Yang Lei: A Defense of Atheism
Kai Nielsen (1926–2021) was a Canadian scholar of Marxist studies and a contemporary advocate for atheism. Prolific in the fields of ethics, analytical philosophy, and the philosophy of religion, his work Marxism and the Moral Point of View: Morality, Ideology and Historical Materialism has attracted extensive attention within Chinese academic circles since its translation and publication. In fact, Nielsen also possessed unique insights into the philosophy of religion; his representative works include Contemporary Critiques of Religion (1971), An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (1982), Atheism & Philosophy (1985), and God and the Grounding of Morality (1991). Nielsen grew up in a vague Protestant background and converted to Catholicism in his late adolescence. During his graduate studies, he studied anthropology and philosophy and was influenced by philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Peirce, Dewey, and Marx. This diverse religious history provided Nielsen with lived experience and profound reflections on the philosophy of religion. He debated theologians many times on a series of fundamental issues, such as the existence of God. In Nielsen's view, although Nietzsche pronounced the death of God and the world is becoming increasingly secularized, people have not consciously become secularists who replace Christian or Jewish worldviews with a secular worldview. Believers and non-believers alike remain deeply perplexed by the dominant religious concepts in Western culture. Nielsen believed it necessary to clarify these difficulties and thereby defend atheism.
In the essay collection Atheism & Philosophy, Nielsen utilizes a coherent and comprehensive method to defend atheism and discuss what it means to be an atheist. Nielsen argues that for a person with a scientific background and rigorous philosophical training, it is impossible to carefully consider religious belief and then accept theism. We must think critically about the external world and provide reflexive endorsement, rather than credulously believing unverified principles under the delusion of emotivism. Although some judgments or beliefs are considered common to both atheists and theists—such as respect for all persons, endorsement of rational argument, avoidance of fratricide and religious hatred, respect for evidence, and support for integrity and tolerance—this is no reason to conflate theism and atheism. In these essays, ranging from the accessible to the heavily academic, Nielsen the secularist begins with several widely accepted but erroneous or misleading definitions of atheism in Western society and moves toward a more sufficient formulation. He commits himself to investigating fundamental questions concerning the truthfulness, justification, and coherence of religious belief, clarifying specious conceptual propositions to better excavate the substantive implications of atheist thought and clarify the "forms of life" [1] worthy of our loyalty.
From Nielsen's perspective, the indeterminacy of modern concepts of God has made the distinction between belief and non-belief increasingly problematic. In different eras, individuals with different identities have understood and interpreted God in various ways. Particularly in an era of accelerating scientific and technological progress and cultural diversity, along with the gradual "disenchantment" of the world, the complexity of religious responses and the diversity of skeptical philosophies have precluded a simple definition of belief in God. Some religious followers argue that both theism and atheism are rational choices; like two sides of a coin, both should be seen as part of a complete and comprehensive society. Believers and non-believers share a cognitive division of labor in society. Against such views, Nielsen opposes the evidence for the existence of God, arguing that revelation and religious experience are actually unreliable. He points out that the core of the Western theistic cultural-religious systems—represented primarily by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—lies in the affirmation of the truth of one and only one God. These religious believers firmly believe that a God created the universe out of nothingness, and this God possesses absolute sovereignty over everything he created, including, of course, humanity. According to the believers, one can only fully understand one's own life by unequivocally accepting the decrees established by God. All atheists unanimously reject such a set of beliefs, arguing there is insufficient evidence to prove God's existence. Nielsen stands on a philosophical perspective to provide systematic arguments regarding the falsity of the concept of God, the fact that morality cannot be grounded in belief in God, and the need to break free from the "spell" of religious ideology. He emphasizes that even in a world without God, life possesses an indubitably affirmative purpose and meaning, thereby refuting the empty apologies of theists.
