This book comes at a time when philosophical reflection, as well as the public debate concerning religion and atheism, have reached a certain impasse. On the one hand, the philosophies of religion and post-secularism have reminded us of the presence of religion in socio-cultural practices, areas in which religion seemed to have been abolished. On the other hand, the philosophical, cultural and popular knowledge and understanding of atheism seem antiquated and not suited to contemporary times, when religious influences in such domains as politics or culture are unquestioned. Atheism, therefore, needs to be approached and rethought in order to fit into a world of various religious revivals and also one shaped largely by religions which, in contrast to the claims of the early theorists of atheism, have not been abandoned. In a world that includes a diversity of lifestyles, opinions and beliefs, atheism needs to be seen as a philosophical stance, with implications not only for cultural behaviours, but also mindsets and argumentations, both in scientific practice and in people’s daily cultural lives.
Therefore, at the outset, we would like to stress that this book is not meant to be an argument for atheism—but that equally it should not be seen as an argument against atheism. It is not our intention to argue for atheism, or to situate it against religion as such. Rather, what we seek to elucidate is the complicated historical heritage of atheism and the complexity of leading an atheist life. In the light of the analyses our contributors propose, atheism is not something one can be “argued into”. In a theoretical sense, atheism is a constant critical struggle against remnants of religious (or theological) ways of thinking, which are still present even in the most secularized forms of social life, from science to politics. In a practical sense, atheism is a problem of developing modes of life—as one of the many possible ways of (not) relating to God or other transcendent ideas. In a way, we thus ask a question more fundamental than “Why be an atheist?”—namely “What does it even mean to be an atheist?” As can be seen in Julian Baggini’s chapter, which is intentionally meant as the book’s final word, in the political context it is not religion that is the enemy, but fundamentalism, which can be found both in religious and atheist milieus.
In particular, we would like to rethink three significant issues. First of all, we ask: what is atheism and, in a more philosophical sense, if philosophy is understood (via Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari) as creating concepts, what is the “atheism of the concept”? We believe it is worth returning to the relationship between the three following concepts: atheism, pantheism and deism. Spinoza—an avowed atheist—wrote and thought about God far more than about anything else. Should we follow him, and scrutinize the implications of theism, pantheism and deism in the context of contemporary post-Spinozan theory? What is “positive atheism” today? Gilles Deleuze, when wondering if there is a Christian philosophy, responds: theological thinking only creates concepts on the grounds of its own atheism. It is atheism, rather than religion, that creates concepts (Deleuze and Guattari 2015). Thus, Spinoza himself had to become an atheist to create concepts—including the concept of religion. For philosophers, the very “concept of atheism” is also problematic. It is surprising that some of the contemporary discussions concerning the philosophy of Jacques Derrida concentrate on the “alleged atheism” or “uncertain messianism”, or finally the “radical atheism” (Hägglund 2008), of the author of Of Grammatology. The issue of atheism is also crucial in theorizing democratic political power. How is democracy atheist? Does absolutism need religion? These questions, which are important in the context of the theoretical projects of Carl Schmitt, Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben, also return to the idea of atheism as a conceptual strategy.
