Atheism is . . .

I've recently joined a few groups that are specifically atheist-oriented. Though I never previously sought atheist company, I'd often find out years after becoming friends with someone that she is an atheist. I don't hold any conscious attitude that atheists are better people or friends or that they even differ on average from non-atheists, but since whatever selection criteria I have for friends seems to implicitly select for atheists, when I decided to meet some new people, atheism seemed like a reasonable enough starting point.

I attended a meeting of one of these groups the other night (a lovely group of women gathered for tea and conversation), and I was surprised when one of the members commented, "I find it hard to imagine someone's being an atheist and not being a socialist."

One of the reasons I never previously sought atheist company is that I have never thought of atheism as a thing--or a belief--in and of itself, and I don't see how corollary beliefs could be founded on it. Atheism is a denial of a particular belief, but it doesn't inherently offer any alternative beliefs. The only thing that can be positively said about atheists is what they are not. They are not theists. They are not those who ascribe a high probability to theistic answers to questions of existence. Any further definition fails.

I've encountered the positive assertion that atheists believe in or look to science as an alternative source of knowledge to religion. While I imagine most atheists have a scientific outlook, this is neither necessary nor sufficient for atheism. It's not necessary because although science seems like an obvious choice for alternative explanations, it is possible to believe that a theistic explanation for life is false without believing that a naturalistic one is correct. I have known atheists who are disinterested in science, who have an intuitive sense that religion is man-made but who aren't particularly interested in questions of origins or purposes. Though some of them I'm sure tacitly accept that science holds or can find reasonable explanations for existence, they aren't particularly interested in what these explanations are. These are atheists who just don't ask questions about origins, and they don't need or seek an alternative to religion for answers to these questions. It is not necessary to believe, for example, that humans are products of naturalistic evolution to believe that they are not the product of divine creation. Even is a scientific alternative were necessary, that a scientific outlook is not sufficient for atheism is obvious from the many examples of theist scientists and lay persons with an interest in science.

Atheists are also not necessarily naturalists. Though many atheists are also a-supernaturalists, this is also not a necessary condition for atheism. (Sufficient, yes.) Though it strikes me as a contradiction, I have known at least one atheist who asserted a belief in ghosts and hauntings. The crux here is that atheism makes only one specific denial--of creative gods or forces. It does not explicitly address belief in other supernatural phenomena. Though I struggle to find consonance between denial of deities and acceptance of ghosts, I must acknowledge that a person holding such beliefs qualifies as an atheist.

It becomes apparent from examples like this that if atheism (though not necessarily atheists) does not offer an alternative explanation for the claims it denies, it certainly does not offer an extended philosophical dogma to replace the network of claims made by religions and religious philosophies.

It is even easier for me to imagine atheists who are not socialists than to imagine atheists who are not naturalists. This is because many of the atheists I know personally are right-wing libertarians. These people perhaps see libertarianism as an extension of atheism as strongly as my company at tea sees socialism as naturally following from atheism. If the latter believe that equality is the most salient feature of atheism (perhaps in reaction to the view some religions hold that their followers are in some way better than or at least different from non-adherents), a political system that enforces that equality is indeed a natural extension of that philosophy. The libertarian atheists may see individual sovereignty as the most salient feature (reacting against dogmatic prescriptions for belief and behavior provided by some religions), and so they naturally choose a political philosophy that attempts to grant just that. Neither is an incorrect view for an atheist, precisely because atheism doesn't offer any particular belief. It is not necessary to see all people as equal to be an atheist, and it is not necessary to believe in individual sovereignty to be an atheist: atheism does not offer a specific moral code or political ideology.

Atheism, in fact, offers nothing. It is only a useful concept in that atheists are a minority and that religion is such a large, pervasive, and powerful social institution. There are many beliefs I do not hold. I do not, for example, believe communism is viable or desirable--I emphatically believe the opposite, in fact. Yet, I would not intentionally seek out other a-communists, and I certainly wouldn't attend a tea to discuss my and others' non-belief in communism.

But I can imagine a situation in which I would. If I lived in a communist country and was an a-communist, I would seek other a-communists and form a society that provided validation for my a-communism and that perhaps sought to challenge the communist beliefs of others. Even if the members of the group had extremely divergent political ideologies, we would benefit from association based what we do not believe. This is, in fact, why I actively seek atheist company. It is not that I imagine atheists to share my political, moral, or philosophical beliefs or even my interests or hobbies. As a minority, we are a group, but as atheists, we have nothing inherently in common. And as a minority that opposes the existing social paradigm, we have a lot to gain from association--at least until declared atheists are of such great numbers that the social paradigm has shifted.

Despite its utility as a minority identity, I have to conclude that atheism is nothing. Atheists are not atheists. They are humanists, Randian objectivists, naturalists, or adherents of any number of other philosophies. They are socialists, libertarians, communists, Democrats, Republicans. But as a group they are nothing in particular.