"There is no morality without God." "There are no atheists in foxholes." "Atheists really believe, they just hate God." Sound bites like these abound in the debate that is currently raging between religious believers and the "new" atheists like Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. The question is, do any of these familiar phrases actually hold up under scrutiny? Quite simply, no.
Atheists are Only Atheists Because They Hate God
The idea of not believing in God is so foreign to many adherents that it is virtually inconceivable. The thinking seems to be that only someone angry with their deity could possibly profess to not believe.
Ironically, this implies that each and every believer on the planet is angry at the deity of every religion other than their own. Disbelief does not require a leap of faith; merely a lack of it.
As Richard Dawkins puts it, "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." Not believing in God, whether the Christian, Judeo, Islamic or any other, is no different to an atheist than not believing in Isis, Thor or Zeus.
Atheists in Foxholes
The idea that there are no atheists in foxholes infers that the element of danger associated with military service gives a person a very good reason to decide to believe, just in case. Not only is this idea simply not true, it is incredibly insulting to the brave atheist service men and women who risk their lives in military service. To suggest that these people would change their minds about their beliefs because the bullets are flying is akin to saying that they are cowards who would discard their convictions under threat.
Atheists in the military proudly stand by their convictions and it would be contemptible to suggest otherwise. The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers demonstrates that there are indeed atheists in foxholes.
There Can be No Morality without God
But which god? Does morality flow from Allah? Vishnu? Christ? Even if morality does flow from one god or another, it is ultimately arbitrated by human beings. There is a surprising uniformity to basic legal tenets across the globe, despite the myriad religious traditions that inform many of those legal systems. Humans generally agree that it's not right to kill each other, steal from one another or assault without provocation and there are penalties against doing these things all across the world. Humans, it seems, are capable of agreeing on core moral arguments even when they worship different gods.
Humans are social primates and scientists like Frans de Waal are continuing to research the roots of human morality in our evolutionary past. Human laws, including those drawn from religious traditions, both reinforce and help define the morality of human beings in the modern world.
The term "atheist" groans under the weight of the misconceptions that are piled upon it. It is simply a word, and not one to be feared or demonized. After all, demons don't exist.
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