Ep 77: What is an Atheist?

00:00I feel like what we've done is make everything worse for everybody like this whole episode

00:07is just about making everything worse I will frequently say if I just come in and muddy

00:13the water and then run away I've done my job Hey everybody I'm Dan McClellan and I'm Dan

00:24Beecher and you are listening to the data over Dogma podcast where we increase public

00:28access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and we combat the spread of misinformation

00:34about the same and today we're going to be focusing on the latter end of that mission

00:39statement a little bit more we yeah man I'm looking forward to this conversation we are

00:45we're barely I mean are we even going to talk about the Bible we might not to the we might

00:52brush up against it yeah yeah maybe one or two passages but that's it yeah we so we're

00:59doing two what is that segments we're gonna we're gonna ask some pretty big questions

01:05and there are their questions that are sort of increasingly important in today's kind

01:11of cultural landscape I feel like so we're going to start with the question of and this

01:18is a big one what is religion because we all think we have a handle on that word but I

01:25think we need to kind of define our terms on that yeah and and then the one that I actually

01:31feel like I might actually have something to say is we're gonna we're gonna ask what's

01:36an atheist so a lot of interesting stuff coming up let's just dive right in let's do it what

01:44is that and our first what is that is religion so yeah like I said earlier it almost feels

01:55like intuitive we intuitively we all seem feel like we have an understanding of that

02:01word yeah until you start to break it down so so why are we asking this question I think

02:08we're asking this question because where the boundaries of the concept of religion are

02:15are increasingly contested and are becoming increasingly important not just in non on

02:21social media and in general social discourse but even in the law and in the way that our

02:29governments function and in a lot of different ways it's is becoming increasingly important

02:34to be able to determine what is and is not a religion and different countries have have

02:40different degrees of of clarity regarding that like there are some countries that where there

02:45are certain groups that are considered religious groups by the state the government here but

02:51in other countries like no not religious groups sorry right and so this has far reaching implications

02:59but you mentioned it seems kind of intuitive that we know what a religion is and and this

03:05is common for most words that we see used frequently if we have a backlog of experiences

03:11hearing words being used in reference to certain concepts or or items or entities we just intuitively

03:19kind of generate a concept of what that thing is and so a lot of people when they try to

03:24think about what a religion is what they're going to do is just retreat into their mind

03:30and just come up with try to imagine the imagery the conceptual field that is evoked by that

03:37word and then try to describe or define that and people think okay that's religion the problem

03:46is as we've talked about before I think we've talked about prototype theory and cognitive

03:51linguistics a little bit before the problem is that that's entirely relative it's going

03:55to be different for every person because we all have different experiences right and so

04:00if we try to retreat to this is the conceptual package that is evoked in my mind when I hear

04:05that word great that doesn't really have any authority outside of your mind so it's it's

04:13it's that definition of I can't remember which senator said the definition of pornography

04:18well I I don't know how to define it but I know it when I see it yeah that's that was

04:23a Supreme Court justice and that's and that yeah and it actually raises a very good point

04:29that you can't define conceptual categories at least not in a way that is analytical and

04:35objective and clear and this this I get flack every time I bring this up you just can't

04:41it's just an impossibility and people I can do it great knock yourself out you will never

04:48succeed you will convince yourself you succeeded but like I and I bring up things like furniture

04:53or game or we could even go to pornography or you go to a lot of different things and

04:58I challenge people to define them and usually they'll just look in a dictionary and and

05:04then they'll come up with something it's like okay great except for there are a bunch of

05:07exceptions to that right that definition ropes in a bunch of things that are never referred

05:12to by that term and it also leaves out a bunch of things that are commonly referred to by

05:19that term right and so you have not defined the term you have just arbitrarily set up

05:27boundaries based on this false presupposition that all conceptual categories are reducible

05:34to necessary and sufficient features which is and and it please excuse me if I'm getting

05:40a little heady but which is an Aristotelian assumption about typologies about how categories

05:48function because we tend to think of categories as boxes is either in or out the reality is

05:53our minds create and curate and use categories by focusing on the prototypes the centers of

06:02the category and kind of ignoring what's going on in the periphery where the boundaries are

06:07they don't exist until you create them and they're usually contested yeah and yeah the

06:12minute you you write a solid boundary like you say somebody's going to come up with something

06:18and then you're gonna okay well we'll do a little carve out for that and then somebody's

06:21like but wait the inside the boundary that you said there's this and nobody that's not

06:27right oh yeah let's carve out that's let's change that you're always going to be changing

06:32your boundaries yeah and this is something that Wittgenstein noticed 80 some odd years

06:37ago in his philosophical investigations he said can you what I'm well originally was

06:45in German I don't remember the the direct translation but basically said can you draw

06:50a boundary around the concept of game no because you've never had to right you can create one

06:57but you can't you can't you don't discover one you don't dig one up you create one if

07:05you need one but and until you need one you don't need about and you start and you start

07:10asking requests your question does does it does it include both board games and baseball

07:17does it include okay well it includes that and you just it gets bigger and bigger and

07:22then and then eventually you get to like does Russian roulette count and I don't know that's

07:28not like a game and basically what we're doing is we're taking all the things that have been

07:33given that label and then we're trying to find features that are shared by all of them

07:38and only by all of them right and that's the presupposition that they can all be reduced

07:43to necessary insufficient features but that's not how categories develop that's not how the

07:46category of religion developed and so when we're talking about religion this is another

