The Sophisticated Audacity of Atheism and Dostoevsky

The "masses" believe in God. In fact so much so, that the masses develop all sorts of quasi-theistic superstitions founded on their vaguely theistic beliefs. It is little surprise then that various flavors of atheists consider themselves rather sophisticated for moving beyond the folk religion of the masses, for they, atheists of various sorts, are countercultural and thereby must know something or have come to some sort of realization, which is superior to that of the masses. Some atheists may then see themselves as brave heroes daring to lay siege on the seemingly imperturbable fortress of ignorance. However, this confidence exudes the modern stench of progress, which is nothing more than a disappointing fairytale like the belief in Santa Clause, albeit it is a fairytale that many of our American politicians still pretend has some credence. Such confidence is like that of a scuba diver deciding to take off his oxygen mask at the bottom of the ocean if for no other reason than the possibility of discovering the needlessness of the oxygen mask. However, first it might not hurt to scan the bottom of the ocean and to see the many skeletons that decorate the dark craters of the ocean’s gloomy landscape.

Today’s “new atheism” has all the newness of yesterday.

It is hardly uncommon for "new atheists" of various sorts to find fault with religious institutions. There have been and will be abuses within various religious institutions. It may be more illuminating, however, to find fault with humanity. But that is what religion often does, and far be it from an atheist to fault humanity in general.       

Dostoevsky went to great lengths to illustrate the bankruptcy of the modern atheism that was pervading his Russia, and I think he did well by not showing it to be merely insipid intellectually but by showing it to be rather inhumane. His rival Turgenev sought to portray atheism as a sort of liberation of humanity as do many atheists today. In response, Dostoevsky showed that what Turgenev considered to be liberation was actually a path leading to lunacy and death (e.g. Ivan and Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov). For Dostoevsky, atheism was not only bankrupt it was poisonous. This ethos surfaces throughout his novels perhaps most notably in Demons (otherwise entitled Devils and The Possessed depending on your translation). At the beginning of the novel is Luke 8:32-36, a reference to swine being possessed by demons and drowning. This sets the complexion of the novel and adumbrates its dénouement. Dostoevsky was caustic towards the atheism that was spreading across his Russia not because he was insular but because he saw and felt its danger. The structures of life were being threatened by all sorts of atheistic isms (sundry ideologies ending with “ism”), and the structures of life were not being replaced by anything other than vague and arbitrary autonomy that critiqued its very own foundations. For Dostoevsky the vision of the isms was shortsighted and was a short road leading only to death.