Background on the
Existing Debate
In his book, The New
Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, Victor J. Stenger mentions
what has become a standard riposte among religious apologists, namely, that
despite the millennia of destruction and evil in the name of Christianity,
these faux pas are trifling and relatively insignificant in comparison to the baleful
nightmares perpetrated in the name of godless atheism. Stenger summarizes the fulmination
against atheism hurled by sociologist Paul Froese: “the Soviet Union waged a
relentless war on religion that he attributed to the ‘violence of atheism’ and,
despite this effort, it failed to eradicate faith.”
If the monstrosity of the atheistic Soviet Union wasn’t bad
enough, then, as is habitually pointed out, the world also suffered from
another round of atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler and his allegedly
atheistic Nazi Germany. Hector Avalos, in his article Atheism Was Not the Cause of the Holocaust, directly states the
animadversion leveled against the atheists by a popular Christian apologist:
Dinesh D’Souza is able to charge
atheism in Nazi Germany with some 10 million deaths, including that of 6
million Jews….altogether, D’Souza affirms that these big three atheist regimes
[i.e., Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Mao Zedong’s China] have killed
about 100 million people.
Avalos interprets D’Souza’s riposte to atheism as simply:
Christianity may be bad, but atheism is a lot worse. “D’Souza is typical of
many Christian apologists whose best response to the genocides committed by
self-described Christians is that atheists have killed even more.”
Some of the atheist replies to these obloquies are as
follows. Avalos, for example, turns things around by accusing Christianity of
being the actual cause of the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany. “Nazism,
indeed,” writes Avalos, “was very much at home in a long tradition of Christian
anti-Judaism.” My favorite atheist author, Christopher Hitchens, blames these
problems on men getting enraptured with delusions of their own cosmic grandeur.
In his book God is Not Great,
Hitchens claims that “the examples most in common use—those of the Hitler and
Stalin regimes—show us with terrible clarity what can happen when men usurp the
role of gods.” It is as if the cosmic
North Korea that Hitchens sporadically fulminates against has descended onto
the earth in the form of these presumptuous madmen. It reminds me of what the
economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in his book Planned Chaos about Hitler. Warner Sombart argued that “the Führer
received his orders directly from God, the supreme Führer of the Universe.” Apparently,
tyrannical madmen have a proclivity to hearing voices and edicts from God
himself.
Another defense of atheism that is often mentioned in
discussions of Nazism and atheism is that of heavy Christian church involvement,
which assisted Hitler and Nazism. Even the television Christian evangelist John
C. Hagee in his tendentious work about why the United States ought to be a tool
of the State of Israel points the blame for the Nazi atrocities at the Catholic
Church. Hagee sees the Catholic Church as an interminable and implacable persecutor
of his protagonists, the Jewish people. Writing with alacrity, Hagee says that
the world’s finest scholars have
chronicled Hitler’s atrocities toward the Jews….I want you to see that church
policy shaped the policy of the Third Reich. When Hitler signed the Concordant
with the Roman Church, he said, “I am only continuing the work of the Catholic
Church.”
The Plan for this
Article
The plan for this article is to explore an alternative
approach to addressing these charges of atheism being an inimical foe to peace,
humanity, and civilization.
I first analyze what the Soviet Union is from an agorist or
free market anarchist point of view. The essential point is that the Soviet
Union is nothing but the monopoly problem
coupled with an attempt to create some sort of godless religion imposed from on high for political purposes. Then
I provide some recommendations for how atheists could go about achieving a
workable atheism in the “real” world so to speak. At the very least, I hope
that my recommendations will provide
atheists with a useful way of defending themselves against apologetic
accusations of the kind that say that atheism leads inevitably to violence and
to tyranny.
An Agorist or Free
Market Anarchist Interpretation of the Soviet Union, Its Ideology, and Its Quasi
Religion
The most striking comment made by Van Den Bercken is, with
emphasis provided by me, this succinct observation: “The Soviet state is an
ideological monoculture, and that is a modern variation on an old type of
state: the theocracy.” According to
dictionary.com, a theocracy may be defined as “a system of government by
priests claiming a divine commission.” To me it appears as though the Soviet
Union is, in an anarcho-capitalist sense, nothing but a textbook example of the
problem of the divine right of kings.
