Honest and Dishonest Atheism V2.0

Dawkins, Marx & Sargon

Religion determines politics. I truly believe that there is a fundamental truth in this maxim, however, today it is not so straightforward because of what I will call dishonest atheism. Long-time readers will know that I am a committed atheist, however I believe that most atheists are not actual atheists because they do not take their beliefs to their logical ends; in other words, they are hypocrites.

In this essay, I will outline what I believe is dishonest atheism, who the main figures are, the binary and inescapable choice that every person must make and finally, the serious political implications of both honest and dishonest atheism.

(This is the second version of the essay. I redid the conclusion because I felt it was not up to standard)

- 4 types of belief -

So, we will begin by separating everybody into four different categories depending on their level of belief. On the side of devotion, we have the true believers who take their faith seriously and are not willing to ignore the ethical implications of their faith. On the other side of the spectrum, we have what I will call honest atheism, of course this self-flattering title indicates that I see myself in this category.

Then we have the two categories in between these poles of belief, on the side of the Believers you have the unserious Believers who nominally believe in their religion, but refuse to take the moral and metaphysical aspect of their religion seriously. Here we can find our spiritual but not religious types, the people who are into some sort of vague mysticism, but the great majority of people in this category are people who were born into their religion and just see it as a fact of life and do not take the implications of their faith to their logical extent.

And finally, the last category and the main focus of this essay, will be the dishonest atheists who are nominally atheistic, but that still hold on to metaphysical¹ beliefs in one way or another. This essay might be interesting for those who are outside of this category, but if you are in this category this essay is specifically for you and, I hope, will lead you to reflect on what your true beliefs are.

One final note before I begin. I chose the name “dishonest atheism” because it is catchy, but I do not intend to say that the people in this category are specifically bad or stupid, just that they have not taken their beliefs to their logical ends.

- Defining atheism -

So, what is atheism? What does being an atheist actually mean? Just based on the name it means that you believe that there is no God, but it goes further than this. Atheism is the negation of all metaphysical claims and beliefs. In my opinion, you can't be an atheist and believe in ghosts, vibes, or anything else that is not material.

Both Atheism and materialism are inextricably linked and so, an atheist can only believe in things that are material and therefore tangible. I put so much emphasis into this because one cannot reconcile atheism with any metaphysical beliefs. If an atheist were to hold a single metaphysical belief he would have to choose between his atheism and this belief, for as Kaczynski said, you can't eat your cake and have it too.

- Ethical Nihilism -

The most important logical consequence of believing only in the existence of matter and nothing else is that this belief will inevitably drag you into ethical nihilism. Allow me to explain; ethics are the set of beliefs that rule what is correct and what is incorrect at a societal level.

All ethical systems need to base themselves on some sort of standard or authority that allows them to make clear distinctions between right and wrong. Generally, when there are ethical arguments between two groups of people it is because they appeal to different ethical authorities.

Throughout history these disagreements have taken the form of religious differences; the Muslims logically disagree with the Christians because they have different moral authorities, in this case, they have different holy books.

However, in the case of atheism we have a real dilemma because the whole point of an ethical system is that it stands above the individual member of society and therefore can guide this individual in the right direction.

As a result, we can see that almost all ethical systems have some metaphysical Authority, sometimes this is directly a God, but it can also be some principle or an unquestionable value. The point is that what decides what is ethically right and wrong is always something that is above humans.

The issue is that when a society throws away all metaphysical concepts, the only thing that will be left as a moral authority will be other human beings. If you are an atheist, you must believe that all laws, all philosophies, and all ideas of right and wrong have been created by humans without any divine guidance.

And here comes the great difficulty; when there is no supernatural authority, all ethical authority comes from the opinion of another person. Without metaphysics, all moral claims are based on individual opinion and preference.

The issue is that there is no good reason why I should prefer to follow the opinions of other people especially when I have my own, indeed practically everyone would rather follow his own conscience than that of another. This means that for an atheist there is no objective and universal morality, but instead many subjective and local moralities.

This truly creates moral chaos, to be more precise, the concept is called ethical nihilism; this is the belief that there is no objective right and wrong. Many might say that this is just post-modernism, but I would rather avoid the label because I believe that their relativism is a function of their atheism and that people like Foucault still hold on to some metaphysical values, more on that later.

