevertheless have faith in his existence. Analogously, one may acknowledge that it is impossible to prove God’s inexistence, but still be an atheist.
What is atheism?
A common symbol of atheismCC0 Diane Reed
In this book we treat atheism as the active rejection of belief in the supernatural678. This means that atheists do not believe that gods exist, or that any other supernatural entities exist (like angels, good or evil spirits, or the devil). Nor do they more broadly believe that there is life after death, that we are reborn, or that there is some “cosmic” justice in the world other than the one administered by humans.
As noted above, there are a number of other definitions of atheism. One of them says that atheism is the rejection of belief “in gods”14 instead of “in the supernatural”. This definition is as valid as any other definition. However, some forms of Buddhism also do not believe in gods, and would thus qualify as atheist under this definition. This is indeed a possible view point. However, in this book, we use the word “atheist” in a different sense: When we talk about “atheism”, we will mean the rejection of the supernatural in general. Under this definition, Buddhism is not atheist, because it incorporates the belief in a supernatural world order and the concepts of rebirth and Karma.
Another definition says that atheism is the “lack of belief in the supernatural” instead of the rejection of belief in it3. This is a more sweeping definition of atheism, which would also include all those who have not made up their mind about God. We will not use this definition because it collapses the distinction between agnosticism and atheism (indeed, it would reduce all agnostics to atheists). For example, on this definition babies would also be atheists, because they lack beliefs about the supernatural. However, newborns lack belief in gods not because they actively reject the supernatural but because they cannot yet form beliefs about abstract concepts. In order to distinguish babies (and other people who have not come to a definite conclusion) from the people who actively reject the belief in God, in this book we call the former agnostics and the latter atheists.
A third definition says that atheism is the belief that the supernatural does not exist. Under this definition, atheists believe that gods, angels, spirits, and all other supernatural entities are not there. However, a considerable portion of atheists consider statements about the existence of the supernatural not false, but rather nonsensical. What is meant by nonsensical? Consider the sentence “The current king of France is bald”. This statement is not false but nonsensical, because France has no king at present. Its negation, “The current king of France is not bald”, is just as nonsensical. Some atheists hold that it is the same with statements about the supernatural: The concept of “god” is so ill-defined that one cannot even meaningfully say that a god does (or does not) exist. These atheists just reject supernatural statements outright instead of even trying to say whether they are true or false. To do justice to this viewpoint as well, we define atheism as the rejection of belief in the supernatural. Thus, our definition of atheism includes the stance that supernatural statements are false and the stance that they are nonsensical.
I am an atheist.
You claim that a god exists and I don’t believe you. It’s really that simple.
The Dawkins Scale
We have seen that some definitions of atheism treat the existence of God as ill-defined or irrelevant. But what about the position that the existence of God is plausible but false? British biologist Richard Dawkins developed a “spectrum of theistic probability”15 to account for varying levels of belief. The spectrum spans seven different levels of probability regarding the truth of atheism (expressed here in terms of the existence of God, but equally applicable to the supernatural generally):
Level 1: Strong theism. 100% probability God exists. In the words of Carl G. Jung: “I do not believe. I know!”
Level 2: De facto theism. Very high probability God exists but short of 100%. “I don’t know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that God exists.”
Level 3: Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50% probability that God exists but not very high. “I am uncertain, but I am inclined to believe God exists.”
Level 4: Completely impartial. Exactly 50% probability that God exists. “God’s existence and non-existence are equally probable.”
Level 5: Leaning towards atheism. The probability of God’s existence is lower than 50% but not very low. “I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical regarding God’s existence.”
Level 6: De facto atheism. Very low probability that God exists, but short of zero. “I don’t know for certain but I think the existence of God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that God does not exist.”
Level 7: Strong atheism. 100% probability God does not exist. “I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one.”
As we will discuss in the Chapter on Proofs, arguments for the existence of the supernatural are usually wrong (Level 1 on the scale). In a similar fashion, proofs that the supernatural does not exist (Level 7 on the scale) are equally hard to come by. Since neither theism nor atheism can be proven right, some people argue that we should all be agnostics.
However, if we never make an assertion without a proof, we could never make any statement about the real world at all. Iranian-Canadian author Armin Navabi gives the following example16:
I cannot say with absolute certainty that my wife is not a professional assassin hired by some sinister forces to exterminate me. But I don’t spend time worrying about the possibility because there is no evidence whatsoever to support it. And the same is true for the existence of God.
Therefore, someone at Level 6 on the Dawkins scale can (and should) embrace atheism even if they cannot prove the supernatural does not exist.
What is positive atheism?
Positive atheism is the stance that the supernatural most likely does not exist3. On the Dawkins Scale, we find positive atheism on Level 6. Positive atheists are the people who are willing to evaluate the truth or falsity of the hypothesis that the supernatural exists, who recognize that there is no proof of the non-existence of the supernatural, and who nevertheless consciously consider this hypothesis implausible or false.
This means that positive atheists believe that the Abrahamic god does not exist; that there are no gods at all; that demons, ghosts, angels, and spirits do not exist; that the Universe was not created by God; that there is no Heaven and no Hell; that moral values are not given by God; that prayer has no effect other than psychological; and that all other supernatural claims (such as horoscopes) are nonsense.
In this book we adopt a positive atheist’s point of view. For most practical purposes, however, there is little difference between positive atheism (the belief that the supernatural does not exist) and the more general variant of atheism (the rejection of belief in the supernatural).
We have two lives.
The second begins when we realize we only have one.
Understanding Atheism
Understanding atheism in practice
Khonvoum (artist’s rendition)Justin Williams @ Fanpop
To understand what atheism means, consider the religion of the Bambuti Pygmies. The Bambuti are an ethnic group in Africa residing in the Congo region17. In their belief system there is a god called Khonvoum. He wields a bow made from two snakes that together appear to humans as a rainbow. After sunset every day, Khonvoum gathers fragments of the stars and throws them into the Sun to revitalize it for the next day. He occasionally contacts mortals through Gor (a thunder god who is also an elephant) or a chameleon. According to the Bambuti, Khonvoum created mankind from clay. Black people were made from black clay, white people came from white clay, and the Pygmies themselves came from red clay18.
Atheism does not consider these statements true. Positive atheism even holds that they are outright false. Khonvoum does not really gather stars together and throw them at the Sun. He does not contact mortals through an elephant, chameleon, or any other animal. Khonvoum does not do this because he does not exist.
But if Khonvoum does not exist, what is he?
The Bambuti kept telling each other the story of Khonvoum.
Put simply, Khonvoum is a character in a story. Some shaman most likely came up with it to explain why the Sun rises every day, why there are rainbows, and what happens to the stars. Quite possibly the shaman counted himself among the people whom Khonvoum contacts occasionally. Maybe the shaman used the story also to remind people that people are all ultimately part of nature (“made from clay”).
Since then, the Bambuti keep telling this story of Khonvoum to each other. The story is part of the oral tradition of the Bambuti. But Khonvoum does not exist in the real world. He is just a character in the story that the shaman made up.
How can we be sure?
Can we prove that Khonvoum is just made up? We cannot. Khonvoum could indeed be hiding in the Congolese forest at this very moment. But there are a number of reasons that indicate that Khonvoum is indeed made up:
Magical events
The story goes that Khonvoum makes snakes appear like a rainbow. But a rainbow is the reflection and refraction of light in water particles and not in any way related to snakes.
Locality
The story of Khonvoum is known exclusively among the Bambuti. No other civilization has heard of Khonvoum, even though every other civilization experiences rainbows and the rising of the Sun.
No other evidence
There is no other evidence for Khonvoum apart from the story. Nobody has ever seen him, he has left no traces, and has spoken to no-one in some verifiable manner. If asked, the Bambuti would cite the rainbow as evidence of Khonvoum. But as noted above, rainbows are not supernatural events.
All of this makes it clear that Khonvoum does not exist. He is just a character in a story that the Bambuti keep telling each other.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
Religions as stories
A priest telling the story of a god
in the Dominican Church of Kraków, Poland
We have seen that a key part of the Bambuti religion is believing that Khonvoum gathers the stars to revitalize the Sun. We have argued that this and other parts of the narrative about Khonvoum is in fact just a story that the Bambutis have been telling each other for generations.