07:51thing where we can't define it and it's not because there's anything wrong with the category

07:55there's not it's not because there's anything special about the category it's a conceptual

07:59category and it can't be defined only it's a lot more critical to a lot of people today

08:03to be able to create those boundaries than it is for like the concept of game or furniture

08:08not high stakes for those words but when it comes to religion there are stakes so I went

08:14I was gonna say that like one of the things I recently not not all that recently but fairly

08:21recently on my other show thank god I'm atheist we talked about some right wing groups here

08:28in the US that were political groups their political activism groups from a Christian

08:35right perspective mm-hmm that have now decided that they are or have declared themselves

08:43to be religions so that they can be so that there's no scrutiny of their finances because

08:51why that while they were already 501c3 organizations meaning they were nonprofit organizations here

08:57in the United States if they declare themselves to be religions not religious in their in their

09:05purpose but religions but actually religions then they don't have to do filings with the

09:14government about what they're doing with their money yeah so like that's a real world consequence

09:20to to realizing that we have to why we might need to define these terms a little bit more

09:26specifically yeah yeah now when we go back into the ancient world a lot of people want

09:31to start with the the etymology of religion most scholars would say it seems to come from

09:37this Latin word "religio" but there are a handful of other words that are understood

09:42to kind of occupy the same conceptual space pietas, fides, lex, secta, cultus these are

09:50all Latin words that that kind of are surrounding the concept of religion and then in greek

09:55we have "thresquilla" which is the word that we actually find in the "pistle of james"

10:02and then an adjectival form in the "pistle of peter" "latria" and "evsevia" and these

10:10have to do with laws or worship or something like that but "religio" is the base most

10:16likely for our English word religion and so people say oh we've got that word in ancient

10:21Rome and it's like okay well let's look at the way that word is used in ancient Rome

10:27we've got a we've got to play a comedy called "cercullio" written by Plautus and there's

10:36a part where somebody is explaining telling a story and he says he was going to leave

10:44says somebody calls me back directly and invites me to dinner and he says I had "religio" so

10:50I could not decline and so how is "religio" being used here if you if you look at the

10:58way that "religio" is used in in Latin it seems to have to do it's almost like scrupy

11:05velocity it's this notion that I feel an obligation to meet a bunch of social standards and expectations

11:15in relation to my relationship with other people as well as with God so it's basically

11:21observation of social expectations and standards in relation to people or to God and so it's

11:28like I must follow the dictates of my priest and dear Abby yeah or or the guy invites you

11:38to dinner and it's like I've been placed in this this search situation where I am obligated

11:43by my scruples and and if you look this this text up a lot of places will translate "religio"

11:49as scruples it and so there are other places where it is used it seems to be used more in

11:57reference to a type of scrupy velocity like I've just got this this thing where I've got

12:02to do all this stuff because it just has to be done and it's not necessarily in relation

12:08to any kind of God it's just kind of a scrupy velocity so you have folks like Lucretius who

12:14says that this is a superstition he kind of equating it with a scrupy velocity to some

12:22degree for kick a row or Cicero as he's also known it was a virtue and it was contrasted

12:29with superstition and so it's being used to refer to kind of secular ideas as well as things

12:39in relation to a deity and you have one scholar Ernst File who's kind of done the most comprehensive

12:50survey of how this word is used says that it means the careful and even fearful fulfillment

12:55of all that man owes to God or to the gods and also to humanity and when we get into

13:03early Christianity when Latin is starting to take over from Greek you have folks like

13:10Augustine or Augustine saying we don't want to refer to following Jesus as a religion

13:17because it doesn't necessarily have to do only with our relationship with God he says

13:24Roligio is to be observed in dealing with human relationships, affinities and ties of

13:29every sort not just with our relationship with God and so he thinks Roligio is not applicable

13:38to Christianity to the followers of Jesus that makes sense so I mean for for that use

13:44of that word which is a different word than our word religion yeah so that's that's the

13:49Latin from which we get the the word religion but we also have already within Christianity

13:55the the Latin fathers quote unquote who are responsible for developing the use of this

14:01word within Christianity later on in Latin and in other languages they're going to start

14:07talking about how Christianity true religion is Christianity but we got a ways to go to

14:13get there when we get into medieval Christianity this Roman usage is still in vogue but then

14:20you also had an additional sense because religion refers to kind of the scrupulous observation

14:26of these relationships with humans and with with gods religious begins to describe those

14:34who dedicated their whole lives to the scrupulous and withdrawn service of God in other words

14:40a religious person was a member of the priesthood but you could also you so to become religious

14:48was to join the priesthood right and become like a monk or something like that okay oddly

14:54enough you had two different tracks within the priesthood you could become a religious

15:00member of the priesthood or you could become a secular member of the priesthood oh they

15:04both referred to the priesthood and being some kind of monk or priest or something like that

15:12in fact we have we have a text from canon 13 from the fourth ladder in council says whoever

15:20wants to convert to religion should enter one of the already approved orders so the monastic

15:26orders there are religious and secular monastic orders within medieval and later Christianity

15:33so in this sense religion is not what we widely understand it to be today and we have we begin

15:43to have religion kind of interiorized and universalized in the 14th and 15th centuries

15:49as we have humanist Christians applying neoplatonic frameworks to Christianity and a lot of this

15:58is coming in reaction to what's going on with the crusades and with the fighting with Islam

16:06and stuff like that and and so to that stand out our Germany's Nicholas of Qsa and Italy's