I believe that every honest atheist must come to this conclusion of ethical nihilism, however, it is also clear that this is not a desirable state. One cannot have a working society without a common ethical framework, if everybody does what they want to do, then the result will be Anarchy. Besides, nihilism is also very personally unpleasant, no one likes to be confronted by existential doubt.

There are two ways of dealing with ethical nihilism which respectively separate the honest from the dishonest atheists. The honest atheists accept nihilism and build a new ethical framework based on subjective and materialist principles. While the dishonest atheists decide to keep some metaphysical values in order to escape nihilism.

There are two principal ways that dishonest atheism attempts to keep its metaphysical values:

1. The first is through the idea that universal ethical values can be achieved through reason alone which is embodied by liberals and humanists like Dawkins.

2. The second is by keeping certain ethical dogmas untouched despite nominally not believing in anything that can justify them, which is the case with the socialists and communists.

- Dawkins: Ethics & Reason -

We will cover this first attempt to escape the logical conclusion of ethical Nihilism which is best represented by the person of Richard Dawkins, and indeed, he was the catalyst for the creation of this essay. (I will be referring to these people as rationalists)

The core idea is that we can still have objective and universal morals without any need for metaphysics because ethics can be derived from reason. This idea has its roots in the enlightenment and was particularly present in the writings of Kant.

Instead of explaining it I will just put a quote from Richard Dawkins talking about it some years ago. 

“(...) I want a morality that is thought out reasoned argued discussed and based upon could almost say intelligent design. Can we not design our society which is the sort of society that we want to live in? If you actually look at the moralities that are accepted among modern people, among 21st century people; we don't believe in slavery anymore, we believe in equality of women, we believe in being gentle, we believe in being kind to animals. These are all things which are entirely recent, they have very little basis in Biblical or Quranic scripture. They are some things that have developed over historical time through a consensus of reasoning sober discussion argument legal Theory political and moral philosophy. (...)”

In many ways, this idea of rationality is very optimistic because it offers a universal ethical framework. Even better, it argues that history moves towards what is rational and what is good, this humanist idea will culminate in a society that is completely rational and moral.

Indeed, this is just a modern restatement of humanism which has been present for far longer than Dawkins has been alive and believed that human civilization is progressing through technological and ethical progress. Even I must accept that it is much, much nicer than ethical nihilism and moral subjectivism.

The superhuman authority that they appeal to is Reason, the idea is that through the proper use of individual reason one can gain enough insight to be able to determine what is universally right and wrong. But before we go forward, we must define what reason and being rational actually means.

In my opinion, Reason is nothing more than the ability to efficiently solve problems. 2+2=4 is a rational statement because it will lead to efficient problem-solving, 2+2=5 is irrational because it will not. If you try to design an airplane based on a mathematical model where 2+2=5, you will kill the test pilot. Rationality is good problem-solving and irrationality is its opposite.

So, what is the problem that Prof. Dawkins is trying to solve? It is the problem of making an ethical system, a set of rules, that will create a desirable society where people want to live. The idea is that we can use our problem-solving rationality to create an ethical system that will lead to a desirable society. Sounds easy enough.

The issue comes when we actually try to figure out what makes a society “desirable”, because this is ultimately subjective and every person will have a different idea of a perfect society. A hippie’s perfect society will look radically different to the idea that a stockbroker’s and this one, in turn, would be different to a vision of an army Sergeant.

And these examples are just different individuals inside the same generic society, but the differences are even bigger when we look at different cultures. The perfect society for a British academic will be radically different from the one that an Amazon tribesman would come to desire.

Once that you have a clear idea of what a perfect society would look like, it is really easy to use your Reason™ to make an ethical framework that will lead to this beautiful society. But the real problem is to use one’s reason to determine what a “desirable society“ looks like; the issue is that desirability is a function of… desire and therefore it is not rational at all. This is best exemplified by this Schopenhauer quote:

«Der Mensch kann zwar tun, was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen, was er will.»

“A man can do what he desires, but not want what he desires.”

Our desires, and by extension the values we hold, are the results of our temperament and our culture. We can truly do little to change them once they are formed, it is very difficult to change our cultural values², but it is absolutely impossible to change our natural preferences.