According to atheism, the same is true for all other religions. A religion is just a story that someone made up. It may claim that god gave fire to people (as in the Bambuti myth) or that God created the world (as in the Abrahamic religions), or that the Earth sprang from a lotus flower (as in some variants of Hinduism). In the end, religions are all just stories that someone made up once upon a time and that people keep telling each other. From the point of view of atheism, when you listen to a preacher in the church, an imam in a mosque, or a rabbi in a temple, you are listening to a set of stories.
These stories are not necessarily born out of a bad intention. They may not even be consciously “made up” at all, but rather (as we will discuss later) stem from honest early attempts to explain nature. But according to atheism, they are not factual descriptions of reality.
How can we be sure?
As in the case of Khonvoum, we cannot prove that gods do not exist. We can just use the same arguments we have used before:
Magical events
The Abrahamic god made a snake speak. But snakes cannot speak. They do not have a sufficiently complex brain to handle language. The speaking snake is thus a magical event. The other major religions all have their own respective magical stories.
Locality
Gods are always local to their culture. The Chinese gods are known only to the Chinese — because they live on in stories that the Chinese have told each other. The Abrahamic god was first known only in the Middle East until the Romans spread the story in Europe, and missionaries later spread it to Africa and the Americas. But what remains consistent is the fact that the god is not known where the story has not been spread.
No other evidence
There is no evidence for gods apart from scripture. Nobody has ever seen them, they have left no scientifically proven traces, and they have never spoken to anyone in some verifiable manner.
Hence, according to atheism, the story of the Abrahamic god is just as much story as is the story of Khonvoum. The same goes for all other gods and supernatural concepts.
Why do atheists not believe in gods?
We can now answer the question why atheists do not believe in gods: For an atheist, gods are fictional characters in a story. The gods are heroes and sometimes villains in ancient tales and holy scripture, but they do not exist in reality. It is exciting to read these stories, but once you close the book or stop listening to the narrative, the gods are gone.
The same is true for all other types of spirits and supernatural concepts. They appear in stories, fairy tales, and myths, but not in the real world. They are just products of human imagination. They exist only in our heads. We discuss this idea in detail in the Chapter on Gods.
The picture would change if there were any tangible evidence for the supernatural, or any proof of its existence. People have indeed developed a number of proofs for the existence of their respective gods or supernatural concepts. However, according to atheism, none of them holds water, as we will examine in the Chapter on Proofs, and (for the Abrahamic god in particular) in the Chapter on the Abrahamic god, the Chapter on Christianity, and the Chapter on Islam. Without such evidence or proof, the gods remain fictional characters.
The idea that gods are fictitious characters is actually widely accepted — as long as we talk about the gods of other civilizations. Think about how people talk about the Greek god Zeus. Today most people assume that Zeus does not really exist and that he is nothing more than a fictional character in a myth. Similarly, few Shintoists believe that Jesus is really the son of God. To them Jesus being the son of God is on par with Harry Potter flying on a broom — both are just stories. Atheists apply this logic to all gods — it’s all just stories.
Atheists believe in all gods equally — not at all.
Is there a proof against the existence of God?
Atheists do not claim to have a proof.CC-BY Dan Etherington
In general, it is not possible to prove that the supernatural does not exist. This means that positive atheism cannot be proven true. Is that not a problem?
Surprisingly, very few theories can be proven true. Take the theory of gravity: Things fall down if not obstructed. This theory makes lots of true predictions. Yet, how would we prove this theory? A number of things falling down validate that theory — but do not prove it. There could be one thing one day some time in the future that does not fall down. There is no way to actually prove that things always fall down. It can only be proven wrong: If one day, a thing does not fall down, the theory is false. Until that day, however, the theory is useful, because it makes lots of true predictions.
And it is the same with positive atheism. It cannot be proven right. But it makes lots of true predictions. It predicts that no god will ever show up and manifest himself in a scientifically verifiable way. It predicts that miracles do not happen, that prayer has no influence on the physical world, and that we will never hear back from a person who has died. These predictions have been true so far. And if ever a god shows up, then the predictions of positive atheism are false, and positive atheism is wrong. In this sense, positive atheism is like the theory of gravity: It cannot be proven right, but it can be proven wrong, and while that has not happened, the theory makes lots of true predictions. This is why positive atheists consider the theory true.
The belief in the supernatural, in contrast, has no such benefits. Despite assuming the existence of the supernatural, this belief cannot make a single prediction about the physical world that atheism could not make. We will later argue that this makes the belief in the supernatural literally meaningless: Theism does not help at all in understanding the physical world. And this is also the reason why theism cannot be proven wrong: It is easy to resist any proofs of falsehood if one makes no concrete predictions about the real world.
Neither theism nor atheism can be proven right.
But atheism can at least be proven wrong.
It’s just that it has never been.
Why then are there religions?
Atheism holds that religions are basically just stories that people tell each other. The gods and the other supernatural entities are then just characters in these stories. This raises a number of questions:
Why would people create such stories?
As we will argue in the book, people have come up with religious stories for several reasons: to explain the phenomena of nature; to explain and justify the events of life; or to govern a people. Some people also had experiences that they attributed to the supernatural. We discuss these reasons in detail in the Chapter on the Founding of Religion.
Why would people believe such stories?
By far the most common reason why people believe in these stories is that they have been brought up with this belief and it never occurred to them to question it. Other people believe because their religion gives them a community and peace of mind. And others are pressured into the belief by society. We discuss these reasons in detail in the Chapter on Following Religion. We also discuss the positive effects of religion on a society in the Chapter on the Benefits of Religion.
How could a fiction survive for so long?
Over the millennia, religions have developed techniques to keep their adherents loyal and to secure their own survival. These include the encouragement to make many children, the threat of hell and the promise of heaven, the punishment of apostasy, and the prohibition to marry adherents of other faiths. We discuss these factors in detail in the Chapter on Memes.
Who created the Universe?
Most religions provide a supernatural explanation of how the Universe came into existence. Atheism can have no such explanation. Thus, a frequent question is how the world was created in an atheist worldview.
The short answer is: Atheists do not know how the Universe came into existence. Each year, science tells us a little more about the birth of the Universe, but plenty of things are still unknown. We discuss this topic in detail in the Chapter on the Universe.
If we do not know how the Universe came into existence, that does not necessarily mean that it was created by God. Just because we do not know the answer, it does not mean that the supernatural answer would be the right one. Atheists hold that it is better to admit that “We do not know” rather than to believe in some explanation without scientific evidence. In particular, the Universe may not have come into existence at all. It may have always existed. Until we have more evidence in these matters, we should just not believe anything. This is not just common sense, but an imperative: Only when we admit that we do not know, we will be able to know one day.
If we abandon the requirement for scientific evidence, then everybody can come up with their own belief. This is indeed what happens: There is a plethora of supernatural creation narratives. Everyone believes theirs is the right one, while everyone has as little evidence as everyone else. This makes such explanations meaningless in atheist eyes. We discuss this way of thinking in detail in the Chapter on the God of Gaps.
Now atheists do not know the origin of the Universe. Believers do not know the origin of God. Does this not put atheists and believers on equal terms? It actually does not: We know for sure that the world exists, and thus it makes sense to search for its origin. The same cannot be said of God. Thus, atheists are one step ahead of the believer, because they know at least that their object of study exists. Believers, in contrast, basically try to solve one mystery by an even bigger mystery16.
I don’t know where the Universe came from.
But I can tell you it was not created in 7 days.
Why are atheists not agnostics?
Atheism is the rejection of belief in the supernatural, while agnosticism leaves the option that the supernatural exists. Some argue that, in the absence of proof, it is wiser to opt for agnosticism.
From an atheist point of view, agnosticism is an inconsistent stance. This is because, according to agnosticism, it’s not just that God could exist. It is that any supernatural being could exist. Thus, the Hindu god Vishnu or the Roman god Neptune could exist. Likewise, Buddhist reincarnation or Wiccan witchcraft could exist. Even unicorns could exist. It is true that they have not been seen, but their absence has not been proven either. So we have to admit that they could exist. Unicorns were a part of the worldview in ancient Greece19 much like God is part of the worldview in today’s Christianity. The only difference between God and unicorns is that that the believers of the latter have died out. Yet most agnostics reject the existence of unicorns, and claim to be agnostic only about the Christian God. This makes the agnostic position inconsistent in the eyes of atheists.