16:13Marcellio Ficino they were neo-platinous Christians and they both talked about religion as something

16:19that was innate to everybody and this is a this is an innovation yeah and part and one

16:26of the reasons they're doing this is because they're seeing Islam and Christianity doing

16:30going to battle a lot of people are dying there's conquest there's you know property

16:36and and land changing hands and everything and they're trying to find a way to kind of

16:42harmonize things they're the why can't we all just get along folks of this time period

16:48and so the we we have religion as this scrupulous observation of responsibilities towards God

16:57and and this is somewhat related to the idea that if you're a member of the priesthood then

17:03you could be a member of a religious monastic order and so Qsa talks about trying to end

17:10violence by suggesting that the different rituals and rights and cultural conventions

17:17between Islam and Christianity are reducible to the same religion he says there was only

17:23one religio in a variety of rights and so he's he's talking about religion as as an interior

17:30innate impulse to observe these responsibilities related to God but it gets shown through a

17:39socio-cultural filter that's different for Islam than it is for Christianity so we're

17:43getting to an idea that's almost the could almost be described by the modern word spiritual

17:50or something where there's like their piety or something like that there's an innate sort

17:56of connection to the divine and and the outward expressions of those things are can be different

18:02in different in in different groups but but the religio itself is is this thing that lives

18:09inside everybody and yeah and an internal innate kind of pole towards God and then about

18:1720 years later we have Ficino describing religio as a universal constant as natural to humanity

18:24as barking is to dogs and naying is to horses so it's it's an intuition it's one of those

18:32things and so despite the illusion of all kinds of different rights and rituals he writes

18:38in one place all human opinions all responses all customs change except religio name that

18:45interesting impulse to God is shared by everyone and is the same so we're still I will say that

18:51I will say that my experience is that that impulse toward divinity is probably more present

18:57in dogs and barking is just as likely in humans yeah that that would be my quibble with with

19:04that person whoever and we we had one dog that never barked and then we were like let's get

19:09another dog barks all the time so we have a very religious dog and we basically have

19:14an atheist dog a secular dog okay yeah and and I much prefer the secular especially when

19:22I'm trying to get work done and you know that the neighbors dog is out back who is also very

19:35but part of what they're doing is trying to reconfigure our understanding of humanity

19:40as a way to overcome these the perception of these significant differences you worship

19:45one god we you know you worship the other god and and so it's true so now we get this notion

19:52of religion not only as internal but now we're starting to loosen it from its cultural

19:57moorings we're loosening it from its manifestation in these rights and practices and so this is

20:04not an enormous leap conceptually but it sets the stage for the Protestant Reformation because

20:12one of the things that the Protestant Reformation is all about is trying to dislodge the church

20:18from state power and so if religion is now this innate impulse that is universal and is not directly

20:31tied to certain priesthoods certain rights certain ordinances all that kind of stuff then that means

20:38that the Catholic appeal to power and and the priesthood and the rights and and all that kind

20:44of stuff is not fundamental necessary to the practice of religion and so this developing concept

20:51helps the Reformation along by allowing them to generate a new concept of religion as

21:00unconnected to priesthood rights and rituals and the material trappings of the Catholic Church and

21:08also the power associated with it because they thought of you had this concept of religion and

21:14secular you had it in medieval Christianity with the different monastic orders but around the time

21:19of the Reformation the religious and the secular were two different arms of the Catholic Church

21:26the religious was the ecclesiastical arm 100% sure that I understand what the

21:31what the distinction there is so the the secular would be the police force of the Catholic Church

21:40whereas the religious would be the priesthood of the Catholic Church okay and so but they both

21:47fell under the umbrella of the Catholic Church right and both and both would sort of claim a

21:53devotion to the religion to right what we would now call the religion sorry yeah yeah and and you

21:59have in this time period you have a tradition about there being four laws and and they're called

22:06legis or legis the heathens the Jews the Christians and the Muhammadans is how they're

22:13that these texts are generally translated but notice they're they're referring to these as laws

22:21these are the collection of cultural conventions and requirements and everything like that

22:26which is distinct from the developing concept of religion which the Reformation is trying to turn

22:31into this kind of abstraction of what the the Catholic Church has long been doing so they're

22:39trying to be it's sorry it just occurred to me to note that it should be said that this is a purely

22:46Eurocentric history 100 percent yeah we're not talking about anything but like just sort of how

22:52Europeans saw things through time and this and this is going to be incredibly important

22:58because it's Europeans developing the concept and then when they start realizing there are people

23:04outside of Europe right what they're going to do is basically they're going to take the conceptual

23:10lens that they created and they're going to impose it upon the other people right so like in the

23:1519th century you had confrontations with Japan and America went over there and they're like hey

23:22we'd like to start up a relationship we want to do trade and all this kind of stuff and they're

23:28like great that sounds awesome we do too and they're like great first thing we need though is we

23:32need to write up some rules and regulations what religion do you all follow and they're like we

23:37don't know what that is right and they're like oh well here's what a religion is and basically

23:41saying okay you have to meet you have to come up with something that meets this set of rules and

23:48they're like we don't have anything like that um let's make something like that and so there's a

23:55whole book on the invention of religion in Japan which is about how they took certain cultural

24:01conventions and they were kind of like let's call that our religion yeah and then as as uh western

24:09ideas uh were more and more influential in the society this thing that wasn't a religion is

24:15starting to manifest uh is starting to get closer and closer to resembling what the US said they uh