“The initial article of the young [Gustave de] Molinari,
here translated for the first time as ‘The Production of Security,” writes
Murray N Rothbard, “was the first presentation anywhere in human history of
what is now called ‘anarcho-capitalism’ or ‘free market anarchism.’” And this
story of the young Molinari developing the idea of free market anarchism is
inextricably tied in with the history of the divine right of kings. Molinari writes
so brilliantly and perspicaciously that I feel it would be a crime not to quote
his book, The Production of Security,
at length:
according to this system, which
embodies the will of Providence in certain men and which invests these chosen
ones, these anointed ones with a quasi-divine authority, the subjects evidently
have no rights at all. They must submit, without question, to the decrees of
the sovereign authority, as if they were the decrees of Providence itself.
Now returning to the Soviet Union, Van Den Bercken’s
portrayal of the ruling class certainly sounds similar to an agorist ruling
class theory analysis. Just as
Molinari’s book querulously attacks the
idea of monopoly both in public and in private versions, so too Van Den
Bercken pinpoints the problem of the Soviet Union’s “ideological dictatorship”
in what he calls an intellectual
monopoly. “The étatistic [i.e., statist] system of values in the Soviet
Union,” he astutely observes, “strives, according to its nature, towards an
intellectual monopoly in society.” This “intellectual monopoly,” just like all
other monopolies such as central banks and public health care provision,
engages in an immutable war against its most truculent adversary, namely
competition. “As an ideological monoculture, the Soviet state cannot recognize
any alternative or competitive ideologies…to do so would mean intellectual pluralism
and the destruction of the essence of Soviet ideology.” In the Rothbardian
analysis found in his book The Anatomy of
the State, the ruling class circumvents any restrictions to its power by monopolizing the interpretation function. Speaking with regard to the American
Constitution, Rothbard writes that “the Constitution was designed with checks
and balances to limit any one governmental power and yet had then developed a
Supreme Court with the monopoly of
ultimate interpreting power” (bold emphasis mine). Similarly, in the Soviet
Union, according to Van Den Bercken, the “interest [of the state] is determined
by the political leaders—for it is they
who have the right to interpret the ideology—they also determine the choice
of the means. The state leadership, in addition to being the highest ideological doctrinal authority,
is also the highest moral authority
in the land” (bold emphasis is mine).
Let me now recapitulate. The Soviet Union is the zenith of
the monopoly problem. I have
stressed a few pertinent examples such as the intellectual monopoly and the interpretation
monopoly; however, it should be trivially obvious that both an economic and a political monopoly existed as well. That is, after all, the essence
of where I am going with this, namely, an all-encompassing dictatorship. The
concluding part mentioned above rather religious sounding terminology such as
“doctrinal” and “moral” with regard to the leadership of the Soviet Union. So
let me close the circle and make clear how the Soviet Union—despite being
atheistic of a very special kind—is actually theocratic by emulating the divine
right of kings issue, which I raised at the beginning of this particular section.
The religious nature of the Soviet Union—this apparent
paradox of an “atheistic religion”—is unexceptionably illustrated by both Van
Den Bercken and by Paul Froese. First,
Van Den Bercken states explicitly that Lenin gave a “pseudo-religious character” to his strident anti-religion:
Since Lenin does not possess
intellectual aloofness with regard to the religious question, his atheism has
that consistently strong rejection of all religions, whether real or symbolic,
theistic or secular, which meant that he was no longer able to see to what
extent he gave a pseudo-religious
character to his own anti-religion. (bold emphasis is mine)
To fully appreciate the religious-like nature of the Soviet
system, consider some of the ways in which the Soviet leadership
mimicked Christianity, as documented by
Paul Froese in his paper
Forced
Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed. This was
all part of a deliberate campaign: “as the anti-religious campaigns grew, so
did their belief that religion could only be destroyed through a
clever replacement” (bold emphasis
mine). I have attempted to succinctly summarize some of the major points where
the Soviet system is behaving like a religion (all bold emphasis is mine).
- “Red” weddings mimicked religious weddings with Communist officials donning robes and
sanctifying the marriage. In other words, this sounds as if Communist
officials are pretending to be clergy members.
- They adopted “birth
rituals” in order to mimic the Christian baptism ceremony.
- There was a godlike
worship of the Communist elite. Many “mistook scientific atheism for a new religion and not an exit from
religious belief altogether so that even those few who wanted to believe in the
ideals of atheistic communism simply ended up praying to the gods of Lenin and Stalin.”