Secondly, if the theses about the “return of religion” (Lambert 2016) or even the “revenge of God” (Kepel 1994) are true—which is, of course, debatable—we want to ask what a post-atheistic age is or could be. Is the negation of God also the negation of “the place where God used to be”? Is it the same as a post-secular age? Does Marx’s doctrine go “beyond atheism” and was Leszek Kołakowski correct in his emphasis on the importance of the remnants of Christianity in Marxism (Kołakowski 1982)? Or, by contrast, are Bronisław Baczko (1978) and Walter Benjamin (2004) right in saying that religion finds its immediate continuation in capitalism? Atheism, understood as a simple negation of the idea of God, does not seem to fulfill its own premises, always leading to a re-institution of Man as the new absolute being or the new absolute power. In capitalism, on the other hand, the ideas of property, be it material or intellectual, gain the absolute power as premises of the social order. Is there an atheist social order? Do we learn about it from the experiences and emancipation of the excluded, as Benjamin suggested? Or do we find it in the social revolution of the subaltern, as Gramsci (1965/1971) and Spivak (1999) seem to argue? Is democracy an answer to religion? Were Bloch (1918/2000), Adorno and Horkheimer (1944/2002) and others right and do we need utopia in secular times? The place once occupied by God is not nothingness—it is perhaps a “no-place”, but it is certainly not an empty space. In such a view, atheism abolishes only the “hypostasis of God”, but not the “space of his influence”. Ludwig Feuerbach was already aware of this when he wrote that if God was created in the image of man, then man, when he learns about God in his various forms, only learns about himself (Feuerbach 1972). Still, Fourier (1971), Bloch (1918/2000) and even Barthes (1972) show how this space can and should be imagined. Adorno (1966/1973), on the other hand, following Kant, proves the necessity of utopia as a condition of thinking. In a similar vein, Foucault (1998) and Haraway (2016) open spaces of “conditioned utopia”—heterotopia, dream and institutions of the common. Are any of those strategies possible without atheism?
Thirdly, and finally, we ask: to what form of atheism we should remain faithful today? Is antihumanism the only solution? Throughout history, atheism seems to be as ambiguous as the belief in God. It may stem from scientific reflection on nature, political strife against organized religion (i.e., the Church), or it might reflect moral decay, in which not believing in God and the immortality of the soul is a product of contempt towards all moral values. A product linked in the social consciousness with religious beliefs in the effect of their long-term control over the intellectual life of society. In such a situation, “atheism” is only another name for the aristocracy of privileged spirit, which is an expression of a certain type of morality and possibly also social/class position. Aside from “positive atheism” and “social atheism”, which would indicate an intuition of human freedom, we should also note a form of atheism common to the thought of Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius, Schopenhauer and Jaspers, as well as Lee Edelman more recently. This leaves open the question, if in the perspective of atheism the idea of the metaphysical defeat is justifiable. This, in turn, leads to more general, but equally fundamental questions: Is the future possible? Does it have to be critical? One of the most important implications of poststructuralism, i.e., of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway, is a non-anthropological, strictly atheistic thinking, i.e., not so much negating God, as verifying the possibility of thinking “without the concept of God” or “outside the concept of God” and all its doppelgängers (or spectres)? Is antihumanism an exercise in freeing thought from a certain category of the intellect or an idea of reason, of which, according to Kant, is its immanent and unalienable part? Is antihumanism an atheism?
This book, Atheism Revisited, is the effect of a conference under the same name, held at the Collegium Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw in October 2017. It was the second installment of a two-conference series, the first one being Atheism the Polish Way, which was held at the same institution in May 2017. When preparing the conferences with our friends at the Techno-Humanities Lab, we had decided to separate the issue of atheism in Poland from atheism in general—that is, the concept of atheism from atheism in any given country, any specific location. Today we realize this might not have been the right decision. During the first conference, conceptual and general issues prevailed over those characteristic to Poland, including its religious or moral specifics, the country’s philosophical culture and the fact that the sphere of public debate with regard to atheism is, and has been, continually marginalized.
On the other hand, the conference Atheism Revisited—as this volume makes clear—although initially meant as a space for general and conceptual discussion, turned out to be much more anchored in the present—politically, ethically as well as theoretically—than we had imagined when planning the event.
We believe that this book is a particularly timely undertaking since in the current theoretical climate—after post-secularism and the rediscovery of religious impact on virtually all domains of society and culture—the atheist philosophical project needs to reassess its main arguments. In the more popular sense, the atheist position should be discussed in a world that is searching for religious certainty and involved in religious conflict. The question: “What does religion mean today?” should be accompanied by the one we pose here: “What is atheism today?”
The word “atheism” has assumed different meanings throughout history: it has been used as a political weapon and as a strictly theoretical declaration; it appeared at the core of some philosophical proj...