Why atheism will replace religion/primitive atheism

I saw 2 articles this week that I think are related in an interesting way.

First, Psychology Today had a blog post entitled “Why Atheism will Replace Religion.” The argument is that stable wealthy nations generally have more atheists than unstable less developed nations, because science and technology help people in the developed world control their own lives, making the all-powerful god unnecessary.

Second, last year linguist Daniel Everett published a Book entitled “Don’t sleep, there are snakes; life and language in the Amazonian jungle.” Everett’s study of the Piraha people in South America has raised many interesting linguistic questions. But the most interesting thing to me, is that Everett went to the Piraha with the goal of converting them to Christianity, however, he left the Amazon convinced that atheism is the correct position because of the way the Piraha live. The Piraha don’t believe in things they can’t see. While I understand that this isn’t the fully realized position of Naturalism that I embrace, the Piraha are primitive people and they are also empiricists. If they can’t experience a thing, they automatically doubt it. I know what you are thinking out there, theist “You can’t experience particle physics or math either!” I agree. But empiricism is a great place to start. Empiricism is what led to the discoveries of particle physics and math, not faith. The “game” in science is devising tests to find out new truths. These tests are experience even if they involve indirectly observing phenomena.

So what do these two stories have in common? Imagine a great continuum between the hunter-gatherer tribes in South America, and the most technologically advanced societies in the world. You will find atheists at both ends of this spectrum, and many points in between. Why do you think this is? Could it be that it takes social pressure to accept a religion? I think that the great religions of the world have failed to make their cases for many reasons, but one is the argument from Divine Hiddenness. If there is one true god who loves us all so much, why are there so many contradictory religions out there?

I tried very hard for many years to accept, believe and practice the religion in which I was raised. But at the end of the day I couldn’t handle the cognitive dissonance of trying to believe something I was nearly certain was not true. This is why I post on this blog, and one of the reasons it exists. Just like the Piraha, I want to love my wife, my friends, and my dog. I want to enjoy nature, be an ethical person, enjoy an occasional craft beer, and live a good life. I have no gods because they don’t make sense to me. I speak out about my atheism, because being an atheist is one of many human experiences that is fully realized and good and I will not let religious demagogues tell me that my life is not good because I don’t accept their religious mythology.