24:23wanted them to describe so um so it's yeah export ever yeah oh yeah there is great argument to make

24:31for that um but we have uh like Calvin talks about how pure and genuine religion is confidence and

24:39god coupled with serious fear fear which both includes in it willing reverence and brings along

24:44with it such a legitimate worship as is prescribed by the law and so it's still this kind of internal

24:49innate impulse but it it manifests in appropriate practices and so we get ideas of about genuine

24:57religion and Christianity was genuine religion but then we have concepts of false religion which is

25:03basically Christians who aren't doing it right that's false religion right um and as we get into

25:09these as we get into the enlightenment and deism begins to take up uh one of the things that the

25:15enlightenment uh was really good at was uh trying to categorize things and describe things so you had

25:23a lot of philosophers you had a lot of naturalists you had a lot of scientists going out into the world

25:29to put labels on everything and put everything in a box and you know collect everything and and

25:34Darwin turns this into the theory of evolution and we have a lot of of uh typologizing and categorization

25:42and everything yeah and so Europeans are again taking that lens of this is what we think of as

25:48religion and now they're applying it to other societies and they're expecting to find because

25:55religion is universal and is innate they need to find it in all of these societies that they come

26:01across right and so as with Japan so to uh the Pacific Islands and so to uh Asia and they go in

26:11and they go okay what's your religion uh don't know what you're talking about oh well what are your

26:16sacred texts what are your beliefs about God what are you this that and the other uh and so we have

26:23basically we're imposing this framework on other nations and and um cultures and we're expecting

26:30them to um agree with what we have uh described as religion and this is where you first get the idea

26:37of plural religions because up until now religion was just this this innate impulse this was like

26:44hunger it's just something that everybody has but now it's like oh there are a lot of different

26:51nations and cultures that don't seem to fit with this little box that we have created and uh and

26:57they're so different from the way we do it that we now have plural religions and so we develop a

27:04discipline a field called world religions which is not really used by a lot of scholars any more

27:12these days but uh are you saying that the world religions class that i took when i was in college

27:20low those many almost 30 years ago are it was worthless now is that what you're saying not

27:27worthless but the framework of world religions is one that is not really used much anymore because

27:34it has a potential to kind of mislead and um kind of bias the way we look at things well and you can

27:40hear even from like as you're describing all of these things you know you you you describe

27:46Europeans going to these countries that don't even have concepts of religion and and just the

27:53questions that they would be asking are so Eurocentric are so are so centered in their own understanding

28:01of sort of cosmology and theology that the like yeah i can see those questions not making

28:09any sense to someone who you know what's your concept of god of what yeah what are you talking

28:14about are you talking about my ancestors what are you talking about yeah and and you have to kind of

28:19uh bring the two things into juxtaposition with each other and say okay you see how we have this

28:26and what's your equivalent to that right and and what that does is that forces the one framework

28:32onto the other um context and uh and there are a bunch of ways that Protestantism is a part of

28:40that is presupposed in that right because what did Protestants do it was uh sola fides faith alone

28:46it was sola scriptura uh the scriptures alone these were all the things that were genuine

28:53Christianity genuine religion and so religion became because of Protestantism the notion of a set of

29:00beliefs and practices related to god and your relationship to god and so there was this presupposition

29:08that there were sacred texts and this is this is the concept of scripturalization and so we go into

29:13we we think every every religion has its own scriptures but really that's just us taking Protestantism

29:21and superimposing it upon other cultures and trying to find something that matches that um

29:29that datum in our framework right and so we talk about other you know the Bhagavad Gita and other

29:36texts as their scriptures right and it's like that's importing a whole lot of presuppositions about

29:41how these things function and their nature that might not fit how they actually came about or how

29:47they were understood before we came barreling in and said this is this is your bible right yeah

29:53exactly so you have to use it the way we use our bible and right and so scriptural will hold you

30:00to it and will yeah we'll we'll demand that you defend it uh yeah from our framework yeah we we

30:08expect it to function the same way um and because we're in charge because we're colonizing you or

30:14we're an empire or or whatever uh you have to listen to us and so there there are a bunch of

30:20ways that that fundamentally distorts uh how we view what these other cultures have that we have

30:29slapped the label of religion on um and even even deism so lord edward herbert of chirberry

30:36is is known as kind of the grandfather of deism but he went through and he was like hey guess what

30:42i've got these five rules of religion every every religion has this the belief that there's one

30:48supreme god monotheism go figure uh two that he ought to be worship three that virtue and piety

30:55are the chief parts of divine worship four that we ought to be sorry for our sins and repent of them

31:00five that divine goodness doth dispense rewards and punishment both in this life and after it

31:06okay you can you can see the protestant outlines right of this deist concept of what religion is

31:13right and and so but because deist thought hey we're not we're not Protestants we're better than that

31:19we're this is rational religion uh they go and take that rational religion and slap it as a label

31:24on everything else and and one thing that i um i like to point out is when it comes to try to

31:30trying to define religion there's only one feature that is shared by absolutely every

31:37culture tradition whatever that has been labeled religion and that is only that it has been labeled

31:45religion and so the the one necessary and sufficient feature of all religion is

31:54that it has been given the label of religion sure and so um as a result i think the best way to

32:00understand and define religion is discursively uh and what that means is that religion is created

32:07by and within discourse or discussion and media and stuff like that it does not exist beyond it

32:14and it is whatever that discourse says it is right and so a religion is is whatever a group decides

