The death of god is somewhat exaggerated


26 August 2008



In the 1880's, Nietsche suggested that god was, or at least ought to be, dead. He saw Christianity as an impediment to the human spirit and, therefore, as a fetter on the realisation of the ‘Superman' who exists in us all. It was not a widely accepted idea. His book, ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra', in which he depicts a life without god and what we are capable of in his absence, was not very popular at the time. But the expression "the death of god" has, even today (perhaps particularly today) a strong resonance.

Today, we have the "New Atheism" of Dawkins and other authors who have seen their books sell in shed-loads. But the sale of these books is surprising, particularly in America, the country of the 'Moral Majority'. We have the impression that most Americans believe in the Christian god of the founding fathers.  For many years, the opinion polls have shown that at least 90% of Americans say that they do in fact believe in god, but the immense sales of the books propagating the new atheism indicate that an extraordinary number of theists must have decided to read them. Which is very surprising. Perhaps our impression of the Americans is wrong.

A study published in 2004 looked at 74 countries classified as variously, agrarian, industrial and post-industrial societies. They found that religious belief and commitment were radically higher in agrarian as compared to industrial societies and higher in industrial rather than post-industrial societies. So then, whilst the amount of religious activity in the world is on the increase, this increase is a function of the disproportionately high growth in the population of agrarian societies as compared to the other types of society. Secularisation is an incontestable fact in post-industrial societies.

So is the USA an exception? No. As usual, opinion polls depend for their reliability on the questions asked and on the honesty of those responding. It seems that instead of a church attendance of almost 100% (as the polls suggested) the real church attendance rate is actually around 20% and falling. This is a lot higher than the almost atheistic countries of Sweden and Denmark (about 2% attendance) but it is not very high in absolute terms. The figures also show that most believers are to be found in the poorest parts of the USA. We also see that the growth in the evangelical wing of the church as compared to the more traditional denominations has happened because the evangelicals have more babies! So in reality, the USA follows the same pattern of behaviour as the rest of the world. Which is reassuring.

The reason for our impression that the USA has become more overtly Christian in its political life is simple.  It is because of the fact that in the early 1970's the evangelicals decided to abandon their previous policy of non-participation in political life - which was also the position of my church. It was based on the 1st letter of Peter in which he exhorts us to behave as "strangers and pilgrims in a foreign land".  At the same time, we have seen elsewhere the politicisation of Islam. And so we have the impression that America and the world in general is more religious than before. We are made aware of the extremists but, in fact, whilst most Americans are theists, they are only nominal theists. They believe vaguely in a god of some sort, but don't believe in churches or organised religion. They don't even have a problem with Atheists, whom they regards as being intelligent and as having some interesting ideas, whilst they regards evangelicals as being dangerously bonkers. And so, they are happy to read books such as "The God Delusion".

The world is not perhaps much more religious than before, but the new atheists are right to bring to our attention that the combination of religion and politics is an incendiary mixture. Religion is based on beliefs. Beliefs, by definition, go beyond the available evidence and in fact are often based on no evidence at all, but on assertions made by supposedly wise men who lived a very long time ago. The founders of the main religions all lived in an age before science can even be said to have existed. Their world view was based on the very limited observation and guesswork which passed for knowledge in those days.  In turn, their doctrines were based on that ancient world view. And doctrine is at least in principle, immutable. So then changing anything is very difficult indeed, even in the presence of obvious evidence to the contrary - as Galileo found out. The alignment of their beliefs with the real knowledge we have acquired over the centuries has been akin to wading through treacle and is still very much a work in progress. Which is why belief as part of political life is so disruptive. It is not amenable to rational debate. It is based on authority and the interlinking networks of doctrines which the theologians have put together.

But we non-religious folk need to be careful how we present our unbelief. We can only say that we are not convinced by the arguments for a particular god. We cannot logically say there is no god of any sort. We cannot know. In fact, those of us who think that there probably is no God and those who think there probably is but who know nothing about him are probably circling around the same point. And, by taking a more measured approach, we may succeed in allying ourselves with these nominally religious people and so, together, be in a position to attack in a rational and measured manner the extremists of all faiths who present a real danger to all of us.

Paul Buckingham




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