Isn’t an agnostic just an atheist without balls?
FAQ
Is atheism a belief?
Atheism is the rejection of a belief — and thus not a belief. Positive atheism, in contrast, is the belief that the supernatural does not exist. Hence, it is a belief.
Is atheism a religion?
A religion is the service and worship of a god or the supernatural. Hence, atheism is not a religion because it actually rejects the belief in something supernatural.
So atheism is a religion? No more than being completely healthy is just another kind of disease.
Isn’t any belief a religion?
“Believing something” means to accept something as true20. Believing something does not necessarily have to do with religion. For example, most people believe that the Moon orbits around the Earth, but believing that the Moon orbits around the Earth is not a religion. We distinguish between ordinary beliefs and beliefs in supernatural beings by calling the latter “religions”.
If religion is a belief concerning the supernatural, does that not make atheism a religion?
Religion is sometimes defined as a belief concerning the supernatural. Since positive atheism is the belief that the supernatural does not exist, positive atheism is a religion in this sense. This is, however, just a play with the definition of words. For most practical purposes, a religion is the belief that the supernatural exists, together with a moral system, and associated rites. Atheism has none of this, and is thus not commonly considered a religion.
Doesn’t everyone have to believe in something?
The argument goes that everybody believes in something. Some people believe in love, others in power, or in music. Thus, the argument goes, even atheists believe in something, and hence they cannot be atheists. But atheism is just the rejection of belief in the supernatural. Since love, power, and music are not supernatural, a belief in these things (whatever that implies) is not inconsistent with atheism.
Don’t even atheists have to believe in some things?
It is sometimes argued that atheists cannot know everything for sure, and therefore even they have to take some things for granted, i.e. believe them. It is then claimed that if atheists believe something they are no longer atheists.
Like all people, atheists may believe things that they cannot verify. But believing something does not imply that atheism is false. Atheism only rejects belief in supernatural beings. Atheists are free to believe anything else, and still be atheists.
Isn’t atheism a belief about the supernatural just like theism?
Theists believe that the supernatural exists, and positive atheists believe that it does not, so are both beliefs not equally valid?
The difference in these beliefs is that positive atheism makes concrete, verifiable, and true predictions about the real world: No god will ever show up. Prayer will not have any effect other than psychological. Miracles do not happen. These predictions are true so far. Theism has no such benefit: It has nothing to say about the real world that could not be said without it. Theism is thus, from the viewpoint of this book, a meaningless construction.
Do atheists believe only what can be proven?
Atheists are critical of the belief in God because the existence of God cannot be proven. This leads to the idea that atheists believe only what can be proven. But this is not true.
Take again the theory of gravity: We cannot prove that things always fall down. Still, we all believe in the theory of gravity, atheists and theists alike, without a proof.
The reason for this belief is that we see that things fall down to Earth. If one day they stop doing that, we would stop believing in the theory of gravity. And it is the same with positive atheism: Positive atheism sees that there is no evidence for gods, and that the world works just as if gods did not exist. Hence, until a god shows up, positive atheism holds that gods don’t exist.
Can atheism produce anything positive?
Some claim that atheism cannot bring forward anything positive (like an explanation of the origins of the Universe) because all atheism entails is the rejection of a belief. But if a belief is harmful, then the rejection of that belief is actually something positive. Consider for example the belief that female genital mutilation purifies a woman spiritually. If we remove this belief, the world actually becomes better. The same goes for other religious beliefs: Around half of the world’s most deadly conflicts are nourished also by religious differences. If we removed religious differences, people would have one less reason to go to war. The same is true for the controversial values that some religions still defend today, such as homophobia, restriction of the freedom of religion, or the depreciation of women: They would be history if people did not believe them. Thus the absence of a belief is not necessarily bad.
Freeing someone from error does not mean depriving him of something. It means giving him something. It means giving him the insight that he was in error — which is in itself a piece of the truth.
Atheism rejects belief in the supernatural, and this can actually have constructive effects as well. If God is not used as an answer to the questions of life, then a lot of work is needed to come up with such answers. Therefore, some atheists feel a particular necessity to address the scientific and philosophical mysteries of life. This includes moral thinkers and activists, philosophers, and scientists.
Can atheism exist without religion?
The concept of atheism would be meaningful even if there were no believers. All atheism implies is rejecting a belief in the supernatural. Even if religion were to die out, atheists would still not believe in the supernatural (i.e. they would reject any new religions).
No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist”. We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
The History of Atheism
The history of atheism
Throughout the written history of mankind, most people have been religious in some form or another. Those who reject supernaturalism have always been an exception to the norm.
Even just identifying atheists in history is not easy because the word “atheist” was often little more than a convenient label for people who did not believe what everyone else believed21 — be they adherents of other religions, defenders of different theological opinions inside the majority religion, believers in non-personal gods, or atheists in the sense of this book. For example, early Christians were labeled “atheists” by non-Christians because they did not believe in the Roman gods. Similarly, major religions today, such as Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, and Taoism, are sometimes called atheist by adherents of the Abrahamic religions because they do not recognize a singular creator god.
One of the first philosophies that rejected all supernaturalism was the Carvaka/Lokayata school in India, which dates to the first millennium BCE. It held that the visible world alone exists, that the only heaven is to be found in the wearing of beautiful clothing, in the company of young women, and in the enjoyment of delicious food, and that the only hell to be avoided is the difficulties of the present.22 Religious sacrifices were seen as merely a source of income for priests, and otherwise a waste of time and money. In contrast, people were advised to donate instead to those in need23. Hindu scripture from the early centuries BCE tells us that the rejection of supernaturalism was indeed a sufficiently prominent worldview as to merit condemnation[Bhagavad Gita: 16.8]24. However, atheism seems to have faded to insignificance in India in the following centuries24.
Outside of India, in ancient Greece, several philosophers were also questioning common conceptions of the supernatural. Democritus (460-370 BCE) and Epicurus (341-270 BCE) explained the world in a purely materialistic way. Protagoras (485-420 BCE) openly questioned the existence of gods and Theodorus of Cyrene (300 BCE) explicitly rejected it22. These views were not widely embraced, however, and other Greek philosophers asserted supernatural positions involving Dualism or Metempsychosis or held that the Sun and the Moon were divine.
The Golden Age of the Islamic world, likewise, saw a number of thinkers critical of the supernatural: Persian scholar Ibn al-Rawandi (827-911) opposed religion and called the miracles of the prophets “fraudulent tricks”. Persian deist Muhammad al-Razi (854-925) held that the Quran (the holy scripture of Islam) “does not contain any useful information”25. And Arab poet Ahmad al-Maarri (973-1058) taught that religion itself was a “fable invented by the ancients”26. Even the Quran itself alludes to people who believed in “nothing beyond our worldly life”[Quran 45:24]. However, like in ancient Greece, these views were outside the mainstream of accepted beliefs.
In Europe, the Middle Ages also saw several philosophers and theologians (such as Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas) discuss proofs for the existence of God. However, these proofs appear to have been intellectual exercises rather than real disputes. We have no evidence to suggest that any public voice ever seriously questioned the existence of God during the Middle Ages27. It was only with the advent of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, when Martin Luther openly questioned the authority of the Catholic Church, that individuals went so far as to begin to question the nature of God. Some arrived at Deism (the idea that there is a god that does not interfere with the world) or Pantheism (the idea that God is in everything).
This line of thinking was further catalyzed by the Age of Enlightenment. New philosophies valued reason, rationalism, and empirical evidence, and from that standpoint, critically questioned belief in the Christian God. The first known atheist of this time was German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen, who explicitly embraced atheism in three pamphlets in 167428. A few decades later, in 1704, the Irish philosopher John Toland proposed an entirely naturalistic worldview in his “Letters to Serena” — although it is not clear whether he was an atheist in the sense of this book27. And the French scholar Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (1749-1827), proposed that the world is a regular and perfectly determinate system22, although again it is not clear whether he was an atheist.
The first comprehensive atheist worldview was published as the “Systèmes de la Nature” by the Franco-German philosopher Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, in 1770, together with fellow atheist Jacques-André Naigeon29. Thiry was later followed by a number of other European philosophers with atheistic tendencies, such as David Hume and Denis Diderot.
