The Ideology of Atheism and Democracy by Milad Mahmoudzadeh

It must be accepted that Iranian society, in its current historical circumstances, faces numerous unresolved crises and paradoxes for various reasons that lie outside the scope of this article. As I have pointed out and argued in my previous articles, reducing all these problems to politics appears to be a perfect example of reductionism or superficiality, and as some of our intellectuals have rightly noted, from a deeper perspective, one could say that the root of the problems of the Iranian individual and Iranian society from the Constitutional era to the present day lies in the fundamental failure to resolve the tradition-modernity conflict. The main subject of this article is a discourse on the description and the reasons for the formation of a seemingly growing movement in Iran that, under the banner of scientism, calls for a transition to modernity through the denial and elimination of all concepts of Tradition from social life, and considers tradition, especially its substantial and weighty part, namely religions, to be the most important factor in the backwardness of societies, including Iranian society. This militant movement introduces itself as Atheism. Atheism, or godlessness, is a broad spectrum of models of disbelief in the existence of a higher power, God, the holy, the Transcendent, and Ultimate reality, etc., which begins with the spectrum of agnosticism and extends to extreme and militant Atheism.

Not much information is available about the history of atheism, and it seems that atheism in its current interpretations, although it may bear slight similarities to the views of some ancient Greek philosophers such as Thales and Anaximander, etc., is certainly considered a modern phenomenon dating from the Enlightenment era and after the Middle Ages. But the reality is that, on the other hand, anthropological, sociological, and archaeological research, as well as old and famous studies such as the research of the eighteenth-century German scholar Christoph Meiners, have shown that religion and faith have been among the most ancient interests of humankind throughout history, and humans have expressed this interest (or better, need) in various forms such as idolatry, spirit worship, and nature worship, and humankind has never been without religion. A matter that the English religious scholar Robert Hume elaborates on and explains in detail in his book "The World's Living Religions." There is disagreement among thinkers regarding the causes and roots of this historical sense of need; figures like Sigmund Freud and Bertrand Russell consider its reason to be human fear of natural events whose meaning and occurrence they were unable to understand, while others, such as the famous American psychologist William James and the renowned philosopher of religion Alvin Plantinga, consider its reason to stem from a divine nature within the human being.

According to 2012 reports, 2 to 3 percent of the world's population identify as atheists (statistics vary, with figures up to 5 percent also reported), although up to 12 percent of people identify as irreligious. The interesting point is that most irreligious people do not identify as atheists. Regarding the growth, numbers, and scope of influence of this current in Iranian society, no official statistics are available; therefore, caution must be exercised when commenting on it. However, it seems that this current is experiencing relative growth and expansion for a number of reasons, though independent research is needed in this regard, and there are no official reports or data on the matter. It should be noted that in the West, there are non-ideological and sympathetic readings of religion from within atheism, examples of which are clearly discussed in the book Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray, the English analytic philosopher and atheist. Furthermore, the results of a study at the University of Kent in Britain show that the majority of atheists and agnostics, despite their lack of belief in God, believe in the supernatural and concepts such as good and evil, and even have plans to establish atheist churches and draw inspiration from religions to strengthen their bonds with one another. Unfortunately, however, atheism in Iran is defined by its antagonism toward religion, and in this respect, it is not even comparable to its Western counterpart. As another example, one can point to the debate between two famous philosophers, the agnostic Bertrand Russell and the theist Frederick Copleston, in which epistemic humility is evident. But in recent years, with the writings of figures such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and others, a type of atheism was born whose main characteristics can be described as militancy against any kind of religious belief, absolutism in presenting viewpoints, and the presentation of a new metaphysics in the name of science. This ideological type of atheism, which presents itself as the spokesperson for science and the center of truth and labels any thought other than its own as unscientific, has been heavily criticized in the West itself, even among Western atheists, and is accused of totalitarianism, attempting to eliminate intellectual and ideological critics, and becoming an ideology. As John Gray acknowledges in the same book (Seven Types of Atheism), the radical form of atheism is not much different from a religion or ideology, and the proposition that "religion is an obsolete version of science in our time" is itself obsolete and a relic of logical positivism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The interesting point is that this very ideological atheism, with slight differences and, of course, at a lower scientific and philosophical level, has been welcomed in Iran. For this reason, in this article, it is referred to with the adjective "Iranian," because firstly, it is examined within the cultural context of Iranian society, and secondly, it is based on the extremist ideas of Richard Dawkins and his particular reading of science. Whatever the case, it seems that Iranian society is facing a new era of intellectual encounters, which can be viewed from various angles. It appears that one of the best explanations for the formation of this encounter in our society is the views of Max Scheler, the German philosopher and sociologist of knowledge, as manifested in his famous work Ressentiment. In this seminal work, he phenomenologically examines the non-rational aspects of human beings, such as emotions and feelings like love and hate, and their influence on cognitive biases and the relationships between different strata and classes of society. This phenomenon, in a way, increasingly represents the spirit of our modern world and, in our era, has manifested itself in the form of endless wars, massacres, and sufferings, each time in the guise of various ideologies, including Bolshevism, Daeshism, Nazism, fascism, atheism, racial nationalism, and so on. The reality is that social and class fault lines in our society have led to the formation of a kind of cultural alienation, which manifests itself ideologically in the form of ressentiment among different strata toward one another. This ressentiment and the contemptuous view of this current toward other members of society, especially those who are in some way attached to tradition, is clearly evident. This ideology, under the banner of scientism and by exploiting the current favorable conditions in our society to ride the wave of socio-political discontent, expresses its ressentiment toward religion in the name of science.

