An Atheists Sermon by Jeremy Beahan

Presented to All Souls Unitarian Church on December 11th 2011

We are all Heretics in this room. At least according to sociologist Peter Berger who thinks we are all heretics just by living in a pluralistic society. The English word heresy comes from the Greek verb which means "to choose." In a society as diverse as our own none of us are stuck with the religion we were raised in. Unlike most humans for most of history we have real alternatives. This is why, to Berger, we all face what he calls the heretical imperative. No one can avoid choosing their religious identity for themselves. This freedom comes with a tremendous responsibility. Nothing shapes who we are and what we value more than our convictions regarding ultimate reality. I am here to represent people who do not worship any gods, people who choose live without belief in the supernatural. We are called by many names: atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, skeptics, secular humanists. I am comfortable with any one of these labels but please do not call me an unbeliever. If you ask you'll find there are many things I believe in, and I suspect you probably share some of those beliefs. I believe through reason, observation and experiment we limited human beings can find some measure of understanding in this world. I believe that the pursuit of truth and the cultivation of virtue are the most noble of human aspirations. I believe patriarchy, authoritarianism and fundamentalism are the greatest threats to human progress. I believe that the survival of human species depends on education and empowerment of women worldwide. I believe that friendship is what makes life bearable. We should choose our friends carefully, but once chosen, we should give ourselves to them fully. I believe in many things and these beliefs help me make sense of the world. They inform my goals. They direct my actions. I turn to them in times of hardship and uncertainty, because they remind me who I am and the purpose I have chosen for my life. It's not a lack of beliefs which earns me and my fellow atheists that label unbelieverit is our lack of faith in the supernatural. The vast majority of people living on this planet believe in a God or some other higher reality that transcends the physical world. Having faith seems to be as ordinary a human activity as breathing. Its only natural to regard the relatively few who reject the supernatural with suspicion. Why havent they signed on to faith? To answer that we must return to the heretical imperative I spoke about earlier. Faced with so many options how do we choose? By the authority of a tradition or scriptures? Whos tradition? Which scriptures? Christians and Muslims both take their scriptures to be the word of God but the Bible and the Quran contradict on numerous and

essential points of doctrine. By what criteria can we decide which scriptures are truly inspired by God and which are merely the invention of human beings? What about miracles? Both Hindus and Catholics point to supposed miraculous events and supernatural signs as proof of their claims. On what ground do we affirm Catholic miracles yet deny Hindu miracles? What about personal religious experience? What about the power of religion to transform lives? Many Christians insist they know their faith is true because they can feel Gods presence. They have direct knowledge of God through the inner witness of the spirit, but Muslims also feel the divine peace that comes with submission to Allah and Zen Buddhists catch a direct glimpse of enlightenment through the experience of Satori. Every one of these religions can point to people who've turned away from violence or substance abuse through the redemptive power of their faith. On what basis other than prejudice or an arbitrary preference for my own tradition do I take the experience of Christians seriously and simply dismiss the experience of Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists? Perhaps in the end it all boils down to faith. Perhaps you must first believe and then you will see the truth. But what help is that? Centuries ago Julius Cesar observed "Men are generally ready to believe what they wish to be true." Knowing this we should be all the more hesitant to simply commit to believing something, without evidence. Atheists believe in many things but we do not accept the authority of tradition or scriptures, we do not trust in the words of self-styled prophets or the inner conviction of the spirit , we put little stock in miraculous visions or personal experiences of the divine--because we reason that these methods cannot be reliable guides to truth if they lead to such radically divergent views on reality. For this we are often accused of arroganceafter all what could be more audacious than to trust ones own fallible judgment over the eternal truths of the creator. I believe this skepticism is rooted in a profound humility. It comes from a deep appreciation of human fallibility, of how easily we are taken in by self-consoling fantasies. It comes from a rare willingness to be self-critical, to root out the errors and delusions in ones own thought in hope of seeing the world clearly. Consider this quote from the Irish feminist and freethinker Iris Murdoch: By opening our eyes we do not necessarily see what confronts us. We are anxiety-ridden animals. Our minds are continually active, fabricating an anxious, usually self-preoccupied, often falsifying veil which partially conceals the world...Our fantasies and reveries are not trivial and unimportant, they are profoundly connected with our energies and our ability to choose and act. If quality of consciousness matters, then anything which alters consciousness in the direction or unselfishness, objectivity and realism is to be connected with virtue.