32:21a religion is and so and that's important right because like if you're having a discussion with

32:26people it's not important that uh you know that that everyone uses the same dictionary to

32:34define these but it is important that everyone knows what they're talking about when a certain

32:38word is used if we're going to have a a communication that makes any sense yeah and if if one tries

32:47to uh lord their authority over the other my definition is the right one and here's the wrong

32:51one and you know that that happens with things like racism today yeah does is does there have to be

32:56systemic power asymmetries right in order for racism to be present off a lot of people say yes

33:02off a lot of people say no what's at stake well it's our power so um they're and that's true of

33:09religion as well there's a scholar named Koko Von Stukrad who uh who published a wonderful paper

33:14called discursive study of religion approaches definitions implications where uh he offers a

33:19discursive definition of religion and and i've shared this on my channel and and you know i can

33:24hear brains popping as people just get apoplectic about this but um he says we can define religion

33:30simply as follows religion capital all caps religion is the societal organization of knowledge

33:38about religion and people like you're not allowed to use the word in the definitions like well

33:43discursively you can because basically what you're what you're saying is religion is whatever the

33:48group decides is religion yeah and so it is relative it is um it changes from time to time from place

33:56to place from from group to group uh and and so there's no one universal definition of religion

34:02which is why i'm fond of telling people you can't define it but if you do want to define it you

34:06have to define it in a way that that preserves the the relative nature of the concept well and

34:12you're going to have to realize that there are going to be like you know you talked about

34:17sir what's his name's idea of religion lord herbert of chirberry yes that's what i said

34:23yeah and and yeah if you if you asked a you know a Buddhist

34:30to define religion none of those things that are included in sir chirvert of herven verven

34:38in his in his definition none of those premises are going to be there right and so and so any time

34:46you try to draw those lines somebody else who practices a religion is going to disagree with

34:54your definition of a religion it's kind of like the way people want to draw the word draw lines

34:59around the word cult uh which is uh you know always an inflammatory word it is not it's a word that

35:07like you can't use without offending somebody and and i think it's it's fundamentally a pejorative

35:15term yeah i think that's the way it's functioning it's not i don't think it's an analytically useful

35:19term and and a lot of scholars are are on the same page there but continue i agree with that i

35:24i mean it's just one of those things where it's like a at at some point for most uses of the word

35:30cult cult just means a religion that i don't like or that i'm scared of exactly yeah so yeah i

35:36mean i think that that's i i think that's really interesting i i and i'm glad that the conclusion

35:42is uh because like yeah that's a more useful that's a more useful place to land than just uh i mean

35:49at very least we're not setting any you know planting any flags and and and we're realizing that like

35:56people who do plant flags are doing so in the service of structuring their power yeah or because

36:03it it doesn't serve their interests for to recognize that hey man this is this is all

36:08relative uh because that's that's not going to help them much and and one example of of how this

36:14relates to study of the bible people talk about religion in the bible all the time and when they

36:19do that they approach it as a question of belief and belief is primarily a protestant uh it is

36:29centered primarily because of Protestantism now Protestantism is what developed our modern

36:34western notion of religion and so that's why it's central but there was a book called the meaning and

36:38end of religion by a scholar named wilford can't well smith and he writes so characteristic has it

36:45been that unsuspecting westerners have been liable to ask about a religious group other than their

36:49own as well what do they believe as though this were the primary question and certainly were a

36:55legitimate one but when we when we look at these practices elsewhere they may not have any to do

37:01with belief it's like why are you doing this because that's what our society does like well

37:05what do you believe doesn't matter it's what it's what we're doing right and and even within

37:10Protestantism a lot of times it's still about behavior uh but we've developed a bunch of uh

37:18a bunch of ways to try to make it about belief uh you know if you really believed this then then

37:24you would behave this way it's like well that's not how human behavior works beliefs and behaviors

37:30are not often one is not downstream from the other right uh and so uh yeah when we when we

37:36sent her when we sent her belief about deity as the uh necessary and sufficient feature of religion

37:43we're basically saying how much is it like Protestantism and wait okay and there's even there's

37:50another scholar brentonongbery who wrote a book called before religion which is talking about how

37:54the concept of religion developed but he and he put that and i don't remember exactly what the

37:58words were but he said we could very accurately define religion as anything that sufficiently

38:04resembles Protestantism uh because that's that's how the uh the concept developed now i will add

38:12one caveat you mentioned that this is all european and we're primarily downstream of the european

38:17development of this concept however medieval islam also was developing concept of bin um that is

38:24very very closely related and so there's an argument to make that um muslims actually

38:30systematize this concept and more or less the way we understand it today uh centuries before

38:37Protestantism did it but i think we're we're more directly connected to the Protestant

38:42iteration and manifestation of that concept and so i think that's that's more relevant to

38:47the discussion for uh english speaking westerners uh but but islam certainly has a claim to have

38:55developed the concept of religion independently although i i think in in some ways it's kind of

39:00merged uh more recently so so what is religion whatever a group says it is and also nothing

39:07and also nothing because it uh i i say that from time to time as well there's no such thing as

39:12religion good luck with not outside of our good good luck taking that with you into a conversation

39:18that's that's just how i throw bombs into in the thing it's like i've uh i got to get going hey

39:24guess what and uh the conversation and then you run away yeah all right friends well if you are a

39:31patron over on our patreon uh then you will just we'll just be moving on to our next segment uh if

39:38not you'll be you'll be hearing an ad right now and then after that we'll be going into another

