Modern human rights theory is based on the Judeo-Christian idea that human beings are of tremendous value and worth, because they are made in the image of God. Reject God and suddenly you have to start again, explaining why one particular creature, thrown up by the forces of time, chance and natural selection (or under the neutral theory, random drift) mixing and chopping atoms and chemicals for several billion years possesses inalienable rights, whereas amoeba, aardvarks and eggplants do not. Many philosophers and thinkers recognise the problem and are honest enough to admit if you dismiss God, you lose many other things, too. Listen to these words from atheist Llewelyn Powys:It is not only belief in God that must be abandoned, not only all hope of life after death, but all trust in an ordained moral order … We must be prepared to take our bearings without a compass and with the slippery deck of our life-vessel sliding away under our feet. Dogmatic nihilists, profoundly sceptical of all good, we are put to our resources like shipwrecked seamen. We have no sense of direction, and recognise without dispute that all beyond the margin of our own scant moment is lost.
If Powys is right—and other atheists, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and, more recently, John Gray have argued similarly—then atheism has some entailments. But if it does, if denying God does indeed cause us to "throw away the compass" with Powys, to "wipe away the horizon" with Nietzsche, or to embrace "unyielding despair" with Russell, then, ipso facto, atheism has consequences. |
