Just One Step

From atheism to irrationalism

For the first time since the sixth century, people in the UK who say they have no religion outnumber those declaring themselves to be Christian. Yet, much to the surprise of many who disparage all forms of religious faith as nothing but a load of superstitious nonsense, this demographic shift has not heralded the dawn of a new age of reason. On the contrary, the decline of mainstream, particularly Christian, religious affiliation in the west has opened the floodgates to a proliferation of alternative and, very often, profoundly irrational beliefs rushing to fill the void.

Writing in The Times last month, James Marriott bemoans the fact that, 'Instead of a second Enlightenment we have something like the opposite, a plague of secular fools: conspiracy theorists, astrology nuts, anti-vaccination fanatics, biology-deniers, climate-sceptics, homeopaths, believers in "personal truth" and fake news addicts. We have exchanged one age of unreason for another.'

It is hard to imagine this article, written by an atheist, being published in a national broadsheet even just a few years ago. Today, however, the observations Marriott offers are almost commonplace. This certainly reflects an interesting development in the public conversation about religion, albeit one that I hope will be less surprising to believers than the evidently bewildered unbelievers.

Marriott is essentially correct in his appraisal, even if some might want to edit, or perhaps expand, his checklist of contemporary superstitions. Is questioning the practical feasibility of implementing certain net zero policies really more irrational than throwing soup at an oil painting? He obviously has his own biases – and beliefs – as we all do. However, his basic thesis stands. Contemporary western and supposedly secular societies are awash with a plethora of strange new religious cults, whose often fanatical adherents are passionately committed to extreme ideological positions, whilst furiously denouncing any heretics who dare question the establishment narrative. Yet, having presented such compelling evidence for the new irrationalism, he seems unable to offer any explanation of why this might be the case.  

In fact, it’s quite simple. Human beings are basically religious animals, just as we are also artistic, scientific, and political animals. That is to say we have spiritual needs, relating to questions of meaning and value, just as we have material needs, such as the requirement for food and shelter. What we call a ‘religion’ is the set of beliefs and practices that provide us with a meaning-giving narrative through which to view the world and by which we order our lives in relation to the other people with whom we share that world. 

Whether we call it a ‘religion’ or not, if we inhabit a story that shapes who we are and the values we hold, then we are, in functional terms at least, ‘religious’. So, the fact that people seek other ways of fulfilling their spiritual needs in the absence of an overarching religious paradigm, held in common by society as a whole, should not be at all surprising.

But, the atheist might argue, reason-based unbelief is different; it’s not just another belief system. Well, yes and no. The very notion of reason itself depends on first principles, logical propositions and mathematical axioms, that are irreducible and unverifiable. We need not debate the pros and cons of any specific set of beliefs and practices in order to recognise the fact that we all have a worldview of some sort, which is ultimately based on unprovable assumptions that have to be taken as given. These foundational principles are effectively religious ‘dogmas’ in all but name, whether aligned to a particular historical faith tradition or not. For example, we happily accept as self-evidently true the notion that life is ‘sacred’ and that human beings have inherent rights, simply by virtue of being human, whilst failing to recognise that these are beliefs not facts. Moreover, these assumptions, which we take for granted as if they are simply ‘natural’, have a specifically Christian genealogy, and would be completely unthinkable to, for example, the citizens of Ancient Rome.

Part of the issue here is the contemporary fashion for an ideologically driven and utterly misguided rejection of history. When I was at school I used to enjoy attending the debating society. On one occasion the motion was ‘history is bunk’. ‘We can’t understand the present without understanding the past’, argued those against. ‘We need to look forward not back’, said those in favour. The former were right of course, but in a predictable show of adolescent resentment at having to learn by rote the dates of Tudor kings and queens, the motion was carried. Who of us back then would have foreseen that knowing something about the religious and political turmoil of the 16^th century could help us understand the complex geopolitical landscape the 21^st? 

But, of course, it does. 

Ironically, far from being a boring irrelevance, history is now increasingly the locus of raging controversy: we are at war with our own past. Whether in relation to museums ‘decolonising’ their collections, or calls for ‘reparations’ for the wrongs of slavery, historical illiteracy currently seems to be at the forefront of all our problems, both real and imagined. Not to mention the fact that the perennial conflict in the middle east, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s designs on Taiwan are all grounded in contested understandings of history. 

Not only have we rejected history; we have replaced it with false memories. And that matters, not just because failure to remember the past condemns us to repeat it but also for reasons that go to very the heart of who and what we are, both as a culture and as individuals. 

Just as a nation that forgets its past has no future, so the ideological reshaping of the past to conform to the fleeting fashions of the present results in a permanent crisis of identity. How can people know who they are if they don’t understand where they’ve come from? Substituting the particularity of history for abstract, empty slogans – such as ‘diversity’ or ‘justice’ – replaces the distinctiveness of specific cultures with a universal homogeneity that turns unique human individuals into interchangeable units of consumption. 

As our collective post-covid brain fog finally starts to lift, it should now be blindingly obvious that the end of history was a dangerous illusion. The elite consensus, encompassing neoliberal globalism, technocratic managerialism and corporate virtue signalling, is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Meanwhile, we remain exposed to the cancerous rot of digital addiction and ever more pernicious forms of not so subtle state-mandated gaslighting. Worst of all, not only do we fail to recognise this, but we actively embrace it, like the proverbial turkeys voting for Christmas.

All of which brings us back to the bafflement of those who are still scratching their heads and wondering how it can be possible that the death of God has led not to a sunny new enlightenment, but a dark narcissistic nihilism in which meaning is meaningless and truth is whatever I want it to be. 

The choice is not, as those who share the unexamined assumptions of secular humanism seem to imagine, between rationalism and religion. Not only because these are not mutually exclusive categories, but also because if being ‘religious’ is simply an inescapable feature of being human, then we cannot choose not to be. The only choice we really have is which religion? Good religion or bad religion? But that is where it can get really tricky, especially if – as is the case for so many today – we don’t have any reference points to fall back on.  

Yet choices are being made. Some are rediscovering the Christian tradition, many are still being seduced by the new religion. So, how should we decide between competing truth claims when we no longer share a commonly accepted worldview, and all religions and ideologies are supposed to be equally valid and can therefore be equally dismissed as irrational superstition?

In answering that question, we might want to apply some advice Jesus gave his disciples when warning them to beware of false prophets: ‘by their fruits you shall know them’ (Matthew 7.16). Our post-Christian culture is full of false prophets, and we should all be very disturbed by that – and it’s hard to see how things could be turned around. Though maybe if the church spent a little less time jumping on the broken bandwagon of this week’s version of the latest thing and a bit more time articulating the timeless truths that have already been revealed, it might actually succeed in finally attaining the holy grail of being more ‘relevant’. Perhaps church leaders could make a start by explaining that the values we cherish did not become normative in spite of Christianity but because of it. Equality, for example, is not a fact of nature; it is a principle we assert on the basis of the otherwise unsubstantiated belief that all are equal in the eyes of God. Take God out of the equation and – as we can now plainly see – the principle becomes utterly incoherent.

It is time to stop pretending that all belief systems are equally valid. If we are to judge them by their fruits we need to ask, do the beliefs I have about the world, and the actions to which those beliefs give rise, lead to human flourishing, and connect with something greater – namely God – or do they simply divinise the self instead?

It is because we have taken the latter path that we are where we are.