39:44what's that so our second what's that is kind of about the opposite of religion and since we

39:58just decided that religion is nothing then the opposite of nothing is nothing or something anyway

40:04i don't know i think we're probably going to come to a similar point but there is there is uh a lot

40:11of talk um on my tiktok feed i don't know about yours i assume yours as well about uh what is or is

40:21not properly called an atheist so uh i don't know we haven't really discussed how we're going to

40:28dive into this do you want to start the conversation what do you want to do yeah i'm i'm happy to uh

40:34to start i'll make i'll make two points to start off and then and then we'll just uh see where uh

40:39the night takes us okay um but or you know the early afternoon uh so the the first comment i'll

40:46make is that the word atheism actually is is ancient goes back to ancient Greece uh we we see it in

40:52second third century BCE uh in in reference to the irreligious and specifically um and we just

41:01talked about how religion isn't a thing but irir religious in the sense of opponents of the state

41:07uh requirements regarding worship and things like that um and so this is a concept with a much

41:15longer pedigree than our contemporary concept of religion and as a matter of fact i i remember

41:21reading that uh ancient greeks would accuse christians of being atheists they would they would

41:27term christians to be atheists because they didn't believe in the full pantheon of greek uh gods

41:34yeah yeah so it it generally referred to some kind of uh opposition to uh or refusal to engage

41:43in the requisite behaviors related to specific deities and specifically the state sponsored uh

41:50deities but and and one thing i i want to point out is that the the term atheist describing an

41:57individual uh um i think points out that what what we're talking about is is uh the behaviors

42:06of people uh and so atheism and uh what it means to be an atheist is is wrapped up in an identity

42:16and and so i i want to suggest that atheism fundamentally is about membership in a group

42:23and an identity and the same is true i think of religious when we talk about religious people

42:28and the adjective religious and the concept of christian the concept of jewish the concept of

42:34of muslim these have historically always been used to refer to people who are representatives of a

42:40group both um negatively so from the outside people accusing others of being atheists and internally

42:49people identifying as atheist or identifying with atheism um and i know that's going to rub some folks

42:57the wrong way but i want and and i think we're going to get to why i think that is as we get to

43:02atheism in in the modern world but yeah it it it becomes a tricky thing right because i think that

43:10most atheists now uh and you know as we've talked about with with religion the word religion

43:17the word atheism has meant a lot of different things going down through history and i think

43:24that the word and and i think it's still evolving and i think people want to really nail it now

43:29yeah and and they do it for the same reason that they want to nail down the word religion

43:35they want it to mean what uh what is most convenient for me uh and and the me you know if the me is a

43:44christian who wants to uh sort of demonize atheism they're going to have their definition that they

43:50hold to very strongly yeah and if and if it's a an atheist who wants to sort of lionize atheism

43:56they're going to have their their definition that they hold to very strongly i and i would

44:01agree with that and and i get accused of being an atheist all the time and and it isn't as horrible

44:07accusation yeah what they feel terrible people treat it as an accusation it's it's you know it's

44:12it's like when when people use uh the the word gay as an accusation right uh it's like i i'm not

44:20offended by that i'm offended by you thinking that that's offensive um but it's because they want to

44:28excise me from their group um because when i say i'm a christian but i've compartmentalized

44:36my christianity over here right here i'm just doing scholarship and they're like

44:40you can't have that you're an atheist you're a closet atheist right um because that's the way

44:47that they protect their worldview and their understanding of uh what religion is what christianity is

44:53right um but there's a wonderful book i mentioned it before we started um recording uh tim whitmarsh

45:00published a book called battling the gods atheism in the ancient world which is a great discussion

45:05of of how the concept of atheism seems to have developed ancient and a lot of it has to do with

45:11the fact that uh within the law within culture within philosophy uh within a lot of things as

45:19people are trying to analyze things and and find origins and reasons and explanations for all

45:27kinds of stuff including um you know history historians are often trying to figure out why

45:32things happened um within between like the six and the fourth century's bce a lot of greek thinkers

45:39started moving away from the god did it explanation and started coming up with more humanistic more

45:46rational explanations for you know why some general did what they did or why a battle turned

45:52out the way it did um so like Herodotus is is one of the um one of the folks that whit marsh talks

45:58about uh coming up with explanations that don't uh punt to oh this was the gods responsible for all

46:06of this and so this later down the road would turn into kind of we don't need the gods to explain

46:13stuff anymore because we have better explanations but like you said christians were accused of being

46:19atheist because they rejected the state gods they rejected everybody else's gods and even though

46:24they believed quite fervently in their own deity everybody else not everybody else but others

46:31accuse them of being atheist because an atheist was not necessarily someone who didn't believe god

46:36exists it was not the absence of belief in gods it could include the presence of belief in gods

46:43but it was opposition to rejection of specific deities right and then as uh as we get into uh

46:53the medieval period and and into the modern period you see it being used uh it kind of gets

46:59appropriated by folks who were rejecting the existence of other gods and it begins to be taken up as an

47:06identity uh for those people from the accusation so that's one of you defang the accusation by

47:14adopting uh the identity uh and then we get into uh the modern world it begins to be used primarily

47:23as a reference to anti-theism um rejection of the existence of gods and then the one i wanted to get

47:31your thoughts on and the one that i've seen i think i want to say like it really starts to ramp up

47:37post 9/11 that's when i i begin to to see it um popping up the most the idea that it's just the