I. The Falsity of the Concept of God
Atheism implies the denial of the reality of God or spiritual existence. Based on this, discussion regarding atheism is simultaneously a discussion regarding theism. Theists view God as an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being, believing God possesses a pure spirit and supernatural, self-perfecting eternal power. Religious believers argue that without belief in God and the laws he established, moral belief would have no foundation. Moral relativism, skepticism, and nihilism are largely the results of the general weakening of religious belief in the scientific age. Scholastic philosophers went to great pains to find evidence to prove that their belief was rational, but it is equally rational to doubt religious belief. Nielsen points out that to prove God exists, both logical and empirical conditions must be satisfied. He begins by interrogating the meaning of God: "When talking about God, we are talking about a being with infinite love, mercy, power, and understanding. But such a statement does not resolve our confusion; what exactly do we mean by this 'being' of which we speak?" Nielsen believes that God cannot be identified in the way a chair can; the word "God" can only be situated through indubitable descriptions. For those unclear about the meaning of the word "God," cognition can be facilitated through vague descriptions such as "Creator of the Universe," "the Sole Ultimate Reality," "the First Cause," or "the Prime Mover." However, such references make the intelligibility of the concept of God extremely low.
In Nielsen's view, a statement possesses factual significance only if it is at least logically possible to point out evidence that, to some extent, supports or opposes its truth. God is considered an impersonal, transcendent being upon which the universe depends; the believer must accept certain so-called relevant factual statements as true—for example, "there is an infinite, eternal creator in the world." Believers consider such statements indubitable. However, Nielsen argues that these interpretations regarding God are not directly verifiable or falsifiable because we do not know how to determine their truth or falsehood. Therefore, in reality, they are not factual statements at all. Consequently, there is a fundamental incoherence at the core of these religions, and people have no reason to hold fast to inconsistent beliefs. Nielsen further asks: "To whom does 'God' refer? Or to what does it refer? Is it a proper name, a short definite description, a special descriptive predictable, or something else? How can we know or otherwise understand what 'God' represents or what characteristics [He] possesses?" That is to say, when we talk about God, what do we really mean? If we must rely entirely on religious authority to accept religion, which authority should we accept? Why Jesus, and not Buddha or Muhammad? Who speaks for God and exercises authority on His behalf? Nielsen uses the statement "God is the creator of the universe" as an example for explanation. Suppose A agrees with this statement while B denies it; what kind of support could give A's or B's view greater probability? What state of experience would be favorable to one view and unfavorable to the other? When many putative revelations all claim to be true, a rational person has no reason to claim that only one of those putative revelations is the genuine revelation. Nielsen points out that religion claims to be a doctrine of salvation, providing the truth and the path of prayer and repentance for fragile humanity. However, if the standards of truth, reason, and intelligibility are relative to cultures and modes of discourse, then talking about "the truth" and "the path" is meaningless, or at least lacks any rational purpose.
In The Essence of Christianity, Ludwig Feuerbach pointed out that the essence of religion is the alienation of man from himself: "What man considers God is actually his own spirit and soul, and the spirit, soul, and heart of man are actually his God; God is the public inner self of man, the frank ego..." [2] Religious believers claim the existence of a cosmological faith, a radical metaphysical faith—namely, belief in a so-called sacred reality that transcends the "empirical world," believing the universe has an eternal, ever-present source of creation and a maintainer. God is infinite, omnipotent, holy, and immortal, while man is finite, powerless, sinful, and mortal. In a sense, experiencing God is experiencing one's own finitude, feeling dependence, awe, fear, love, and security. Nielsen argues that these experiences are clearly realities experienced within our familiar spatio-temporal framework and can entirely be given pure secular interpretations. Thus, we have no reason to describe these intelligible human experiences as experiences of God. Various religious beliefs argue for diverse transcendental realities through cosmological, ontological, and other methods, declaring that nothing is greater than God; therefore, God must exist, otherwise he would not be the greatest imaginable being. The problem is that limited human experience simply cannot judge the truthfulness of these transcendental realities. Whatever God is, He is an entity that cannot be seen or observed in any other way; He cannot be anything material or empirical. A transcendent God cannot exist in the empirical world; He can only exist in the subjective imagination of the human mind, eventually sliding into mysticism.