One person wants one type of society and another wants another type, how can we rationally determine who is correct? You might as well use reason to figure what flavour of skittles is scientifically the best. You cannot use your reason to give the correct answer in something that is a matter of individual desire.

However, that is exactly what these rationalists do, they say that there are universal moral values that will lead to a “desirable society”. Coincidentally, this desirable society holds the exact same values that all of the main rationalists (Dawkins, Harris, Boghossian, Pinker, etc.) also hold; which are the exact ethical beliefs of academia in the 1990s. (Most of them already disagree with the status quo of 2020s)

So, there are only two plausible explanations; either all of these academics arrived independently at the same fundamental ethical truth by using Reason™, or they were all influenced by the same culture and therefore agree with each other.

To solve this, let’s use Dawkins's own argument against universal religion against his “universal” ethical system; If he were as smart and rational as he is today, but instead of being born in Britain, he were born on North Sentinel Island, would he come to the same ethical conclusions? How about Iran? How about Britain 100 years ago?

So, I really cannot say that I was particularly surprised when Dawkins labeled himself a “cultural Christian“ when faced with the possibility of a Muslim-majority Britain. Actually, I think that “cultural Christianity“ is just another way to say British culture because the liberal values of modern liberal Britain have their origins in Protestantism; John Locke was certainly not an atheist.

I certainly do not have a problem with a British man holding British values, what I do have a problem with is when these rationalist professors take the accepted humanist and liberal values of western intelligentsia and then declare that they are universal, objective, and the product of pure reason.

I believe that they are using their reason not to deduce what is morally good and true, but instead to rationalize the values that they already held. That is why I would categorize their whole intellectual project as dishonest. A true atheist does not have the luxury to declare that his preferred values are universal because of Reason™.

- Sargon: Post-modern traditionalism -

I think that a great counter-example to Dawkins is the political comentator Carl Benjamin better known by his “Sargon”, who, being an atheist, is faced with the same ethical problem. However, he actually has the will to take his own opinions to their logical conclusion. Carl is deeply attached to the values of English tradition, but he does not try to claim that these values are the product of reason, but instead, he states that they are the product of his cultural upbringing.

He realizes that for an atheist there is no higher authority to appeal to, and therefore he does not try to create some objective system of ethics that claims to be correct everywhere at all times, instead he argues that he has his own subjective moral values. But I think that it would be better to quote his own words, this is from a discussion that he had with Peter Boghossian and which I recommend since I think that it illustrates the whole issue quite nicely:

I realized that this does situate us firmly within the post-modern framework though, right? (…) And I'm willing to admit it and I appreciate that it's not necessarily a nice place that a lot of people want to go. But I do think that actually they [post-modernists] kind of have the classically liberal position on this beaten.

I actually it I can't find a position from which I can say there is a value here that isn't simply contingent on my preference for it and so, the alternative is okay well that is true, well, okay what follows from that?

And really, it's about the standards we set for ourselves and what we feel to be right and actually if you think about it isn't that just generally what you do anyway? You know? isn't that just generally how you live your life anyway? And so, really there is a kind of refreshing honesty about it and to be able to say: Yeah no, I do think that's right and I don't have to rationally justify it. (…)

Carl calls himself a “post-modern traditionalist“ exactly because he embraces both ethical nihilism and his own cultural tradition and its values without trying to universalize what is inherently local. That is the way that he overcomes moral nihilism and overall I think that he is a great example of what atheism should look like.

- Marx: Socialism & Moral dogma -

Socialism is a deeply moralistic movement that has ethical concepts like justice and equality at its core, but at the same time it is a deeply atheistic and anti-clerical movement, with only a couple of whacky exceptions like Christian socialism.

This creates an inner conflict between its atheism, that translates into the lack of an ethical authority to make absolute moral claims, and the absolute ethical claims of the movement makes such as their complete support of equality, being against any type of oppression, etc.

So, let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that we go up to a progressive or a communist and we ask him; “why is equality good?” He will probably think about it a bit and then he will probably reach for the utilitarian argument.

“Equality is good because that way there will be more people that will be happy, there will be no inequality and everyone will have enough“ The issue with this argument is that utilitarianism and its arguments do rely on some a priori moral values; it presupposes that pleasure is a good in itself (Hedonism) and that this should be given to the largest number of people (Equality, also circular argument).