47:44absence of belief in deity um and and you mentioned that people understand these terms in in ways

47:52that serve their interests and their structuring of power and i see this as as an example of that

47:56because it seems to me that this facilitates the argument oh everybody's born atheist which means

48:03that our our club our group is everybody until this mind virus or whatever takes over and so it

48:13it's a it's a way to assert that this is the default state of affairs and any other state is a

48:19corruption or a fall from the default state i would i would i would quibble with certain parts of

48:26that okay i would what i would say is that it probably that definition of atheism and it's one

48:33that i probably would use myself with maybe some difference but but we can get to that but my idea

48:40is i i think that what what happened was towards the end of uh the 19th century and into the 20th

48:48century it became uh there became a lot of question in the philosophical world okay about about like

48:58how do we ask the questions about god and about uh whether there exists a god and it became a

49:06philosophical question rather than uh you know anything else and how do we prove that god exists

49:12and you know rather than it being just an an assumption that god does exist how can we philosophically

49:20explore this idea and i think that it became a question of you know what are the what does the

49:27evidentiary landscape tell us about the existence or non-existence of of of a god or gods and that's

49:37i think where uh people started to become more interested in aligning themselves with a position

49:46along that spectrum rather than a position of uh of rather than a religious position it's a

49:52position of i have you know when i assess epistemological yeah when when i assess the evidentiary landscape

50:03where do i fall and and so uh i think that you know i just i i just had a conversation in

50:11preparation for this discussion uh with a friend of mine who's a uh philosophy professor and because

50:17i kind of wanted to steal man my uh my own arguments about that about the word and like really know

50:23what i what what my thoughts were and i actually as of this morning i've kind of changed my thinking

50:28about the definition of the word atheist and agnostic because up until fairly up until this

50:34morning i was kind of using the words separately as defined as as being used as sort of asking

50:42two different questions right so atheism asked the question of belief do i believe in a god or do i

50:48not believe in a god and ag and agnosticism versus narcissism asked a an epistemological question

50:56can we know whether or not there's a god and it turns out that that's not a very useful way of

51:02thinking about agnosticism because any honest person who you know who presumably hasn't met

51:07god would say we can't know for sure which then renders everyone functionally in a uh

51:16an agnostic you know what i mean like they're yeah i'm an agnostic atheist and you're an agnostic

51:22theist and like the how useful is that term then if it can apply to pretty much everybody yeah uh

51:29so i i liked what we came to me and my friend jim this morning which was that an atheist is a

51:37person who looks at the evidentiary landscape and decides there is ins there is insufficient

51:45evidence for belief in a god okay theist is someone who looks at the evident and evidentiary

51:51landscape and says it decides that there is sufficient evidence for a belief in a god

51:55and okay and an agnostic is a person who looks at that same landscape and says i don't have enough

52:03information to decide one way or the other now what do you what do you do with the folks who uh

52:09who are believers who are theists firm theists but say it's not a matter of knowledge it's a matter

52:15of faith which is which is not so much about the evidentiary landscape as it is this decision based

52:22on whatever they decide their decision is based on because i i've you will every every now and then

52:28run into folks who are like that people who are trying to prove it are just lost that's not what

52:33faith is all about so we don't need the evidence um and and i think that that's like one of the

52:40frustrating things that i think we need to acknowledge about these questions is that they are not

52:46they're messy this is a messy question and it doesn't work the same way other philosophical

52:52questions work yeah there is like the word faith is kind of a conversation stopper yeah you know

53:01what i mean like i i can't move past that word if you want to say i just have faith that's fine

53:08but it means that i have nowhere i yeah we're at an impasse yeah i don't have anywhere to go

53:13with that anymore yeah there's there's nothing left to argue about it that yeah because because

53:17you said it's um you know nothing's gonna nothing's gonna change that i i think a lot of people would

53:22like it to be and this is the way i hear it i hear it discussed on from from atheist talking about

53:27atheism as well as christians talking about christianity and all this kind of stuff they'll say it literally

53:33means and it's like no you can't you there's no paper you can rub on this word that's gonna turn

53:39pink if the person is actually an atheist it means whatever people use it to mean right yeah um and

53:46you you explaining that the that the origin of the word is a meaning without and theos meaning god

53:52doesn't help us functionally that's the etymological fallacy and that's and that's very very common

53:59because people would like to be able to nail it down and have the authority to say it has been

54:04nailed down and the reality is no it's it's not ever going to be nailed down because as with religion

54:10it's subjective it's relative uh it's a conceptual category you can't define it you can only describe

54:17it and so everybody's gonna have different understandings of it yeah and i think and i think

54:22when you start to hear people talk about it you know you'll you'll hear people talk about

54:26weak atheism versus strong atheism or yeah implicit atheism versus explicit atheism and you know

54:33if that's a useful term in terms of you know having the conversation that you want to have

54:38i guess that's fine but yeah you i think it's fair to say that

54:44everyone's going to use that that use all of these words in the way that they that they find

54:51useful and meaningful and if you want to have a meaningful conversation uh that isn't just about

54:58you know you're structuring your power or you you know proving that you're right and everyone

55:05else you know the other person is wrong if you want to have a meaningful conversation

55:09you're going to have to sort of work to understand terms and and i think a big part of that is being

55:15comfortable with leaving things as they are with tension and with recognizing okay you have the

55:21you think about it the way you're thinking about i'm thinking about it the way i'm thinking about

