The Atheist Self-Help Racket

Welcome to Idiocracy: the perils of a booming Atheist self-help industry

Welcome to Idiocracy: the perils of a booming Atheist self-help industry

Christianity begins with an ominous assertion: we are all born as sinners. We are wrong from the start. And we will live a life full of guilt seeking innocence, suffering seeking redemption, completely in the dark on whether our next step will lead to salvation or damnation. Irrespective of belief, we can all agree that’s an invitation to a life of introspection and contemplation.

And that, of course, is a burden.

There is nothing comfortable about being a Christian, and that’s why I’m not particularly interested in becoming one. I’m actually terrified of it.

But, I bear good news: you don’t have to be a Christian! Or subscribe to any other silly superstition. You can live a rational, objective life without guilt. Without sin or haram or karma. A life without reckoning, where you are at the centre of the universe: Atheism. Or Humanim, or Secularism, or Hedonism... Well, in reality, Nihilism.

And it is much easier as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the empty joy of Disney World and the occasional Afghan kush joint, but I’m just not sure I should make either of them into a lifestyle. So I know I’m also not ready to peak intellectually to the sound of Sam Harris’ voice. But, by all means, you do you.

Also, I don’t think Atheists lead unhappy lives. They do enjoy a certain limp happiness, which Milan Kundera perfectly fleshed out in his “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”. A life without trade-offs and no consequences. That might be fun as the exception, but empty if it is the rule.

In the absence of trade-offs, there are no risks. In the absence of risks, there’s nothing to be accountable for. And as you go through life like that, you get numb at the extremities and soft at the core. You tend to seek self-help disguised as science, instead of scholastic philosophy disguised as prayer. The triumph of form over substance.

We’ll All be Atheists

“The idiots will take over the world; not by capacity, but by quantity. They are many.”
Nelson Rodrigues, Brazilian playwright

Atheists will be the majority. Just look at census data around the world. It is happening. And this doomsday scenario for mankind has been masterly explored in the movie Idiocracy (2006).

Idiocracy has reached cult status, with its visceral criticism of consumerism and intellectual laziness leading to humans devolving into a cognitively challenged society. What few people notice, however, is that Idiocracy’s society is also an Atheist society. Just like the Soviet Union, Cuba, or North Korea.

There are no churches to be attended, no holy books to be observed. The only reference to God is in the name of a hospital (after all, religious institutions were key in developing medicine and providing healthcare) and the quasi-blasphemous interjections by the characters that traveled from the past (“Oh my God!”), when those words still had meaning.

Fiction is full of examples of dystopian Atheist societies such as in Brave New World and 1984. But I think the idiotopian Atheist society of Idiocracy is a more faithful representation of the potential outcome of current trends.

While the Idiocracy scenario is an Atheist threat to mankind, the current Atheist influence is more amusing than terrifying. It seems that the first step into Idiocracy is ditching the Greek world of “know thyself”, for the Hollywood world of “ignore thyself”.

The aptest among the Atheists (those that don’t even call themselves “Atheists” upon further examination) figured that out long ago. And, as Jean-Baptiste Say has taught us: supply will create its own demand. Thus the Atheist self-help racket was born.

And I promise I’ll treat the subject with all the seriousness that Atheism deserves, which is none.

Richard Dawkins and the Greater Fool Theory

“…she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.”
Charles Bukowski, “An Almost Made Up Poem”

Dick Dawkins is a world-renowned evolutionary biologist. Well-versed in biomimicry, Dawkins shaped New Atheism into a quintessential Ponzi scheme: all you need to do is to get the next guy to believe there’s no God, that way you keep earning street creds, that later can be turned into revenue streams.

Youtube has made Dawkins into Atheism’s greatest televangelist (since Christopher Hitchens is a bit too philosophicky for the average Atheist). And he used the growing awareness around his persona to sell books. Lots of books. The Atheist’s alchemy: unscientific belief turns into gold.

When you read Dawkins you will never catch yourself thinking: “Wait a minute, am I reading Aquinas?”. There’s no questioning, no counterarguments. No trade-offs, and no risks. Dick Dawkins’ books are about affirmations. Self-affirmations. Self-help.