However, atheism did not take hold in Europe at this time — possibly because people had difficulty imagining how the complexity of nature and life could exist without a creator. Only when the British biologist Charles Darwin discovered the principle of evolution in the 19th century was the necessity of a creator put into doubt more generally30. Following Darwin’s discovery, many prominent German philosophers of the era, including Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche, denied the existence of deities and were critical of religion, 22. With the diffusion of knowledge about other world religions and translations of their religious texts, this time period also saw the rise of comparative religious studies. These were likely contributing factors in pushing people towards a descriptive view of religion as an artefact of human thinking.
By the 20th century, atheism had become demographically significant, with the highest rates (20%-30%) in Japan, China, Sweden, France, and the Czech Republic313233.
What is New Atheism?
New Atheism is the position that religion (even in its moderate forms) is not simply wrong, but irrational, pathological and uniquely dangerous34. The concept is commonly associated with individuals such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens.
This view can be considered a more militant version of atheism, which actively goes beyond individual belief, and aims to convince people of atheism and oppose religion. New Atheism is particularly opposed to what Canadian-American psychologist Steven Pinker calls Faitheism35. A faitheist is an atheist who is tolerant of the intellectual and moral excesses of religion — in other words an “atheist accommodationist”. A faitheist may say, “I’m not religious, but we shouldn’t criticize the oppression of women in conservative forms of Islam because it’s a sincere religious belief”36. New Atheism opposes such an accommodation.
Many atheists will sympathize with the viewpoints of New Atheism. However, the majority of atheists are not as activist as the “New Atheists”. In this book we incorporate the main arguments of New Atheism in the Chapter on Criticism of Religion. We also agree with the New Atheist critiques of “Faitheism”, and take an assertive position against religious ideology whenever it clashes with human rights. At the same time, we defend the freedom of religion and the freedom of belief, as long as the rights of others are not infringed.
Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity.
The grave will provide plenty of time for silence.
State atheism
State atheism is the incorporation of atheism into political regimes37, in particular when combined with the suppression of religion. State atheism has its roots in the French Revolution, which started in 1789 and aimed to constrain (and later abolish) the French monarchy. The Catholic Church was seen as a symbol of the monarchy’s oppressive power, and so the revolutionaries set out to “dechristianize” France: Churches were closed down, possessions of the clergy were confiscated, religious orders and congregations were suppressed, priests were forced to resign or emigrate, and clergy who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the government were persecuted as traitors. As an alternative to religion, the revolutionaries installed a “Cult of Reason”, an atheist pseudo-religion that honored not gods, but reason, liberty, truth, and nature. The cult was short-lived, and was replaced by a “Cult of the Supreme Being” in 1794. This cult, too, was abandoned, and in 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte signed a concordat with the Pope that acknowledged Catholicism as the majority religion of France.38394041
Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the early Soviet Union. Responsible for the death of millions.
in Moscow, Russia
The 20th century saw a revival of state atheism in several communist countries, including Albania, China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea42. The regimes imposed atheism, suppressed religion, and conducted arrests, expulsions, and uncounted numbers of executions in their quest. Even with the end of the Cold War, state atheism continues to persist in some communist countries. In China religion is viewed with suspicion by the state43. As of 2018, the Muslim minority of Uighurs is systematically deported and detained44454647 — a topic that we will discuss later in more detail. Adherents of the new religious movement Falun Gong are persecuted, detained in labor camps, and subjected to systematic, state sanctioned organ harvesting48.
How do atheism and communism relate?
Most self-declared communist regimes are atheist, and state atheism is sometimes seen as a proof that atheism is evil. It is therefore worth considering how atheism and communism are related.
The founders of modern communism were German-born philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They developed a philosophy that was later called Dialectic Materialism. It holds that the material world (the “basis”), perceptible to the senses, has objective reality independent of mind or spirit, and that ideas (the “superstructure”) can arise only as products and reflections of material conditions49. This superstructure includes ideologies and religions, but also socioeconomic structures such as governments, feudalism, capitalism, and communism. All of these exist only as human constructions on top of the basis.
In this view, gods and the supernatural, too, are part of the superstructure, and thus ultimately human constructions. As Marx famously said: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”50
But while communism implies atheism, the reverse is not true. In his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Marx states “Communism begins with atheism, but atheism is initially far from being communism”51. Thus, atheism is an ingredient for Marx’s ideology, but atheism does not imply communism.
The strong association of atheism with communism most likely stems from the attempt to differentiate the West from communism during the Cold War. Communist countries were explicitly demonized as atheist while Western countries became more religious, thereby reinforcing the ideological differences between the two worldviews.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are atheists. Do you believe they are communists?
Doesn’t state atheism show how bad atheism is?
State atheism is the forced introduction of atheism in a country and historically has led to the persecution, torture, and death of millions of people. Atheism is (understandably) associated with the atrocities of these regimes, and this association suggests that atheism is immoral.
State atheism was mainly pursued by regimes that called themselves communist. As we have seen, while communists are atheists, atheists are not necessarily communist. Even if communist regimes impose atheism, that doesn’t make atheism wrong. To see this, consider a related example: The leaders of the Soviet regime enforced the use of Russian in the Soviet Union. According to most moral frameworks, it is wrong to force people to speak Russian. Still, that does not mean that there would be anything wrong with freely choosing to speak Russian. In similar fashion, while most moral frameworks would argue that it is wrong to force people to become atheists, that does not make it wrong to freely choose to follow atheism.
Atheism, for its part, does not require that other people become atheists. In fact, atheism does not come with any moral imperatives or laws. On the contrary, it is often criticized precisely for not having any laws or rules. There is no book of the “Rules of Atheism”. Nothing in the concept of atheism entails that we should force other people to be atheists.
All I share with communist dictators is the number of gods we believe in.
Would you like to be held responsible for the deeds of all the people
who believe in the same number of gods as you?
Atheism in the Western world
In some ways, state atheism had the effect of making the Western world more religious, as an opposition to the communist atheist world. For example, the United States added “In God We Trust” to its currency during the Cold War and the phrase “One Nation Under God” to its pledge of allegiance.
After the fall of communism, Eastern European countries and Russia saw a resurgence in religious belief52. In the United States, likewise, religious belief intensified in some parts of the population with the mainstreaming of Evangelical Christianity. However, in general, the United States is slowly becoming less religious53. Western Europe, too, is slowly becoming less religious and more atheist, and is ahead of the United Stated on this measure533352. The rest of the world has low rates of atheism, in particular in the developing countries, where a variety of religions and religious practices have a strong foothold. We discuss the demographics of atheism in the Chapter on Atheists. Now, we turn to a variant of atheism that is enjoying some popularity in the Western world: Humanism.
Humanism
The history of humanism
In ancient times, morality, the purpose of life, and knowledge about the world were almost always derived from or linked to religion. However, also since antiquity, philosophers had started thinking about non-religious sources of morality, of meaning, and of knowledge about the world — first under the assumption that gods existed, and later without that assumption54. These ideas gave rise to humanism: the philosophy that it is our fellow humans that matter and not transcendent beings.
Ancient Greece
The Renaissance started in Florence, Italy, supported by an influx of Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 CE55.
The first humanist ideas were born in ancient Greece. Philosopher Democritus (460-370 BCE) decoupled morality from punishment, and postulated that “It is not out of fear but out of a feeling for what is right that we should abstain from doing wrong”54. His follower Epicurus (341-270 BCE) made this philosophy more concrete54: He taught that the goal of human life is happiness, and that this requires the absence of pain. He was also an empiricist, and believed that the senses are the only reliable source of knowledge about the world. He admitted women and slaves into his school, and taught that the key to happiness is friendship. These ancient Greek notions were rediscovered during the Renaissance in the 13th and 14th centuries in Europe55. The focus on humans, their needs, capacities, and value came to be known as humanism56.
Humanist ideas were independently developed also in China. Confucian philosopher Mencius (Mengzi, 372-289 BCE) taught that humans are inherently good, and that they all have a basic desire to alleviate the suffering of others57.