55:25it uh you know we don't maybe it's not about convincing the other person that that our world

55:31view is better maybe it's about i under about understanding people better so that you can move

55:36forward more productively uh and different ways of thinking about it will be diff will be

55:42more useful in certain conversations than others so for instance my definition that i

55:48proposed uh is useful in a philosophical context um but as you but as you point out

55:56it's not useful it the second someone says you know my i'm not you know i i would say you the

56:06person that you propose who says it's just faith i would say that they are still using

56:11evidences uh they like most people when they when they talk about their faith say you know my

56:18my faith comes from the fact that i had this very potent experience when i was reading the book

56:24or you know what my you know my grandmother was dying and i prayed and she revived and or any

56:30number of you know experiences or ideas that are that i say are part of the evidence that they are

56:39using to to support their theist uh assertions but maybe that's not totally fair as you say it may like

56:49we're we're in the mystical we're in the we're you know the beliefs can be

56:57can be sort of outside of the realm of you know when once we get into

57:06a subjective thing that cannot be uh you can't be exported to other humans you know your personal

57:16experience that you had reading the bible might be deep and important to you and and and the thing

57:22that your faith is based on it it's worthless to me yeah and so and yeah like i say that's that's

57:30that's a bit of a conversation stopper if we're if we're going to argue about whether or not god

57:36exists if it's if it's about somebody trying to win then then yeah that's that's frequently

57:40not going to be um successful uh two two things that i wanted to to point out one um i think a

57:48fascinating observation uh pew does pew research does a study a religion a religious landscape study

57:56every few years right and it's always fascinating because they had one of their questions is about

58:00belief in god and they ask a bunch of different people um they're absolutely certain there's a

58:06god they're fairly certain they're not too certain not at all certain they don't know they do not

58:11believe in god and then there's um i don't know if i believe in god and it's fascinating because

58:17every year that they do this people who identify as a atheist there's about three or four percent of

58:23self-identified atheists who are certain there is a god and then on the religion side you have um

58:31i'm looking at the chart right now 27 percent of Buddhists say nope there's no god uh 10 percent

58:38of Hindus 17 percent of Jewish folks and then single digit percentages of different Christian

58:44denominations where people identify as Christian uh and are certain that there is no god and so when

58:52when we when we think about it uh as an identity you know there are people who identify as uh

59:00certain religious groups or as atheists because uh of the there's a social social aspect of it that

59:06they wouldn't be a part of right that and uh and they report either not believing god or in believing

59:13in god in contradiction to what we imagine to be one of the necessary and sufficient features of

59:21that identity and so yeah you you said earlier it's messy and i think that's one of the

59:25that's an incredibly important uh observation that it is messy and the more we try to reduce it

59:31down to simple binaries the more distorting our our the discussion becomes well and there's also a

59:40whole bunch of people like yeah when we taught i i when people bring up things like you know pew

59:47studies or or other studies and then you know they want to know how many atheists there are in the

59:53united states or whatever it's like well okay good luck finding out from a study because

59:57you know a whole there's a whole subset of people that i would say are atheists who would never

60:05self-apply that term because there's social stigma attached to that word and so you know there may be

60:11a whole there may be a whole slew of people who would never say that word to a to a pollster who's

60:18asking them you know but are but you know functionally as far as any definition that makes sense to me

60:24they are so yeah like it yeah it's just uh it's it's tricky yeah so i feel like what we've done

60:36is make everything worse for everybody like this whole episode is just about making everything worse

60:41now i i will frequently say if i just come in and muddy the water and then run away i've done my

60:47job um because i i think we need to uh i think we need to be more comfortable acknowledging that

60:55things are a lot messier than we would like them to be and and so that's one of the points of in my

61:00opinion that's one of the points of of sharing this kind of stuff is to let people know it's messy

61:05and it's sticky and it is uh problematic and it's not going to get resolved um but i i think just

61:11knowing that uh hopefully can help people respect other people a little more get along a little

61:17better maybe conversations don't have to end in fights and in ruin friendships and in blocking

61:22people on twitter uh maybe uh it can uh not for me i'm still going to block most of the people i

61:29engage with on twitter but um but i think that uh i think hopefully being more thoughtful about this

61:38well i think it's a way that we can advance the discussion and we can improve relationships

61:43nationally and internationally as as this important question continues to be debated and you can use

61:49these questions for all the words that you use because when you deploy a word you can ask yourself

61:56am i deploying this to be a jerk about that part about that thing that group that yeah concept

62:02whatever or am i deploying it in a way that i am that i can uh i'm seeking understanding and

62:08knowledge from another person yeah yeah and those are very different ways to deploy words yeah there's

62:14a there's a way to approach um language where everything is a speech act where we're not just

62:20saying words we're trying to accomplish things with those words and and make things happen and

62:25sometimes being a jerk is uh the rhetorical goal uh that that somebody has um i'm i'm certainly

62:33familiar with that rhetorical goal uh but i i am i am definitely guilty of that rhetorical goal

62:39i i do my damnedest not to as much as i can but every now and then well i every now and then on

62:47on tiktok i'll scroll through and i'll see that you have a live going on where you're or you're

62:51talking about atheism or or you're talking about theism or something like that and i've when when

62:57i've stopped to watch for just a little bit i think you've done an admirable job of trying to stay

63:02focused and uh and trying not to um take the bait that uh that i think those those kinds of debates

63:09frequently invite yeah yeah all right well hopefully we haven't uh muddied your water too much dear

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