- The writings of Lenin were treated as sacred text from a prophet and became
the final justification of any act.
This seems to be mimicking the famous line from the pastoral epistle 2 Timothy
3:16, which says that “all scripture is inspired by God.”
- Stalin also
promoted himself as the “Father” of his
people, which seems to be mimicking the idea expressed in, for example,
Philippians 4:20, which says “to our God
and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
- Soviets elevated political figures to transcendental status unbecoming the
initial rhetoric of historical materialism. I suspect that this talk of the “transcendental,”
which means “surpassing the natural plane of reality or knowledge, supernatural
or mystical according to dictionary.com, is meant to mimic the idea that Jesus is
supposed to be the supernatural creator of the universe as mentioned in the
prologue to the gospel according to John.
- The Knowledge Society introduced a coming-of-age celebration
called the “Summer Days of Youth” intended to mimic and replace church confirmations.
- Scientific atheists viewed any technology as evidence
of atheism because it demonstrated that humans
could work “miracles” that were not performed by God.
- Atheist preachers
held “intellectual revivals”
fashioned after religious revivals mimicking such things as the Great
Commission of Matthew 28:19, which says “go therefore and make disciples of all
nations.”
- Atheistic
“science” in the Soviet Union became an ideology
that avoided the scientific method
altogether. This seems to mimic what Saint Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:7,
namely, that “we walk by faith, not by sight.”
The inescapable conclusion is that the Soviet Union did create
a mimicking pseudo-Christianity to function as a “replacement” religion for
their enslaved subjects.
The Implications
of All of This for Achieving a Peaceful Atheism
Does the discussion above imply that atheism must
ineluctably lead to violence, persecution, and a tyrannical dictatorship? It
seems to me that the answer is simply that we
can have a peaceful atheism despite what happened in the USSR, Nazi Germany
or any of the other examples cited by Christian apologists.
The solution to this problem is irrefragably multifaceted; consequently,
I do not claim to be providing exhaustive solution to the problem.
Nevertheless, I do think that I can offer a respectable set of recommendations
that will put atheists on the path toward achieving the goal of a peaceful
atheism in real world practice.
It follows from Van Den Bercken’s discussion that two major types of atheism exist. If a
person were to hold one type then he or she cannot hold the other type simultaneously. To attempt to hold both types of atheism simultaneously
would inevitably lead to a situation in which this person would be holding two contradictory views of atheism. These
two types of atheism are philosophical
atheism and ideological atheism.
I have already covered ideological
atheism at some length; this is because the Soviet Union is the textbook
example of an ideological atheism. The other kind of atheism, philosophical atheism, as I will
demonstrate momentarily, has a much better chance of bringing about a workable
and peaceful atheism in practice. Let me summarize the two different types as
presented in Van Den Bercken’s paper:
Ideological Atheism:
1.
Politically
motivated
2.
Has a collective
confession
3.
Categorical and intolerant of the beliefs held by
others, i.e., only the “official” way
of thinking is tolerated
Philosophical Atheism:
- Not politically motivated; instead, scientifically motivated
- Does not have a collective confession; instead, is only
an individual concern
- Not categorical or intolerant; instead, tolerant of the beliefs of others, i.e.,
favors intellectual pluralism
The first recommendation, which flows naturally from the
summary charts above, is to avoid the deleterious aspects of ideological
atheism and to adopt the salutary elements of philosophical atheism. But notice
what the defining characteristics imply. To me, the defining characteristics of
philosophical atheism, which consist of science, the focus on the individual,
and tolerance of contrary views while avoiding the political, the collective,
and the intolerant, imply that
atheism
is feasible when combined with the mindset of individualistic anarchism. Consequently,
my second recommendation is for atheists to embrace a non-collectivist and
individualistic anarchism as the appropriate means for their desired end.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate the bankruptcy of the
ideological approach to atheism and to illustrate the advantageous nature of
the philosophical approach is to cite a germane passage from Mohammed A.
Bamyeh’s book Anarchy as Order: The
History and Future of Civic Humanity in which he states that Friedrich A.
Hayek’s
central theme was “spontaneous order” a much more
comprehensive view of how social order arises, in ways that include but are not
limited to economic life. Hayek postulated that social life is made possible not by artificial large institutions that supervise society, but precisely
in their absence, whence order develops spontaneously and
becomes established, over time, as culture or expected patterns of behavior.