In Nielsen's view, religion is not the myth of salvation that humanity yearns for. He both opposes theism and questions the claim of agnosticism that the truth or falsity of God cannot be verified. Nielsen points out that if God is a pure soul, transcending the world, mysterious and infinite, humans cannot truly encounter such a supreme being through normal senses. As the eighteenth-century French atheist Baron d'Holbach [3] said: "If God is infinite, then no finite, mortal being can have any relationship with him, nor can there be any connection. Where there is no relationship, there can be no mutual obligations or agreements. If no obligation is possible between man and God, then for man there can be no religion." For an individual to talk about a non-anthropomorphic God—that is, God as a transcendent, non-spatio-temporal, infinite individual—is difficult to understand or even self-contradictory. Nielsen argues, "Belief in God is an ideological belief; it distorts our understanding of reality. This is not just an innocent distortion. Because usually, when we have such beliefs or are influenced by such beliefs, they actually distort our lives." Therefore, if there is no definite evidence to confirm the existence of God, yet it is advocated that God is the sole truth for understanding human nature and destiny, such a practice is full of incredible arrogance and arbitrariness; it is strange and untenable.
II. Morality Cannot Be Grounded in Belief in God
For a long time, the relationship between religion and morality has been a subject of great controversy. Does religion make us more moral? Can moral inclinations emerge independently of religious intuition? Religious believers claim that God is the necessary foundation for ethics in the world he created; based on faith in God, they argue that any morality not centered on God cannot provide a true foundation for moral life. Only God can endow earthly moral life with certain meaning, rooted in the firm convictions that "God is my creator, and I owe everything to him," and "God is a merciful God, and I need his forgiveness." [Kai] Nielsen argues that belief in God is no more necessary than belief in Santa Claus. In fact, we do not need a specific religious belief to provide support for moral action. Some religions do contain elements that serve as moral ideals, but in this regard, there is nothing that an atheist cannot obtain. In God and the Grounding of Morality, Nielsen points out: "Whether pre-modern, modern, or postmodern, people are still able to make sense of their lives, and without any failure of rationality, still possess a humane morality, even if their beliefs and attitudes are entirely secular." For some people, particularly believers, religion is perceived as necessary for psychological comfort, moral conduct, and finding a life purpose; however, this is not the case for everyone. This merely indicates that those whose religious faith informs their understanding of good and evil require a "spiritual crutch" [4] to continue acting as moral agents, rather than being the masters of their own thoughts and actions.
According to the theistic perspective, objective moral values are rooted in God. He is the source of moral value, and his holy and loving nature provides the absolute standard for measuring all actions; he is spiritual and inherently full of qualities such as love, generosity, justice, loyalty, and kindness. Every action you take is under God's evaluation and scrutiny; God hopes we will act in certain ways and not others. But how can we know that God is infinitely perfect? Even if a believer assumes it to be so, why should he do so? What is the justification for his assumption? How can someone without faith know that God is infinitely perfect? How do power, wisdom, and creativity themselves manifest "the good"? Nielsen argues that religious believers insist God is perfect and good, yet to make such a judgment, one must first understand what "perfect" and "good" mean. We cannot decide something is good or ought to be done simply by mindlessly following God's commands, will, or injunctions. Whether "God is good" is a substantive or analytical statement, the concept of "good" must be understood as distinct from the concept of "God." That is to say, a person can know how to properly use the word "good" while still not knowing how to use the word "God." In fact, unless one already understands how to use "good," it is impossible to know how to use "God." The understanding of "good" logically precedes and is independent of any understanding or acknowledgment of God. Only when we already possess the necessary moral knowledge can we correctly understand what people mean when they talk about God. Unless we verify the reality of God through experience and insight, any laudatory words believers use regarding God's love, mercy, omnipotence, and reality are suspicious. "That God is the creator of man and of all finite existence and the omnipotent commander of all finite existence does not prove or in any way establish his goodness, nor show that he is worthy of being obeyed. With these qualities, he might even be an evil god." That an omnipotent, omniscient being possesses only willpower does not mean it is good. Therefore, the ultimate foundation or basic principle of our morality cannot be built upon faith in God, nor upon faith in ultimate reality itself, or other similar beliefs.