In other words, the growth of the tendency toward atheism, especially of the extreme, Dawkinsian variety, is more a passive reaction to Iran's socio-political conditions than the result of constructing a coherent intellectual and philosophical structure based on a deep examination and understanding of the social and cultural fabric of Iranian society. In other words, this current, contrary to its claims, is largely a negative and political current, and its sociological and psychological presuppositions and interpretations are entirely ideological. One can boldly claim that there is not even a single serious thinker, philosopher, or intellectual in this current to theorize and conceptualize their ideas, and they try to compensate for these significant gaps with fierce attacks on religion and a top-down view of ordinary people in society—a matter that seems destined to seal their intellectual failure. This very lack of connection with different strata, along with absolutism and totalitarianism, will cause a vast segment of society, especially the middle class, to distance themselves from them. Those familiar with the history of science and the philosophy of science know that

To better elucidate the subject, we will briefly state and critique some of the presuppositions of this current:

Presupposition 1:

((Whatever emerges from experiment and the laboratory is truth, and science is the sole source of knowledge.))

This proposition is precisely the presupposition of the positivists, a brief critique of which we offered above. However, I wish to emphasize a few more points. The reality is that science is never absolute or certain, and the history of science has shown that error is possible within it. Nevertheless, according to physicists, our universe is composed of 72 percent dark energy and 23 percent dark matter, about which we know nothing. Our entire knowledge of the cosmos is confined to the remaining 5 percent of matter that constitutes the universe, which is particularly observable.

Therefore, for a universe where, despite all our progress, efforts, and alongside them, the considerable technological limitations of humanity, we can examine, observe, and experiment on only a very, very minuscule percentage of it, is it rational to issue a definitive judgment about the origin and manner of the universe's emergence and many other matters? Is this not dogmatism, to consider only one's own narrative of such a world as correct and to assume oneself as the spokesperson for truth? This is precisely what Iranian Atheism, aided by Dawkins' ideas, does and takes pride in. Alan Chalmers, the philosopher of science, in his famous book "What Is This Thing Called Science?"—which has been the best-selling book in the field of philosophy of science—writes on page 80, quoting Karl Popper: "Thus the empirical basis of objective science has nothing 'absolute' about it. Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles driven down into the swamp."

Presupposition 2:

((Science definitively refutes the existence of God.))

In scientific methodology, a proposition is scientific if, as Popper says, it is refutable. Refutability, contrary to the understanding prevalent among Persian speakers, does not mean being invalidated; rather, it means the possibility of verification and observation of a phenomenon in the laboratory, which makes it scientific. Now, by this criterion, the existence or non-existence of God fundamentally cannot fall within the domain of the empirical sciences, and empirical science can issue no definitive judgment either for or against the existence of God. A point of crucial importance is that drawing a metaphysical conclusion from science has nothing to do with science itself; rather, it is a personal interpretation devoid of scientific validity. Yet Iranian-Dawkinsian Atheism presents its own personal interpretation and understanding of scientific concepts (which are not even certain) under the name of science itself, which is a great deception. In this article, to avoid prolonging the discussion further, I will refrain from mentioning, explaining, and detailing the mathematical and philosophical arguments for the existence of God, and will leave that for another occasion.

Presupposition 3:

((Morality is nothing more than social conventions.))