The Scientific Revolution
Rather than filling unexplored areas with dragons, as was customary in medieval Europe, the Salviati Planisphere from 1525 left them blank, thus acknowledging the unknown and inviting its exploration. Nuño García de Toreno, 1525
The further development of humanism owes much to Christianity — most importantly the notion of equal human dignity. However, its main catalyst was the Scientific Revolution in the 16th century, which started questioning a religious understanding of the world58. The discovery of the Americas by the Europeans changed the view in Europe that it was undesirable and dangerous to explore new places. Rather, it became acceptable to acknowledge gaps in contemporary knowledge, and to encourage they be closed — an important principle of science59. Prussian astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered that the Earth orbits around the Sun in his Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) followed up that discovery with the laws of planetary motion. English physicist Isaac Newton (1642-1727) laid the foundations for classical mechanics in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, explaining the law of gravity and the laws of motion. English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon (1561-1626) advocated gathering knowledge by empirical observation — what is known today as the scientific method.
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement of the 17th and 18th century that emphasized the reason and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, and constitutional government60.
Numerous philosophers contributed to the ideas of the Enlightenment: Dutch theologian Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) laid the foundations for international law in On the Law of War and Peace. French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) taught that people to be open to doubt previous certainties. English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) popularized the notion of the social contract, the idea that government needs to be with the consent of the governed. He also argued for liberty, religious tolerance, and rights to life and property. Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) called for religious tolerance. French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) advocated freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. His compatriot Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1757) introduced the idea of the separation of powers. In Scotland, philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) was instrumental in advancing the notions of empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism, and more generally the idea that knowledge stems from observing the world and generalizing these observations inductively. Swiss thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) posited that humans are free and equal, and have two basic instincts: a sense of self-preservation and a pity for others. A fundamental work of this epoch was the Encyclopédie, an encyclopedia that aimed to incorporate all of the world’s knowledge from a secular point of view, driven by Frenchman Denis Diderot (1713-1784). This systematic quest for knowledge still inspires humanists today (and also inspired the modern online encyclopedia Wikipedia).
French-German philosopher Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789) argued that humankind should strive for truth, reason, and morality, and that religion and belief in the supernatural hindered this quest. The source of morality should not be religion but the search for happiness. German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) developed the categorical imperative: the paradigm that people should act in such a way that they could want their behavior to become a law by which everyone acts. Based on this, he developed a rational basis of ethics, one that would enable us to work out the right course of action by thinking. Thomas Paine (1737-1809), an English-born American philosopher, advanced ideas such as liberty and freedom of thought. He rejected institutionalized religion (most notably in his Age of Reason), and stated simply that “my religion is to do good”. His writings influence both the American Independence and the French Revolution. Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) condemned torture and the death penalty in his treatise On Crimes and Punishments. French activist Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) campaigned for the abolition of slavery and for women’s rights, most notably in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. In England, writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) advocated women’s rights and argued that society was wasting its assets because it kept women in the role of “convenient domestic slaves”. In her Vindication of the Rights of Woman she argued women are not naturally inferior to men but only appear to be because they lack education.
European rulers such as Catherine II of Russia, Joseph II of Austria, and Frederick II of Prussia applied the Enlightenment ideals of religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism. In America, the Founding Fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison incorporated Enlightenment ideals into the United States Constitution.
Secular humanism
The 19th century saw the emergence of humanist views that were decidedly non-religious. English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) argued that we should judge behavior not by god-given rules but rather whether it hinders or advances “the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people” (a philosophy known as utilitarianism). He also advocated making prisons more humane and including animals (who can suffer because they feel pain and pleasure) in our moral thinking61. The idea of utilitarianism was further developed by British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). In On Liberty, he argued that the state should interfere in our lives only when necessary to prevent harm to others, and that the freedom to choose the path of one’s own life is central to the conception of liberty62.
In France, philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) developed positivism, the idea that information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, is the only source of certain knowledge63. Comte also coined the term altruism (the notion of selfless concern for the interests of others)64. English philosopher George Holyoake (1817-1906) coined the term secularism as describing a principle that seeks to conduct human affairs based on non-religious considerations65.
In the 20th century, British polymath Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) developed an atheist view of Christianity in his work Why I am Not a Christian. He also vocally supported humanist ideals such as the decriminalization of homosexuality, world peace, and freedom of opinion66. During this time, the term secular humanism emerged to denote atheist variants of humanism67. American philosophy professor Paul Kurtz (1925-2012) founded the Secular Humanist Council (North America’s leading organization for non-religious people) and co-wrote a secular humanist manifesto68.
Eleanor Roosevelt
in Washington DC, US
Under the lead of American diplomat Eleanor Roosevelt, the quest to define morality in a secular way reached a critical juncture in 1948 with the creation of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It established the cornerstones of secular morality: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, abolition of slavery, the right to due process, the prohibition of torture, and equality before the law irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or religion. Today these are the defining elements of humanist ethics. In the decades following the Declaration, Australian philosopher Peter Singer (1946-) made humanism aware of the importance of animal well-being, and a responsibility for the natural world was indeed included in later definitions of humanism. The LGBT+ movements also grew stronger in the late 20th century, and LGBT+ rights are today considered part of humanist ethics69697071.
Secular humanism today
In the late 20th and early 21st century, Canadian-American cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has become an important advocate of secular humanism, arguing that the Enlightenment and humanism have quantitatively improved human well-being. Ibn Warraq, Salman Rushdie, Armin Navabi, and Sarah Haider are secular humanist activists with a Muslim background.
Numerous other personalities have advocated secular humanist principles. Among them are science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams, comedian Rowan Atkinson, physicists Steven Weinberg and Richard Feynman, civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph, astronomer Carl Sagan, nuclear physicist and Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, birth control activist Margaret Sanger, philosopher Jean-Paul Satre, behaviorist B. F. Skinner, and astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson72.
Beyond that, hundreds of well-known writers, activists, philosophers, scientists, and politicians identify with secular humanism72. Since 1952, secular humanists and secular humanist organizations are represented by the umbrella organisation Humanists International.
Humanism —
because our fellow humans are more important than fictional beings.
What is secular humanism?
The “happy human” is the symbol of Humanism. CC0 Fabian M. Suchanek
Secular humanism is the non-religious variant of humanism. This type of humanism is usually written simply as “Humanism” with a capital H73. In this sense, Humanism is a life stance that affirms the equal dignity of every human being (in the sense of the right to be valued and respected for one’s own sake, and to be treated ethically), and aims at the fullest possible development of every individual. To this end, Humanism relies on the following tenets7475767778798069:
Rationalism
Humanism holds that the better we know the world, the better we can work towards human well-being. Humanism believes that reliable knowledge of the world is acquired through a continuing process of observation, evaluation, and revision. It is committed to the use of the rational methods of inquiry, logic, and evidence in developing knowledge and testing claims to truth. It holds that one should always be open to scrutinizing and correcting one’s principles (including Humanism itself). We discuss one approach to truth in this spirit in the Chapter on Truth. That said, not all in life is or has to be rational: The arts, for one, are not restricted by reason, and they are an important source of happiness and fulfillment for believers and atheists alike.
Science
Humanism posits that understanding the physical world is a necessary prerequisite in the pursuit of human flourishing. It holds that the scientific method, though imperfect, is the most reliable way of understanding this physical world. At the same time, the application of science and technology must be tempered by human values: Science gives us the means, but human values must determine the ends. We discuss a scientific view of the world and life in the Chapter on the Universe.
Naturalistic worldview
Until proven otherwise, Humanism holds that the natural world is all there is8182. Therefore, from a Humanist perspective, moral rules, knowledge about the physical world, or a meaning of life cannot come from supernatural sources, but have to be developed by humans. On this view, humans have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. We explore a worldview without the supernatural in the Chapter on Gods, and its philosophical implications in the Chapter on the Universe, the Chapter on Morality, and the Chapter on the Meaning of Life.
Liberal ethics
Humanists strive toward a world free of cruelty and its consequences. They believe that to this end, ethical rules are needed, and that these are made by humans, not gods. These rules shall respect the equal right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others. Beyond the individual, Humanism sees a responsibility towards society and towards the natural world. We discuss a definition of morality along these lines in the Chapter on Morality.