Take the “consciousness-raising” messages found in his “The God Delusion”, they are all affirmations that could very well be found in any work by Stuart Smalley or Oprah Winfrey:

“Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.”
I’m happy / I’m good / I’m smart

Natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to a “God hypothesis” — the illusion of intelligent design — in explaining the living world and the cosmos
I’m enough / I believe in myself

Children should not be labelled by their parents’ religion. Terms like “Catholic child” or “Muslim child” should make people cringe
I’m special / I’m unique / I’m beautiful the way I am

Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.
I’m valuable / I’m strong / I’m independent

When you read between the lines, Dawkins’ messages are messages of faith. And that’s very disappointing, proof that Dawkins’ dishonesty lies in his intelligence.

If Dawkins really believed he had a solid, epistemologically superior argument for the non-existence of God he would be publishing philosophical treaties, not self-help books. If he could be Nietzsche, why does he keep aiming to be the Bizarro World’s Joel Osteen?

If Dawkins could be Nietzsche, why does he keep aiming to be the Bizarro World’s Joel Osteen?

It is undeniable that Richard Dawkins is an eminent scientist, and I truly admire his intelligence. However, his true genius seems to be spent cluttering a niche that has turned into his pseudo-intellectual money pit.

He talks about escaping and outgrowing, he talks about transformation, and how you can turn your religious caterpillar into your beautiful Atheist butterfly. As if there are only two possibilities.

If early iterations of Atheism reeked of blasphemy and iconoclasm, 21st-century New Atheism reeks of prosperity theology and self-help. Thanks, Dick Dawkins.

Sam Harris: “Lack of Belief” as Multi-Level Marketing

We need to talk about Sam Harris. And the fact that he is not as near as accomplished as Dick Dawkins in his professional field, neuroscience. I’m not saying he is not competent, just that he doesn't bring the same scientific weight a guy as Dawkins does. He’s more of a Bill Nye guy.

Don’t get me wrong, you can talk philosophy all day long without any scientific underpinnings. Just look at most Classics. However, this becomes problematic when you build your whole case piggybacking on your supposed scientific credentials.

But what Harris lacks in terms of scientific background, he makes up in business acumen. You can't help but think Sam Harris spends most of his days going around thinking “how do I further monetise my Atheism?”

Sam Harris will sell you a meditation app. Feeling like your Atheism is not metaphysical enough? Sam Harris will sell you a guide to spirituality without religion. His latest endeavour is trying to sell you the idea of “effective altruism”, or how to help yourself while looking like you are helping others.

He has flirted with eugenics, where he perhaps sensed a monetary opportunity. Which is not funny. He needs to clean up his act. Now, seriously he does.

Love Will Tear Us Apart, but the Bomb Will Bring Us Together

“Einmal ist keinmal
(once is never)”
German adage

Atheists criticise Christian happiness as some frivolous concept derived from the belief a “Sky Daddy” will always provide. As it happens, the unachievable Christian happiness is about the journey, not the destination.

It is about a “good” Catholic drowning in sin, walking into a church — Jesus watching him with 12 pairs of eyes from every step of the Via Crucis — to admit to another flawed man: “Father, I have sinned”… living the goalkeeper’s anxiety at the penalty kick. And you will keep failing, not in the eyes of an infallible God, but in front of other failed people.

In New Atheism — and that’s by construction — your failures belong somewhere else, not within you. It is a self-help doctrine, a cheap spirit distilled from Rousseau’s inherently good man, Hobbes’ wolf-god-man, and Sartre’s “hell is other people”. New Atheism draws from some of the greatest Atheist minds in history, only to produce hermetically-sealed PopSci, in a painfully disappointing fashion.

The problem is that Atheist PopSci is also dangerous. Not because it attacks the establishment or the status quo. But precisely because it reinforces them. Combining a very high view of the human place in the natural order with very little regard for our limitations as humans.

While it is good that Atheists have this sort of support network — like having their own little book clubs — we can’t ignore that, when taken seriously by society, Atheism has led to devastating outcomes: totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and eugenics...

Unless we understand that living under the sword of Damocles is riskier, but also more eventful and fulfilling, we will end up living in an Atheist world full of empty people. Idiocracy.