One of the most interesting points in atheists' discussions is that they do not believe in morality, and the main criterion for moral behavior, in their own words, is science. In fact, they believe that morality is not absolute and is merely a set of social conventions that vary across different cultures and can be corrected or discarded by science. A noteworthy point in this view is the conflation of the concept of law, as inter-human conventions in various cultures and societies, with the concept of morality. In other words, the fact that you observe traffic regulations in society out of fear of possible punishment, or that you are forced to pay heavy taxes on your income due to the enactment of a law, is not necessarily sufficient proof of your moral character, because the domain of morality is far broader and more extensive than that of law. Morality also encompasses the personal sphere, whereas laws apply only in the public sphere. Therefore, morality consists of matters far beyond laws and social conventions, which are valid independently of cultures and societies and are common and, so to speak, intersubjective. Propositions such as "the murder of any innocent human being is immoral," "self-sacrifice and altruism are moral," "oppression is bad," and so on, are examples of this kind. As you can see, none of these moral propositions are social conventions limited to a specific culture, and more importantly, none are derived from scientific laws. In other words, atheists fail to notice that, as Albert Einstein said, philosophy must determine the moral foundations for science, but science can never fully define and explain morality; in a word, "morality is not derived from science." This statement means that, in reality, neither moral concepts are deduced from scientific laws such as quantum physics, mathematics, Darwinian evolution, etc., nor is the reason for morality and moral living inferred from them. For instance, why is "honesty moral," and what is the reason that "oppression is bad"? As John Gray says, science can never bridge the gap between facts and values. No matter how much science advances, it will never be able to tell you which goals are better or how conflicts can be resolved. Therefore, it seems we must accept that science is not very effective for justifying and promoting moral issues. Contrary to the atheistic view, which places an extreme emphasis on scientism, we must accept that the issues of the postmodern world have shown that the survival of humanity depends on the revival of morality in all human relations and aspects, and a mere emphasis on science (technicalism) without attention to morality leads to outcomes such as the repetition of the catastrophes of World War II, the dropping of the atomic bomb on the innocent people of Japan, devastating environmental destruction and crises, the colonization and exploitation of countries, and so on. The reality is that the atheistic view of morality leads to the modern human being emptied of morality, clear examples of which can be seen in their shameless and anti-human justifications for permitting incest or bestiality, which demonstrate the ultimate outcome of the scientism and moral relativism of this ideology. (On this subject, you can refer to the interview of the atheist physicist Lawrence Krauss with a Muslim association). In general, if morality is relative and not absolute, the way is opened for justifying humanity's immoral acts under various pretexts, and individuals project their crimes, lies, and oppressions onto temporal, spatial, and cultural conditions, leading to the discrediting of morality. Like the many examples we have witnessed in the contemporary world, the brutal massacres and repressions adorned with beautiful labels such as "patriotism," "the fight against terrorism," or "the pursuit of justice," and so on. But truly, can names change the content and essence of actions?

Presupposition 4:

"To achieve democracy and scientific growth and development, religions and even religious people must be eliminated from the social scene."

One of the most dangerous ideas derived from the thoughts of Richard Dawkins is the idea of militant confrontation with religions and their forced elimination from the social scene, to the extent that he has explicitly called for the abolition of the theology faculty at Oxford University! This extremist current, through superficiality and reductionism, considers religions to be the cause of underdevelopment, claiming that scientific growth and development are impossible in their presence. This thinking is a clear example of superficiality from the perspective that, in many of the world's current advanced and industrial societies, religion and religious people actually play a prominent and important role, and in these societies, there are many religious scientists and thinkers who have been the source of great service to human society. But apparently, from the viewpoint of militant atheist ideology, a scientist is only someone who is not religious, and all these individuals must be eliminated solely because of their religious beliefs! One counterexample to this claim is the country of India, which, with thousands of religions and people of diverse beliefs, is quantitatively the world's largest democracy and one of the industrial and leading countries, and contrary to the simplistic atheistic view, the presence of this number of religions has not led to a lack of scientific growth and development. But a more complete and interesting example is the most industrial and advanced country in the world, namely America. In fact, as the famous American sociologist and atheist Phil Zuckerman says in his book Sociology of Religion, quoting Robert Fuller, America is probably demonstrably the most religious country in the world! To better understand this, Zuckerman cites interesting statistics on pages 14 to 17 of his book, some of which we mention here. Zuckerman, who is himself an atheist, citing various studies conducted in American society, mentions that to understand the prevalence of religious beliefs in American society, it is enough to note this statistic: over the past half-century, the percentage of Americans who believe in God has remained constant (meaning somewhere between 90 and 96 percent, according to the Gallup Institute). Also, 80 percent of them believe in life after death, 86 percent in heaven, and 71 percent in hell, and 60 percent consider religion very important in their lives. Consider another statistic from the book Evolution: The Grand Experiment by Carl Werner, which shows Americans' approach to accepting angels or theism. Werner shows in his book that 82 percent of Americans prefer theism, and if they believe in evolution, they consider it a process guided by God. Therefore, we see that the claim of a cause-and-effect relationship between the active presence of religion in society, the prevalence of religious beliefs, and scientific underdevelopment is a baseless claim. The reality is that a country's development or backwardness is not solely a function of its people's beliefs but is the product of that country's socio-historical and cultural conditions, which crystallize in the type of political structures, the rule of law, and many other concepts, and its absolute connection to religious beliefs, and the notion and propaganda that if, for example, from tomorrow the people of Iran or any other country abandon their religious beliefs, Iran will become an advanced and idyllic country, resembles a joke and is far from deep historical realities. There are clear examples in this regard in the world, such as Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, etc., which incidentally have non-religious governments and whose people do not have strong religious beliefs, yet they are among the most dictatorial and human-rights-violating countries in our world.