Democracy, human rights, and the rule of law
There are some human needs that cannot be met by the individual person — such as health care, defense, foreign policy, law enforcement, social security, public education, retirement funding, or the management of economic policies. Humanism holds that people have instituted governments to provide these services, and that these governments should be democratic. This is because, while all political systems are imperfect, a democratic system at least permits its own improvement. Humanism also subscribes to the rule of law and the civil liberties (as stipulated in the UN Declaration of Human Rights). We will discuss democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in the Chapter on Morality.
Freedom of expression
Humanism holds that a society can serve human well-being better if its choices are informed by the truth. The truth, in turn, is more likely to be discovered in a society that allows all points of view to be heard, and that gives the opportunity for the free exchange of opposing opinions. Therefore, Humanism is committed to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, as long as this does not harm others. We will discuss freedom of expression (and its limits) later in the Chapter on Morality.
Secularism
Humanism acknowledges that religion is an important source of well-being for many people, and therefore subscribes to the freedom of religion, i.e., to the right of every individual to believe what they wish regarding the supernatural or religion. However, Humanism also holds that all people should have the same rights, regardless of whether they adhere to a religion or not, and hence Humanism posits that religious belief should not influence politics83. This stance is known as secularism or laïcité. We will discuss religion in the Chapter on Religion, and a Humanist stance on religion in the Conclusion.
Education
On a Humanist view, a society shall be shaped not by an absolute ruler or a purportedly divine guideline, but by people themselves. This requires individuals to have the knowledge and capability to shape their own lives and society. For this reason, Humanism places a great value on the education of the general public. It is, in the Humanist view, the essential method of building humane, free, and democratic societies76. We discuss ideas for a Humanist education in the Conclusion.
Humanism thus envisions a society based on reason and empathy, in which knowledge about the physical world comes from science, ethical rules are derived from the desire to care for each other, political decisions are taken by democratic means where all can participate, and people are free to do or believe anything that does not harm someone else. Humanism is the stance we advocate for in this book.
While every Humanist is (on this definition) an atheist, not every atheist is a Humanist. However, it is probably fair to say that many atheists in the Western world identify with the principles of Humanism — even if they are unaware of it.
Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishments when you’re dead.
How shall people flourish?
Humanism aims at the fullest possible development of every individual747677787980. How shall that look in practice?
Many people are, unfortunately, not at all in a position to flourish. They suffer from unemployment, poverty, illness, the consequences of climate change, persecution, and/or other threats. Atheists are actually one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Humanism does not have a solution to all of these problems. However, it holds that the establishment of liberal democracies, human rights, freedom of religion, equal rights for men and women, access to birth control84, social security systems85, public health care, public education, and an effective legal system can go a long way in addressing some of them. Humanism is also committed to the fight against climate change. By supporting these principles, Humanism aims to contribute to the material preconditions for a happy life.
Nature, sports, science, social good, family, philosophy, literature, the arts — there are numerous sources of fulfillment that are open to atheists and believers alike.
in Lima, Peru
Once these preconditions are in place, Humanism values all sources of individual joy and fulfillment that harm no other86. Some people find fulfillment in artistic creativity and imagination, in literature, music, and the visual and performing arts. Others find fulfillment in their commitment to society or the common good. Some find purpose in the quest for knowledge and the sciences. There are also people who dedicate their life to sports. Humanists appreciate both individual and communal exertion in physical activity, and the opportunities it offers for comradeship and achievement86. Atheists and theists alike cherish the beauty of the natural world and its potential to bring wonder, awe, and tranquility86. People of all creeds find joy and fulfillment in dedication to their family and the upbringing of their children, or in spending time with their friends and loved ones. It is even rumored that some fortunate folks find satisfaction in their daily work.
In general, Humanists believe that people give meaning to their own lives, and that they are free in their choice. We will discuss some popular choices in the Chapter on the Meaning of Life. We will also see how one can live a happy life without belief in the supernatural.
That said, Humanism does not want to abolish religion. On a Humanist view, people are free to believe what they want, and to exercise their religion as they wish as long as they don’t harm others. Indeed, for many people, their religious belief constitutes an important source of well-being, happiness, social connection, and peace of mind76, and these, too, are Humanist goals.
Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
What is rationalism?
The ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes as a symbol of rational thinking
in Siracusa, Italy
Rationalism is the reliance on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response87. The main principles of rationalism are
to believe what has been shown by evidence;
to not believe something that has been shown to be false;
to not assent to something that cannot be falsified; and
to be open and ready to change one’s beliefs in light of new evidence.
Rationalism is part of Humanism, and thus of the life stance advocated in this book. This is because rational thinking has proven to be one of the most reliable methods to arrive at true conclusions, and true conclusions are an indispensable asset in the pursuit of human well-being. We discuss rational thinking in the Chapter on Truth.
That said, not all domains of human activity are or have to be dominated by reason76. For example, Humanism believes in the freedom of the arts and the fulfillment it can bring, in the freedom to choose one’s own purpose of life without any need to rationally justify it, and in human relationships that are not based on reason.
I'd rather wonder than assume.
What is science?
Nature unveiling herself for science
in the Ecole de médicine, Paris, France
Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment88. The basic method of science is to come up with rules that explain certain phenomena, and to test if these rules also predict future phenomena and do not produce contradictions with past or future phenomena. The sciences include the formal sciences (mathematics, logic, statistics, computer science), the physical sciences (physics, chemistry, astronomy, Earth sciences), life sciences/biology, social and behavioral sciences, and applied sciences (engineering, healthcare, etc.). These disciplines help humans cope with the physical, biological, and social world. Hence, Humanism considers them a necessary prerequisite for the pursuit of human well-being.
Science has its limits: For example, science cannot tell us how to behave morally. Even within the scientific domain, some questions may never be answered (think of the question of what initiated the Big Bang). Still, Humanism considers science the best method to learn about the physical world. This is because science has shown to predict natural phenomena better than any competing method. We discuss a more precise definition of science in the Chapter on Truth, and a scientific view of the world in the Chapter on the Universe.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
What is liberalism?
In its most basic form, liberalism is a worldview founded on the ideas of liberty and equality899091. Thus, we will call liberal ethics a system of moral rules that grants everybody equal rights, and asserts that everybody should have maximal possible freedom. The freedom of a person ends only where the freedom of another person begins. Such a system says that everything is permitted unless it harms someone else.
The difficulty lies, of course, in defining what constitutes “harm to someone else”. Can a conservative family father say that he feels awkward when two people kiss in public, and that public affection should thus be banned? The balance between the freedom of the individual and the right not to be harmed is a difficult trade-off. There is no absolutely right answer here, but liberal ethical frameworks tend to err on the side of personal freedom. They generally allow what does not affect the life, limb, liberty, reputation, or property of someone else. In particular, such systems typically stipulate the right to criticize the government, political parties, and religion, to love and marry whomever one pleases (no matter the gender or faith), and to follow, abandon, or change religions.
Humanism generally adheres to such a liberal system. This is because Humanism considers harm and cruelty principal obstacles for human well-being. Therefore, it considers all acts that cause such harm reproachable. At the same time, it sees no reason to prohibit acts that cause no harm — so that everyone may flourish the way they wish. Furthermore, Humanism accords equal dignity to every human being, i.e., it affirms that every human has the right to be treated ethically in the same way as everyone else. These two maxims together amount to liberalism as defined above.
That said, Humanism recognizes that there is a responsibility not only towards people, but also towards society as a whole74. For example, some people face obstacles such as poverty, disease, or discrimination in their strive to flourish. Since Humanism aims at the fullest possible development of every individual, it seeks to reduce these barriers.77 Humanism thus has a social dimension of mutual care and concern77, and accepts that individual freedom has to be curtailed in this quest — for example by obliging everyone to contribute to government social services7685.
We discuss liberal moral frameworks and their limits in the Chapter on Morality.
We are all different.
But with the same rights.
What is a liberal democracy?
The Statue of Liberty represents ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, and democracy.OpenClipart-Vectors @ Pixabay
A liberal democracy is a system of government that is characterized by two conditions92: First, the people must consent to their rulers. This consent is typically given through elections in which the people elect members of a governing body. In a liberal democracy, individuals are free to form their own parties, thereby allowing a genuine choice between parties. It is this that distinguishes liberal democracies from systems that are democratic merely by name. The second principle of a liberal democracy is that the government is constitutionally constrained to respect individual rights. This is to protect the individual from the powers of the government, in particular regarding freedom of speech, press, conscience, religion, assembly, and equal treatment before the law.