Iris Murdoch was not the first to realize that the pursuit of truth may ask even more of our character than it does our intellect. It requires not only humility but the openness to consider contrary viewpoints, the integrity to judge ones own beliefs and the beliefs of others

by the same standards, the patience to suspend judgment until the evidence is in, the persistence to think through difficult problems, the courage to follow the evidence wherever it leads and the flexibility to change ones beliefs should they be cast into doubt by new evidence. "Believe it, my good friend" wrote John Locke in a letter to Anthony Collins, "to love truth, for truths sake, is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues." So if we love truth for truths sake, if we wish to push our consciousness in the direction of unselfishness, objectivity and realism, then how should we proceed? Since we know that our hopes and intuitions so often lead us astray, since we know our reason is so often in error we need some sort of external check on our beliefs. We need an impartial source against which we can test our theories so that we can discover when we are wrong. No holy book can meet this challenge, but the book of nature can. Nature cares not at all for our feelings; she has no interest in confirming our prejudices or affirming our delusions. Claims that require the authority of a guru, mystical insight or the eyes of faith are by their very nature undemocratic. They are only for the elect. But Nature has no elect. She will give her secrets to anyone regardless of race, gender, or circumstances of birth. Nature never asks us to take things on faith--she implores us to look beyond mere appearances, to investigate deeply into her innerworkings and to see the truth for ourselves. So, to the degree that it is possible, we should limit our beliefs to what we can observe in the natural world or what we can rationally infer from those observations. We should all adopt the attitude of that annoying math teacher who told you "dont just give me the answersshow your work" Now of course we only ever see nature through human eyes. So again we must be humble. We should not pretend that we can understand natures ways without making assumptions without forming theories. Fine. But let them be cautions. Make sure they are logically sound. Check that they cohere with previously discovered knowledge, and expect them to lead to new insights and discoveries--and when they do not discard them and start over again. I want to be careful here not be misunderstoodI am not proposing that truth be so narrowly defined as only to include scientific knowledge. Im not denying the existence of a priori truths, nor am I denying the importance of socially constructed systems of meaning or human subjectivity. Philosophy, art and personal introspection are all essential to rich understanding of what it means to be human. But when it comes to realitythat which exists prior to and independent of ourselves, we should limit our claims to those which can be tested against the natural world. Some might object, as the eminent scientist and philosopher William James did, that if we limit our understanding in this way wont we run the risk of missing out on profound, ineffable even life altering truths? Yes...we might, but thats the price of getting things right. Or as Nelson Goodman put it

"You may decry some of these scruples and protest that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. Perhaps. I am concerned, rather, that there should not be more things dreamt of in my philosophy than there are in heaven or earth."

More often the objection we hear is that without the supernatural the universe is devoid of wonder, hope meaning and purpose. Dont you long to be a part of something larger than yourself? Don't you want your life to be significant? I never know how I should answer these questions: on the one hand I am eager to affirm that naturalism presents us with a world more beautiful and mysterious than any you'll find in religion. On the other hand, a world without the supernatural really does confront us with disturbing possibilities and I feel we ought to confront these head on instead of grasping for consolations. So lets start with the affirmative side first. In the beginning all the atoms that make up your body were once in heart of a star. Inside that solar furnace nuclei of hydrogen atoms fused to make the heaver elements required for life. When that star died those elements were released into the open vastness of space. Over time gravity brought those elements together again to form new stars and planets. And on at least one of those planets a handful of those atoms began to do something quite amazing. By no other force but the laws of physics they formed long chains of macromolecules, determined by their chemistry to make crude copies of themselves. The first cells formed and began to divide. Some cells stuck together after dividing and began to differentiate their functions leading to the first multi-cellular organisms. Some evolved limbs and antennae, patches of cells sensitive to heat and pressure--and suddenly the universe could feel. Some evolved cells which could detect light and the direction of its source, some even had primitive lenses that could focus that light--and suddenly the universe could see. Some of these organisms evolved tiny models of reality within their nervous systems, internal representations of their own body and the outside world--and suddenly the universe could experience, it could predict events and even to some degree control its responses. Some of these organisms evolved the ability to use concepts and language and suddenly the universe could communicate, it look upon itself with wonder and ask "who am I?" So to the person who says "but I want to be part of something larger than myself" I say: you might know the science but you've somehow failed to comprehend what you truly are. You are the latest stage in a complex chemical reaction thats been taking place for billions of years. There is an unbroken chain of heredity that unites you to every other living thing on this planet and even the very stars themselves. You are not just a collection of atoms. You are atoms with awareness. You are not just matter. You are matter with meaning. As Carl Sagan so simply put it "You are a way for the universe to know itself" What have you ever been a part of that is that grand? But in the scope of eternity aren't we all just insignificant specks of dust? Don't for a