Presupposition 5:

(( Religions are the source of much evil in the world )).

It seems that any thought, so long as it does not turn into a totalitarian and absolutist ideology and does not seek to eliminate opposing ideas, can be a harmless and even beneficial phenomenon for any society, and this matter has nothing to do with religion or any other school of thought. The reality is that throughout history, many religious and non-religious ideas have turned into ideologies and have created many irreparable damages, from non-religious ideologies such as fascism and Nazism in Germany and communism in the Soviet Union to religious ideologies such as ISIS and al-Qaeda in the Middle East; all indicate that the problem is not with the ideas themselves but with the ideologization of ideas. Therefore, the claim that only religions have been destructive throughout history is contrary to established historical facts. One must accept the reality that at certain junctures in history, religions, due to their influence, have been the greatest tools of powers and politicians for suppressing opponents or expanding power, and there have certainly been abuses of religion's influence in societies. However, numerous studies by various thinkers in the West have shown that there is fundamentally no meaningful and essential relationship between "religion" and "violence," meaning religion in and of itself does not cause violence, and other factors are influential in this regard. One of the most interesting studies in this field is the research of Robert Pape, a political thinker and professor of political science at the University of Chicago. In a study, he examined all martyrdom operations from 1980 onwards and published the results in 2003. The author concludes that religious faith (of any kind) is neither necessary nor sufficient for creating the perpetrators of these explosions. Pape concluded that the most important factor is "political motivation." Therefore, it is clear and evident that political powers at any time, in order to expand and consolidate power and achieve their political goals, may instrumentally use any thought and ideology and put it at their service; now, this thought can be religious, like ISIS and its followers (let us not forget that the main motivation and slogan of ISIS was the revival of the caliphate, which is a political, not a religious, issue), and it can be non-religious, like the era of the atheist Stalinist regime, where the fight against any religious belief was on the agenda and millions of innocent people fell victim to this ideology. Alongside these cases, history has shown that religions have also been the source of many services and benevolences for various societies, and ignoring this is unfair. The atheist Phil Zuckerman, in the sixth chapter of his book entitled "The Impact of Religion on Social Life," elaborates on the point that the majority of leaders of civil rights and social justice movements for the realization of social rights and equality for women and Black people in America were religious people, and their struggles have left profound social and political impacts on American history. As other examples, a drop in the ocean, pay attention to these statistics: nearly half of medical services in Africa are provided by religious organizations and institutions, saving the lives of millions of people annually, and also a quarter of global HIV services are provided to the world's people by religious institutions. The reality is that for many people in the world, contrary to the claims of atheism, religions are a source of inspiration for goodness, forgiveness, love, and friendship among humans and strengthen the bonds between people and different groups. At the end of this section, I quote a sentence from Peter Jones, the famous atheist columnist for the Guardian and Independent newspapers, addressing Richard Dawkins:

"If atheism means one-sided prejudices about Muslims or an attempt to expel believers from social life, then I am not an atheist."

In closing, I reiterate the point that as long as Iranian society does not somehow move past the fundamental conflict between tradition and modernity and this conflict remains unresolved, many issues will persist as crises. The reality is that our society has fallen prey to two very dangerous lines of thought: some consider religions and God to be the source of all problems, and others expect everything from religion, including the functions of the empirical sciences. It seems that both ways of thinking have demonstrated their logical and philosophical failure. Religion is like medicine. If it is used in its proper place, in the right dosage, and for its own specific purposes, it soothes souls and heals the human psyche; but if it lacks these three conditions, it will be lethal. Therefore, our path to well-being lies neither through religious fundamentalism nor through the total elimination of religion and God from life.

How beautifully the sage Omar Khayyam put it:

One group reflects upon the path of religion,

Another, lost in thought, has fallen on the way to certainty.

I fear that one day a voice will cry out,

"O you who are unaware, the path is neither that one nor this."

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The Ideology of Atheism and Democracy

Author: Milad Mahmoudzadeh (Psychologist - Writer and Philosophy Enthusiast) 98/7/11

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