Humanism holds that a liberal democracy is the best known political system9369. This is because, in the tradition of the Enlightenment, Humanism holds that a government is a human construction designed to ensure the functioning of society: It provides social services, organizes the education, provides military protection, and serves all those functions that the people need but cannot supply individually. Thus, a government does not exist for its own sake, it exists to serve the people. Accordingly, the people must be able to control, change, or abolish this government if it does not perform its purpose well. A liberal democracy allows such a change in an orderly, regular, fair, open-ended, and built-in way.
A liberal democracy typically goes hand in hand with a number of other principles that are dear to Humanists: the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, which makes it less likely that the government will abuse its power and cause harm to the individual; the rule of law, which ensures that laws are enforced effectively and predictably; equality before the law, which ensures that all citizens receive the same legal treatment; universal suffrage, which gives all citizens an equal say in politics, and special laws that protect minorities. Liberal democracies also usually subscribe to the UN Declaration on Human Rights, i.e., principles that stipulate that every human being has the rights to life, liberty, and a fair trial, that slavery and torture are outlawed, and that everyone is entitled to freedom of thought and expression94. Finally, a common maxim is that the government has the monopoly on violence, i.e., the laws and the government are the only legitimate use of force38.
We discuss governments, laws, the rule of law, and Human Rights in the Chapter on Morality.
The enormous advantage of democracy is that it doesn’t believe itself to be finished or perfect.
What is freedom of expression?
Freedom of expression is the right to seek, receive, and impart information or ideas regardless of the medium used94. It is closely related to freedom of speech (the right to articulate opinions without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction), freedom of thought (the right to consider any fact, viewpoint, or thought), and freedom of belief (the right to adhere to, renounce, or change one’s religion).
Freedom of expression, speech, thought, and belief are central principles of Humanism. This is because Humanism holds that a society can better serve the goal of human well-being if it can conceive, ponder, discuss, and criticize different points of view. Since humans are not very good at coming up with perfect solutions to problems, it is unlikely that a given human-made system (or the human choice of a religious system, for that matter), is the optimal one. However, humans are very good at spotting the mistakes in other people’s solutions95. For this reason, the best path towards human well-being is more likely to be discovered in a society that allows for the open debate of competing ideas than in one that doesn’t. Indeed, history shows that the most glorious empires and societies, from the Roman Empire to the Islamic Golden Age, generally supported an open discussion of ideas96.
Freedom of expression finds its limits, however, whenever the rights of others are infringed upon: It is, in a Humanist view, illicit to insult other people, to assert as facts claims that are provably false, to threaten others, to expose other people’s private information, or to misuse intellectual property. However, it must be possible to debate and criticize religions97, governments, political parties, and ideologies (including Humanism itself). Such criticism is, in Humanist eyes, essential to weed out ideologies that do not serve the common good, or that serve other agendas. The encouragement of such criticism distinguishes Humanist restrictions on the freedom of expression from the restrictions that autocratic governments impose.
We discuss freedom of expression, its purpose, and its limitations in more detail in the Chapter on Morality.
In order than all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
What is secularism?
Secularism can mean many different things, including atheism, naturalism, Humanism, and irreligiousness. The word can also mean the separation of church and state, or more generally, of religion and politics98, and we will use it in this sense here. This type of secularism implies that religion can be practiced freely by individuals and organizations, but that it should be kept out of politics, national identity, law making, and public education. This is the stance advocated by Humanism69, and thus by this book, simply because Humanism wants to accord the same rights to all people. Adherents of the majority religion shall have the same rights as adherents of other religions or of no religion at all, and this means that the government has to be neutral in what concerns religion.
Secularism does not imply atheism. People who believe in God, and who practice their religion, can still find that religion should be kept out of politics.
If your proposal requires religious rhetoric to make it sound like a good idea, then it is probably not.
What is freedom of religion?
Freedom of religion means that everybody has the right to practice their religious worldview as long as this does not harm other people. In the common understanding of the term, it also includes the freedom to not practice any religion at all, or to change one’s religion. Freedom of religion also means that people are free to hold any view on the supernatural, be it in the frame of a religion or not. Naturally, freedom of religion implies that atheists can be atheists and agnostics can be agnostics.
Atheism itself does not take a stance on freedom of religion. Humanism, however, does. Humanism holds that every person or association may hold supernatural beliefs as they please. This is a consequence of the liberal ethics that Humanism proposes: Everyone should find their way to happiness as long as they do not harm others, and that includes adhering to a religion.
There is a debate about how far freedom of religion should go when secular rights and religious duties clash. Humanism is clear on this question: Everybody shall be able to live according to their religion, but in the case of a conflict, the secular law has to prevail.
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
In parallel to these developments, Humanism has come to accord value to non-human animals and the environment for their own sake. This is an ongoing development, made possible by the continuous self-questioning that Humanists believe every ideology (including their own) should be subjected to100. Today, animal welfare and environmentalism have become explicit goals of Humanism1011027577. This attitude is rooted in the insight that humans are products of evolution just like animals and other natural entities and that, hence, humans are not superior to other animals. Humanism then respects the rights of animals as a mere extension of the rights that it grants to other human beings103.
Humanism and humans
The Humanist position is that, in what concerns the human society, nothing is more important than the well-being of humans. This sounds as if Humanism were hopelessly individualist — caring more about individual people than about other values. And this is indeed the case. In particular, the following concepts cannot have importance in Humanism30104:
Nations
Some rulers hold that citizens are there to serve their nation or their government. Fascist societies even see the nation as the highest good, and are willing to sacrifice their people for it. Humanism opposes such thinking. In Humanist philosophy, nations and governments are human constructs that exist to serve humans — not vice versa. Therefore, Humanism refuses to lift the concept of a nation to the importance it accords to humans. Humanism is thus international in its spirit.
Races
Racism is the position that certain ethnicities are superior to others. Nazism has further developed this idea into the concept of “racial purity”, which holds that a race has to be “kept clean” by prohibiting intermarriage — and even by destroying other races. Such ideas are contrary to Humanism. For a Humanist, all people are equally worthy of care, and no race is better than the other. In particular, a race itself cannot be an entity worthy of protection.
Natural Law
A “natural law” is a moral principle that is held to exist independently of human-made law — often considered to be given by a god105. Such “laws given by nature” have been used to condemn homosexuality, gender equality, or painkillers during childbirth. For the proponents of such ideas, the “natural laws” are something that humans have to follow, even if it comes at the expense of human well-being. With this, such thinking is opposed to Humanism, which values human well-being above all else. Besides, Humanism considers that the “natural laws” do not at all come from nature, but were made by men and then declared to come from nature. In Humanism, it is humans who have to make their own rules.
Community Laws
Some communities are governed by their own moral code. Examples can be family clans, or ethnic or religious minorities, if they have rules that dictate which behaviors are acceptable and which are not. Violating these rules is seen as something comparable to treason, and is sanctioned by the particular community. Such codes of conduct are contrary to Humanist spirit wherever they limit the freedom of someone against their will although no harm to others is caused. Humanism grants equal dignity and equal rights to all people as individuals — no matter what community they might belong to. In particular, the community itself or its principles cannot be an entity worthy of protection more than the individual human. This sets Humanism apart, in a fundamental way, from most traditional belief systems, which tend to put community before individuals80.
The Supernatural
Religions value the supernatural more than human life — both supernatural beings and supernatural rules. This contradicts Humanist philosophy, which posits that we should care for humans, and not for the supernatural concepts that they came up with. Humanism defends the freedom of religion, but only in so far as the religion does not cause harm to people.
The Enlightenment has given us the rule of law, tolerance towards other creeds, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of science, freedom of religion, freedom of the arts, the emancipation of disadvantaged groups, freedom in the choice of a partner, and freedom in general, as long as the freedom of others is not engaged.