Believers repeatedly say "God loves us" regardless of how much evil exists in the real world. In Nielsen's view, this "love" has lost its meaning and turned into a blind superstition, even to the point of committing injustices in the name of God. Whether or not God exists, the wanton killing of humans, the complete neglect of human needs, or using others as a means to one's own ends are all base human behaviors. Whatever philosophical explanation we give for these things, they are inherently wrong. Even in a world without God, they remain wrong. Even if God's earthly agents command us to do such things, it does not make them moral. Morality exists to respond to human interests and needs and to make impartial adjudications between conflicting interests and desires. We have sufficient reason to believe that any morality, whether religious or secular, that does not consider the impartial adjudication of conflicting interests and the satisfaction of legitimate human needs is a lamentably flawed morality. There is no reason to believe that religious morality provides us with a "higher" alternative morality. Consequently, the existence of God loses its so-called moral necessity.
According to theists, God is the legislator of morality; he decides what is right or wrong. God's moral nature is the ultimate measure of moral goodness. Without God, nothing would be good. Morality would be merely a social convention, lacking any universal validity beyond culture or self-interest. Therefore, without belief in God, there can be no satisfactory morality. Divine command raises moral principles above human preferences and conventions, giving them objective binding force. If a command from God is clearly evil, does the believer have a moral obligation to follow it? Theologians adopt three distinct approaches to this question: (1) rejecting the possibility of such a command by appealing to God's essential goodness; (2) modifying divine command theory to avoid the implication that we should obey such commands; or (3) accepting the implication that we should obey such commands by appealing to divine transcendence and mystery. Whether rejecting or accepting it, these approaches consider God too much and humanity too little, viewing humans merely as appendages of God and replacing reason with religion. Nielsen points out, "Humans are helpless, completely dependent creatures for many years. Because of this, it is deep within our hearts to need a protective Heavenly Father, or some other cosmic guarantee, depending on the culture we are in. It is natural for humans to crave such security, but there is not the slightest reason to think such security exists. That we have a feeling of dependence does not mean there is something we can depend on. Although we have such a need, it gives us no reason to think our feeling of dependence has such a support that transcends the secular world." Since we are rational beings, we can understand that basic moral rules are universally applicable. Anyone who possesses good qualities (generosity, justice, loyalty, etc.) is morally good, regardless of whether God exists. Even without a perfect being, love, justice, and other components can still constitute moral ideals, and the degree to which people realize these ideals in their real lives remains morally good.
III. Escaping the Spell of Religious Ideology
Nielsen characterizes religion as an ideology in which humans are viewed as sinful, selfish, and aggressive creatures. Consequently, they must be tamed so that they "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's" [5], following formally established religious authorities to live in specific ways, hold specific beliefs, maintain specific attitudes, and exist as members of a distinct confessional group. "This ideology tells us that we must learn not to desire, let alone seize, what is not 'ours,' but rather to accept the social status God has given us, fulfill our responsibilities, and accept God's will without question. We must know our place and our duties; we must accept our lot." Within this framework, people are required to accept a social order built upon miracles, mystery, and authority. The human condition in the world, due to the fallen nature of humanity, is fixed by a supreme God. Various religious theologies, through ideological magic in the form of religion, project people's hopes for building a true human society onto a special, never-before-seen place called "Heaven"—a "spiritual world" that comes only after "physical death." Nielsen notes, "What we see here is a disguised, ideologically distorted expression of true human liberation interests and enduring human hopes." The resulting consequence is that people are fooled by various religious viewpoints or metaphysical specters; instead of seeking the real roots of their own suffering, they attribute their misfortunes to the wrath of spirits. As [Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron] d'Holbach said, "Man's reason, fooled by various theological dogmas, abandons self-knowledge, doubts its own strength, rejects experience, fears the truth, despises sound thought and denies it, while blindly yielding to force." While religion sings of human liberation, it is simultaneously forging chains for humanity.