These, in turn, work only to the extent
that they are accepted, and they could be accepted, in turn, only if they have developed in conditions
of freedom. (all bold emphasis mine)
Notice that, according to Hayek, the conditions that make social life impossible are also the conditions that describe ideological atheism. The first major
characteristic of ideological atheism—Soviet atheism—is to politicize
everything. Hayek mentions this when he says that society cannot work when it
is supervised by “artificial large institutions”—he means government
monitoring. In his book The Road to
Serfdom, Hayek brilliantly cites Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin who
says that “what has always made the
state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven” (bold emphasis mine). The
state becomes a “hell on earth” because man “tries to make” a heaven by means
of using the total state. Notice that the idea of “trying to make something”
through the state in a top down fashion is the complete opposite of the idea of spontaneous order. To put it
tersely: collective planning does not work. The second major characteristic of
ideological atheism is the collective confession. Hayek, on the contrary, does
not want some “collective confession” to be imposed on people by some ruling
class or quasi-priesthood class as was done in the Soviet Union; he wants the
rules to emerge spontaneously and to be accepted
by people freely. When I think of “collective confession” it reminds me of
when I was forced to go to church as a child. The minister would read a short
passage and the congregation was expected to recite back the correct response
from the hymn book. This was called the “responsive psalm.” It always seemed to
me to be a rather mindless way of acting, i.e., to just spout back
perfunctorily what the official expected me to say. The third major characteristic
of ideological atheism is intolerance. Hayek has implicitly ruled intolerance
out of bounds by insisting that there be conditions
of freedom.
Notice further that the conditions that do make social life possible are the conditions that describe philosophical atheism. The first major
characteristic of philosophical atheism is that people are scientifically not
politically motivated. Hayek
specifically says that he wants to get rid of the big brother approach of the
surveillance society; hence, he is against politicizing everything. He wants to
move decision making from the public or political sphere to the private or
economic sphere. Moreover, if science is viewed as “thinking for oneself” then
his idea of spontaneous order applies here as well. In a spontaneous order,
individuals make choices by themselves using
observable information such as prices combined with their own self-knowledge concerning their own personal tastes, their own personal preferences,
and their own personal values. Notice how radically different this is from
the Soviet Union’s ideological atheism. Under the Soviet model, the individual is deprived of a sense of
self; the individual is deprived of the ability to make choices and is denied
an individual conscience. As Van Den Bercken says of the depersonalized Soviet Union, “man has
to relate his views of life, his ethical, epistemological and aesthetic systems
of values to the interest of the state.” The second major characteristic of
philosophical atheism is that the focus is placed on the individual not the
collective. Again, Hayek’s idea is for order
to emerge from the spontaneous ordering of individuals. The individual continuously adjusts his or her plan to the
plans of others without institutions issuing orders from above. “It enables
entrepreneurs,” Hayek writes in The Road
to Serfdom, “by watching the movement of comparatively few prices, as an
engineer watches the hands of a few dials, to adjust their activities to those
of their fellows.” Finally, the third major characteristic of philosophical
atheism is tolerance of the views of others. To me, tolerance is implied by the
word freedom used by Hayek in his
description of what makes for a viable social order.
Concluding Remarks
Michael Martin in his paper Atheism and Religion writes
in 1971 the prominent atheist
Madelyn Murray O’Hair argued that atheism was not the religion of the future
since atheists, although numerous, were unorganized and complacent and were
unwilling to fight the legal and political encroachments of Christianity in the
United States. Christianity is gaining more and more political power, she said,
and atheists are doing nothing to stop it.
I think that I have demonstrated that the solution is not to get atheists involved in the political process. Ideological
atheism as practiced in the Soviet Union was a disaster. Or to put it even more
starkly, the State is the cause of war in the first place; therefore,
peace will NEVER be achieved as long as the state exists, regardless of who
runs it, theist, atheist, agnostic, deist, etc. I think that I have shown
that philosophical atheism is compatible
with the values of individualistic anarchism. Since individualistic
anarchism ensures that the State does not exist, it also ensures that war cannot exist. Therefore, to
establish both peace and atheism in the “real world,” one should embrace
individualistic anarchism. This can only happen by rejecting ideological
atheism and by embracing philosophical atheism.