Humanism and Christianity
Humanism believes in the equal individual rights of each person. This view was arguably inspired by Judaism and Christianity, which postulated that God created all humans with equal dignity[Bible: Genesis 1:27, Numbers 15:15-16, Acts 10:34-35]. However, the principle of equal rights is much older than these religions: It was implemented in the Athenian democracy of ancient Greece already106, it appears as an ideal of justice in the Egyptian text The Eloquent Peasant in the second millennium BCE107, and it was codified in the Mesopotamian Law of Ur-Nammu in 2000 BCE108. It is worth noting that all these concepts of equality excluded slaves and, often, women. That is not the case in Humanism, which grants equal rights to all people.
Humanism has departed in other ways from a historical Christian outlook: It affirms freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and the rights over one’s own body. Furthermore, Humanism incorporates the elements of science, environment protection, democracy, and freedom of speech, which have no counterpart in Christianity.
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
Humanism and the Enlightenment
Humanism traces its history back to the Age of Enlightenment. Yet since that time humanity has gone through several painful periods: Industrialization brought distress to millions of workers. Colonialism has subdued entire continents and reduced their inhabitants to workers or slaves. Two world wars devastated large portions of the world and killed humans on an unprecedented scale. The rise of communism on one side of the iron curtain and merciless capitalism on the other both devalued humans as individuals.
These events have nourished the idea that the rise of science and reason has caused humanity more bad than good, calling into question the values of the Enlightenment and therefore Humanism. This pessimism (what Stephen Pinker calls Second Culture30) considers material and scientific progress (as well as reason) an impediment to human well-being. It holds that things get worse as we drift away from the original sources of meaningfulness, which include religion, the community, a spiritual approach to life, and a mystical appreciation of nature.
While there is no denying the negative impact of the events noted above, a closer look at life since the Enlightenment reveals that by nearly every conceivable measure the quality of life and human well-being have improved30:
Technology
Trains, airplanes, steam ships, running water, air conditioning, dishwashers, electrical light, photography, recorded music, central heating, computers, the Internet — basically every appliance that we rely on today to do work on our behalf did not exist 300 years ago. Swedish academic Hans Rosling has argued that the washing machine alone has freed mankind (and women in particular) from thousands of hours of work per life time109. Technology has also become safer: Over the course of the 20th century, Americans became 96% less likely to be killed in a car accident, 99% less likely to die in a plane crash, and 95% less likely to be killed on the job30.
Health
Even critics of the Enlightenment admit that in terms of health, humanity has made impressive advances: Average life expectancy has doubled from 30 years in the year 1760 to 70 years in the year 2000 — globally. In 1750, one in 3 children would not make it to their 5th birthday in Sweden, one of the richest counties in the world. Today, child mortality is down to 10% in the poorest countries on Earth. That is still too high, but those gains correspond to billions of lives saved.30 Furthermore, we can now vaccinate against illnesses. Another good news is that the share of children under five who are severely malnourished (stunted) fell from 33% in 2000 to 22% in 2022110. Fight against malnutrition and better mental stimulation have increased the average IQ by 2.2 percentage point per decade since the Second World War110. Smallpox, a disease that disfigured and killed hundreds of millions of people, has been eradicated and no longer exists today. Of all the progress of the past 10,000 years in raising human living standards, half has occurred since 199096.
Equality
Contrary to a public opinion, material equality has improved drastically over the past 200 years (see illustration). The percentage of people living in extreme poverty (i.e., with less than $1.90 per day) has fallen from 90% in the early 19th century to 10% now — and it continues to fall. This holds true even though the world population has increased sevenfold over this time. The working conditions that we deplore today in certain corners of the world were the norm before the Enlightenment. In Europe, people would sell themselves as slaves to get through the winter. Today, rich countries spend 10%-30% of GDP on social welfare, up from less than 1% in 1900.30
Environment
The environment has taken a hard hit as a result of all these developments. Nevertheless, there are some encouraging signs of progress: Chlorofluorocarbon is being phased out globally, and the ozone layer is coming back. 195 countries signed a pact to reduce the effects of climate change111 — a rare global agreement that has no precedent. However, it is clear that humanity has only just begun to address the damage that it has created.
Peace
Before the Enlightenment, it was considered legitimate to conquer neighboring countries. For example, Saint Petersburg was built in 1703 on territory that Russia took from Sweden — mainly because Sweden’s king was young at the time, and was considered an easy target.
in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Not so long ago, war was idealized as a romantic duty for the fatherland. There was nothing bad in attacking some country in order to enlarge one’s own. It was the Enlightenment that proposed that humanity should aim for peace (without domination by one power). It took the world’s nations two hundred years, and the two deadliest wars in history, to finally begin subscribing to this ideal. In 1945 war became illegal in the UN Charter112. This decision was part of a larger change in the public perception of war, in which the horrors of the Second World War, global economic interests, and the mutually assured destruction by nuclear weapons all play a role. Since then, wars of conquest have become rare: Before 1928, every country had been (statistically speaking) conquered about once every human lifetime113. Since the Second World War, however, only very few territories have changed hands by conquest. The number of battle deaths has been decreasing, too. Even the war in Syria at the beginning of the 21st century killed nowhere as many million people as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in India, in China, in Sudan, in Uganda, in Bangladesh, in Cambodia, and in Mozambique did — in the 20th century alone. The number of people killed in war each year today is almost one 20th of what it was in the 1950’s. It may be astonishing, but in terms of number of deaths, humanity has entered what is called the “Long Peace” after the Second World War. In the first decades of the 21st century, human violence has killed fewer people than suicide, fewer people than car accidents, and fewer people than obesity-related diseases114. Quantifying the misery in cold numbers is by no means intended to be indifferent to the suffering of today’s victims — on the contrary, as Steven Pinker noted, it ensures that the suffering of each victim is honored equally.
Justice
The Enlightenment has brought us the moral milestones that are the foundation of our Western culture today: the abolition of slavery, the rule of law and the equality of all people before it, the banning of torture, tolerance towards other creeds, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the arts, freedom in the choice of a partner, and freedom in general (as long as the freedom of others is not compromised). While we consider these rights foundational today (and while we are still a long way from achieving them globally), the very existence of these ideas is thanks to the Enlightenment. Indeed, the insight that we have to develop these moral concepts ourselves in the first place (rather than obtaining them from some god or king) is a child of the Enlightenment.
Knowledge
Before the Enlightenment, barely 20% of the population could read — even in the richest countries. Now, literacy is at 80% globally and on the rise. Before the Enlightenment, we had very little knowledge about the genesis of the Universe, the functioning of a cell, the diversity of the animal kingdom, the operation of chemical elements, or the laws of physics. Today, while questions remain, the physical laws that govern our everyday life are known. The genesis of the Universe and life has been traced back all the way to the Big Bang. And for all our current irrationality, few influential people today believe in werewolves, unicorns, witches, alchemy, astrology, bloodletting, miasmas, animal sacrifices, the divine right of the kings, or supernatural omens in rainbows and eclipses. Beliefs such as these were ubiquitous in pre-Enlightenment times.
Happiness
Happiness is difficult to measure. However, by and large, the different studies show that happiness correlates with health, GDP per capita, more freedom, higher life expectancy, low violence, and the rule of law. These factors by themselves do not bring about happiness, to be sure. However, their absence increases unhappiness. In this sense, and contrary to a popular opinion, the factors that abet happiness are by and large the factors that we have already discussed.
In short, life is immensely better now for more people than it was 300 years ago. Of all the golden ages that human history has seen, arguably the greatest is here and now96. It is difficult to attribute this progress to religion alone. All major religions were already in place for more than a thousand years in the year 1700, and they have not used that time to fight for scientific progress, the abolition of slavery, the equality of genders, freedom of religion, or the abolition of cruel punishments. On the contrary, by and large, the progress has gone along with less political influence of religion in the world, and less religiousness. The factors that have contributed to this progress include a quest to systematically improve the life of people, the use of reason to solve problems, a better scientific understanding of the world (including the human body), and better ideals (such as equality for all before the law, ostracism of war, freedom as a value, and human rights). These are the values of Humanism.
Humanism says that if we want to push this positive development further, we should not condemn science and progress, and embrace a mystic appreciation of nature — let alone seek earthly betterment in more religiousness. Rather, we should pledge ourselves to the principles that have brought us so many good things already, and these are reason, science, freedom, education, and equal rights. We should value these principles, teach them, and further develop them, so that we can produce more good things for more people.
If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be — what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you’d be born into — you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now.