That is all very nice and mathematical, but these presuppositions are unsupported and if our atheism is to be honest, we cannot leave any dangling metaphysical values. So, can we objectively prove or disprove hedonism? Or why should we prefer to maximize pleasure for the largest number of people? And why should we not prioritize our family or ourselves?

These ethical arguments attempt to justify their metaphysical values by appealing to other metaphysical values. It truly feels like putting out a fire by throwing wood on it; every argument that you try to use to prop up an ethical value must be also propped up by another value until you arrive at an argument that relies only on a person’s subjective experience like hedonism. Any person can try to disprove hedonism, but in the end, the only possible argument, for or against, is individual experience.

This is essentially true of any single argument that our hypothetical communist can bring up. They all are very vulnerable to ethical nihilism because they rely on other moral presuppositions that are themselves far from objective. Let’s try some of the other expected arguments and see if they pass the postmodern acid test.

“Human rights! Equality is good because the declaration of human rights stated that all humans have fundamental rights, dignity, and value”

That sounds very nice and all, but despite all the fanfare and civics and ethics classes, the declaration of human rights still is just a piece of paper. And where do these rights come from? The paper? The ink?

The last claim is the most interesting of all; “all humans have fundamental dignity and value“. This concept is much older than socialism or the UN, it is fundamentally a Christian concept that comes from the idea that all humans are made in God’s image and that everyone had a soul. But if you are an atheist, that simply won’t do.

That is what bothers me so much about our dear progressives. They want to eat their cake and have it too; they want to believe in there is a fundamental and unchangeable value and dignity that all human beings have, but they also do not want to believe in God or the soul. I truly believe that it is as easy as a Boolean choice; either, or.

If you believe that all humans are fundamentally god’s children then humans are not animals, instead we are something special. In theological terms we can call this the Sonderstellung or “special position” in German. But if you are an atheist then there cannot be any Sonderstellung; you must believe that we are nothing other than a smarter, generally less hairy version of a chimpanzee. In such a case, there is no uniform value to all human beings.³

By questioning their a priori values you will also tear up all the other arguments that they will bring up, from Kant’s sweet idea that “humans are not means but ends in themselves” all the way to Rawls’ idiotic little thought experiment that apparently is meant to define universal justice.⁴ I will not go over every unjustified metaphysical value that leftists embrace because that would be quite the list.

When you read Marx, you will realize that the question of the morality of oppression or inequality is not even mentioned. Marx, and all the other socialists that I have read, hold these values, such as equality, to be a priori good and as a given, as something so fundamental and obvious that there is no reason to discuss it.

I believe that leftists hold these values (such as equality, fairness, human rights, etc.) as goods in themselves and therefore one could only describe them as metaphysical dogmas that are not reconcilable with their nominal atheism.

- The attraction of dishonest atheism -

But then I think that one must take into account that despite all the critique that one might direct at these two strands of dishonest atheism, they still remain extremely popular ideologies that dominate the majority of modern political discourse.

If these two movements have such inherent contradictions between their dogmatic moralism and their atheism, why then do they have so many devoted followers? What is the thing that makes these movements so attractive despite their contradictions?

Well, I believe that the only way to answer this is to look at what makes all religion so fundamentally appealing; religion is appealing because it provides explanations that give sense to our lives and the world around us.

These explanations can be classified into physical explanations, which attempt to explain the physical world around us. This part of religion can be perfectly seen in the pagan religions of the first civilizations that tried to explain the fundamental questions that we might ask ourselves. Why do things fall down? Why does it rain and why are there seasons? Where do humans and animals come from? Et cetera.

The metaphysical explanations try to explain the things that are present in our lives, but are not merely physical and cannot be explained in physical terms. How should we live our lives? Where do our emotions and passions come from? And most importantly for this essay, how can we tell good from evil, right from wrong?

Whichever ideology or religion can persuasively answer these fundamental questions will be very attractive. But when we look at the state of most religions in the world, we see a very bleak picture; most countries are heading towards a religiously affiliated majority for the first time in history.

I believe that this is mostly because natural science has come to provide better physical explanations than the established religions. When we look at the black death, we can now understand that it is the result of bacteria and therefore explanations for it being divine punishment fall short.