Marx wrote in the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: "Religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world." In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx explicitly emphasized: "Atheism and communism are the actual becoming of the essence of man, the real realization of the essence of man for man, or the realization of the essence of man as something real." Humans, with their unique creativity, distinguish themselves from other primates. They possess a unique cultural capacity and the related ability to transform their environment, rather than being dominated and manipulated by illusory religion. Nielsen believes that by instilling in people an attitude of resignation toward this world and replacing the hope for a better "spiritual world" with eschatological hope, religion diverts people from the track of pursuing the things they could actually possess. In this "celestial scam," the sighs of oppressed creatures are soothed; religious ideology prevents people from struggling for actual liberation. He keenly pointed out, "The richer our concept of God, the poorer our concept of man." We must break the spell of this false consciousness and burst through the religious web that imprisons the mind, rather than losing our subjectivity as human beings within the delusions of religion. If God were omniscient and knew everything everyone does, this would clearly be a negation of human free will. But in fact, humans possess self-consciousness, are capable of free and conscious life activities [6], can engage in rational reflection and deliberation, and can formulate and execute plans. Religion is essentially built upon groundless assumptions and then uses them for argumentation, obscuring the truth and misleading followers. Various forms of religion achieve this by promising rewards in the afterlife rather than in the present life. By focusing attention on otherworldly rewards and soothing members by providing a worldview of spiritual meaning, religion diverts attention that would otherwise be directed toward the inequalities existing in the real world. Religion is essentially an opiate; although it can be used to alleviate pain, it remains a false improvement of a desperate situation. Therefore, people have no reason to be at the mercy of or fooled by religion. Nielsen repeatedly emphasizes that without God, life is still worth living. Curing the sick, achieving racial equality and social justice, attaining happiness and a more colorful life for oneself and those related to one, obtaining love, and strengthening human bonds and solidarity—these are objectives humans can possess, and they remain perfectly intact in a world without God.
IV. Concluding Remarks
Nielsen argues that the use of any word or statement is meaningful only if there is a context with which everyone is already familiar and has collectively recognized. However, the concept of God is transcendent and spiritual; we possess no available context to evaluate those metaphysical statements regarding God, because most contexts of everyday language rely on our experience, knowledge, and value judgments of this real world. In this collection of essays, Nielsen advocates for and defends atheism, demonstrates the irrationality of theistic belief, and shows that we do not require theistic faith to justify the moral convictions upon which our lives depend. In Nielsen's view, secular morality cannot provide the so-called "eternal life," "resurrection," or certain spiritual purposes superior to life that religious morality promises. However, it is necessary for us to clearly realize that religious morality possesses a character of illusion, deception, and concealment. Fate is held in our own hands rather than being manipulated by an ethereal God; every person can obtain the blessings of life, not just those capable of reciting dogma. We do not need God to endow life with value and meaning, nor do we need the "spiritual crutches" [7] of religion to walk. For man cannot be treated merely as a means to achieve other ends; man is an end in himself [8], man is the highest essence for man [9], possessing inalienable positive liberty, autonomous personality, and agency. Every individual has the ability to formulate a life plan and create their own future. The meaning of life can also be found in secular things such as love, friendship, care, knowledge, self-respect, and the joys of living, without depending on the grace of God.
In summary, Nielsen asserts that morality is independent of religion and that morality cannot be based upon religion. Man cannot understand himself purely as a creation of God, living in dependence on God. As finite rational beings, humans are capable of finding valuable goals to strive for through deliberate reflection and discovering the eternal sources of human happiness within secular ethics. Our individual welfare depends on a mechanism capable of fairly resolving social and personal conflicts, rather than relying on prayers to God. Consequently, morality possesses an objective basis for existence; even if "God is dead," it is of no consequence. Although some parts of this essay collection are slightly positivistic and empiricist in their discourse—or at least appear so in their linguistic expression—when Nielsen examines religious "faith" through the lens of philosophical "thought" and concludes that there are no powerful arguments proving the existence of God, it holds certain revelatory significance for deepening our understanding of atheism and the essence of religious belief. Only by adhering to the standpoint of Marxist scientific atheism can we dispel all forms of religious superstition and idol worship, consciously resist various distorted and erroneous viewpoints and trends of thought, dissipate absurd phantoms, and correctly reveal the materiality and objective laws of the world, thereby confirming the essential powers of man [10] and creating a real life of happiness and beauty.