second believe that just because you are small, and your time here short, that you are somehow insignificant. That star of ours shining somewhere beyond the cloudsthe one thats been around for a couple billion years before you were born and will remain for millions of years after you diedoes it dream? Does it hope? Does it love? Does it wake up every morning, face the world and try to make something of itself? Does it feel a single thing? What about the Milky Way? What about the all colossal super-clusters of galaxies that make up this universe? Of course not. Without life there is no harm, there is no gain, there is no state of affairs preferable to any other, there can be no such thing as value. But introduce a subject of experience and everything changes. Suddenly value meaning and purpose make sense. Im afraid that we've been looking to the sky for our marching for so long that we've gotten things turned around. You depend on that star for survival but it depends on you for significance. If that star and this planet is important at all, it is important because it gives life to you. This entire cosmos can only be made significant through our story, along with the story of all other sentient beings that experience life within it. What an awesome privilege that is. So how do you think were doing on that business of making our universe significant? In its final draft, how do you think that story will read? Will it be a good book? Will humanities chapter be one its high points? Or will it be one long miserable cautionary tale? Think about that question and you'll catch a sense of the awesome burden facing those who wish to live ethically in a natural world. You see, if there is no God, then our story comes with no guarantee of a happy conclusion. Only humanity can solve its own problems and its not at all clear that we are up to the task. I believe Humanism also has its own kind of irrational faith. Since the time of Europe's so called "enlightenment" humanists have been eager to cast off Christian faith in the coming Kingdom of Heaven, and replace it with a secular faith in the coming triumph of reason over superstition and the inevitable march of progress that will follow in its wake. Yes humankind has made incredible advancements in our understanding; we've cured diseases, tripled our lifeexpectancy, and brought the human community closer than ever before all through the power of our technology. For that we deserve to be proud. But do we dare forget that we only narrowly avoided annihilating the entire human race with nuclear weapons and next time we might not be so luckily? And how many cultures have been erased? How many native peoples displaced or worse, eradicatedand thats only the human toll we've racked up in these centuries of progress. We are now, every one of us in this room, contributing to largest massextinction of species in human history. Genocides upon genocides are happening each day. We're changing the climate, and although the science is sound most of us are too enamored with our way of life to seek any significant change. Its getting difficult for any caring sensitive person to continue reading this story when each page is saturated with violence, greed, hatred and anguish especially if you suspect, as I do, that no savior will come down from the sky to rescue us at the end. Still, though it might be

painful, dont close the book before its finished. Look closely and you'll find that this dark chapter also contains scores of characters who stand apart from all the ugliness and bring real beauty to these pages. From tiny gestures of kindness to heroic acts of compassion they redeem our narrative, or at the very least make its reading more bearable. Right now you are writing your own contribution to this chapter, will your story inspire like theirs? I want to end with a story that inspires me. The story comes from the stoic philosopher Epictetusperhaps an odd choice to end an atheist's sermon but this really captures for me the essence of secular humanism. Emperor Nero had a twisted sense of humor. He used to write plays where the characters performed a range of humiliating and degrading acts. He would then cast prominent members of roman society into these roles and have them perform before large audiences. Anyone who refused to play Neros sick little game was promptly executed. The Roman Historian Florus and the Stoic philosopher Aggrippinus were both summoned by Nero to act in one of these plays. True to his philosophy the Stoic had no intention of taking part in this debasement. But Florus protested "If I refuse to participate in Nero's festival, he will kill me." "I still refuse" said the Stoic "but you go ahead and participate" "why?" asked Florus, "because you think of yourself as no more than a single thread in the robe, whose duty it is to conform to the mass of people--just a single white thread has no wish to clash with the remainder of the garment. But I aspire to be the purple stripe, that is, the garments brilliant hem. However small a part it may be, it can still manage to make the garment as a whole attractive. Dont tell me then be like the rest because in that case I cannot be the purple stripe." Optimism is not always a rational attitude. But hope is. Hope doesnt have to delude us about our chances when encouraging us to press on. I hope that when all is said and done, humanities chapter in lifes story will be a bright one. But even if it is not, I still stand in admiration of those who did not accept easy answers or bow to received wisdom, people who pursued truth for its own sake, who did good not out of any expectation of divine reward or fear of punishment but because they love life and wish to see it thrive. I think that is what humanism is really about. Its finding the courage to stand apart and say "don't tell me to be like the rest" I choose to live by reason instead of faith. I choose to serve all sentient life and not just the elect. I choose to press on instead of waiting for a miracle and because I believe that is how I make my life, and the universe of which I am a part, significant.