As a result, religion has lost half of the market when it comes to explaining the physical world and one cannot easily believe half a religion. I believe that this is the main reason for the state of religious crisis that we can observe.

The issue is that natural science cannot provide any real explanations when it comes to our fundamental metaphysical questions. This means that there is a great desire for an ideology that is capable of giving persuasive answers to our metaphysical and especially our ethical questions while not clashing with natural science.

Here is where Dawkins and Marx come in, they each offer an ideology that provides a complex ethical framework and embraces materialism which does not clash with natural science. Their versions of atheism are really a way to have religion’s ethics without actually having theological baggage.

This advantage makes these ideologies far more adaptive and attractive to modern people who are looking for ethical guidance and are stuck between total atheism and true belief. Total atheism implies ethical nihilism and belief requires absolute faith and none of these two are approachable, therefore the path of least resistance is to accept neither; to have both scientific materialism and complete ethical certainty, but only at the price of being a hypocrite.

- The political implications -

Now, if you agree with my arguments, then there is an inherent contradiction in both Dawkins’ liberalism and the successor ideologies of Marxism. But what should we do with this information? When it comes to argumentation, a contradiction is a weakness. A flaw to be exploited, if we were inclined to do so, of course.

I can only speak for myself, but I certainly dislike these two movements and I believe that this contradiction should be exploited. The ethical nihilist critique is deadly when the victim has no way to defend against it and this is certainly the case.

True believers are pretty much invulnerable to nihilist arguments because their faith gives them a solid base to anchor their moral beliefs. However, the people in the middle, the unserious believers and the dishonest atheists, have no ground to stand on. The existence of their beliefs and arguments depends on their values remaining as vague as possible.

When you corner a rationalist or a leftist, and you press them to justify their morality within the frame of their materialism, they are simply unable to do so and will either entrench themselves in a metaphysical value that they will not be willing to let go, or they will budge and give way to subjectivism.

Therefore, I think that this is a winning strategy that could be a deadly argument against my political enemies while also being harmless to my friends, which is the reason why I will recommend its use.

- Either/Or -

Every person must choose in their hearts; either to believe and take the implications of the existence of God seriously, or to be an honest atheist and to deal with the ensuing ethical nihilism in their own peculiar way.

Despite being an atheist, I have a very soft spot in my heart for Kierkegaard because he was a true believer; he stated that one must either believe in God with all of one’s heart or not to believe at all. There is no honest middle ground!

Of course, there is the third option of wanting to have it both ways, but this will lead one can go in endless argumentative circles around loaded terms such as “equality“, “freedom“⁵, or “justice“. However, this will not lead to anything because, without metaphysics, the ultimate moral authority will always come down to man.

The only way to get out of dishonest atheism is to cut the Gordian knot of endless circular arguments and to throw out every single moral dogma that you cannot justify. Once the slate is clean, you can build something solid that will be able to overcome ethical nihilism, or, at least, help you find your way in our chaotic world.

1. Also, I use the term metaphysical to refer to any value that is not based in the material world, but instead, that this value is seen as a good in itself. This means that the worth of this moral value goes beyond the physical, therefore it is metaphysical.

2. This is the big reason why assimilation after immigration is so difficult, the act of changing one’s values to fit into another society is very difficult, and believe me, I’ve been a migrant. If you want an example of what having to change your cultural values would look like, imagine eating dog with the same gusto that you get from some crispy bacon.

3. The only way out there is to say that all living beings have some fundamental worth, but that would have to include every tapeworm and amoeba. If you want to say that all sentient life, then that means that intelligence defines value. This is also applicable to humans since some seem to be less sentient than others, therefore the argument ends up defeating itself.

4. The veil of ignorance argument actually pisses me off.

It relies on self-interest to make the choice of how society should be structured when one is behind the veil of ignorance, but then decides to stop using self-interest once the individual gets past the original position. If self-interest is valid, then it should also be valid to prefer one’s own benefit even if this is “unfair”, if it is not, then the initial judgement is also invalid.

This is what gets passed for meaningful philosophy in the faculty nowadays! The only way to correct this is by sending 90% of that den of parasites to the salt mines.

5. My critique is mostly aimed at progressives and socialists, but it is just as efective against libertarians and anarchists that do not believe in God, but still hold liberty and freedom as an inherent good. (metaphysical moral value)