God II - The Sequel

There was much comment on my last post, both on facebook and by email, on the topic of devout atheism and whether or not it might be an oxymoron. Sadly, nobody commented on the blog itself. Yes, that is a hint.

Definitions being important and on the off chance that Boxsell is reading this, I’ll start by explaining that an oxymoron is not a stupid person hyperventilating, but is in fact an apparently self-contradictory statement. It’s often used as a sort of literary device - “cruel to be kind” is a well known example - and the oxymoron is often used for humorous effect - Oscar Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” leaps to mind - but the word oxymoron has, in recent times, come to be more often associated with accidental incongruity. The old standby being “Military Intelligence”, but Donald Trump noting that “although the budget was unlimited I exceeded it” also seems to work.

So is the term “devout atheist” an oxymoron? No, I don’t think it is. The word ‘devout’ has the same Latin root as the word ‘devoted’ and shares a similar meaning. While it is commonly used with regard to religion, it’s also fairly commonly used to describe a person’s devotion to some cause or idea or belief. We find nothing odd about describing a dreadlocked friend as a devout recycler or a devout fan of Martin Scorsese. I don’t see why we can’t describe someone as a devout atheist.

Another comment that has been proffered is that atheism is not a belief system, it’s the absence of a belief system and on this point I would agree. If religions were hair colour, then atheism would be baldness. The words origins are Greek and mean “without god”, so it’s less a matter of a belief system and more a matter of describing someone who doesn’t subscribe to a certain belief system. Christopher Hitchens was fond of pointing out to his Christian or Muslim opponents that they too are atheists. They don’t believe in Isis or Thor, they have no truck with Zeus or Woden. They are in fact atheist on the subject of every god but one. The next logical step is to include that one god in the group that you are atheistic about.

Finally, a quick comment on those that insist that if I am not 100% certain that there is no god, then I must be an agnostic at best. This is of course, arrant nonsense. I can’t prove with 100% certainty that there are no cows on the planet Neptune, but I am sufficiently confident that the bovine population of the eighth planet from the sun is zero that I consider it to be a true statement. Furthermore, surely if you are positing the presence of the beef, surely it’s up to you to prove that it is so, not up to me to prove a negative.

So until next time, this is your devout atheist blogger signing off.