Not new (published August, 2010), but persistently topical.

One of our Facebook commenters, raised in a religious family and sent to a religious school, recently told us that the atheism he had arrived at eventually was not certain. Something could happen that would make him change his mind about it. We asked what sort of thing. He said he could not answer that.

We are convinced of our atheism.

We do not believe there is anything, or could be anything, supernatural.

We would like to hear from readers how they came to their atheism and whether anything – and if so what? – could change their minds.

Britons – and most indigenous Europeans – have given up believing in “God” just in time to submit to “Allah”.

Of course British and European atheists don’t see it that way. The men don’t think they’ll be forced into mosques or to pray five times daily while groveling on the ground and banging their foreheads on it, letting their  wives and daughters out only if they’re encased in black tents, having their daughters’ reproduction organs mutilated and killing them themselves if they are raped or letting the neighbors half bury them in a hole and stone them to death, have their own hands cut off if they borrow from the till, and so on … or alternatively choose to hand over their earnings to the Islamic government and live in abject poverty.

Breathe deeply the air of freedom, British and European atheists! It will be possible only for a little while.

Here’s the first Member of Parliament to declare himself an atheist. While the shadows of Christian darkness have not entirely gone from corners of his world, he feels safe to admit that he’s godless.

James Arbuthnot writes at The Spectator (UK):

I’m a Conservative MP who doesn’t believe in God. Polls suggest that my lack of belief puts me in the same position as most people in the country. So what’s the big deal?

The reaction to my saying this has been mixed. One was a comment under an article in the Independent – ‘What kind of a pussy MP keeps his faith quiet just because there is pressure to do so?’  The answer, self-evidently, is this kind of pussy, the kind that wanted to be selected as a Conservative candidate and then elected as an MP.

… Peter Walker …  when he was a Minister answering questions in the House, was asked something about whether his motivation for supporting a particularly right-wing policy had been sycophancy or cowardice, and his answer was, ‘Almost certainly both’. It was a well-received joke (I was in the House at the time) which no doubt contained a kernel of truth.  And I would give the same answer in relation to my keeping quiet about not believing in God.

My lack of belief would not have prevented my election – the people of North East Hampshire are a generous lot – but it could well have stopped my being selected as a candidate, a notoriously competitive arena.  Conservative activists who used to do the selecting tend to be older and more traditionally minded – this is no surprise.

Another reaction has been, ‘Oh dear. Why did he need to say anything?’ This rather confirms what I have said.  In politics, the pressure of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is similar to that applied in the armed forces – and in some families – about being gay.  There’s nothing spoken about this pressure, but everybody knows it exists.

I don’t know of any other Conservative MP or candidate who has admitted publicly to not believing in God.  And yet, if the statistics are correct, only around a third of the country does believe in a God or Gods.  Either that makes Tory MPs completely unrepresentative (of course that’s possible, but I don’t myself believe it to be true) or it suggests that the Conservatives might benefit from more openness, in order to be more in touch with and representative of the electorate.

They have little to fear. The vast bulk of the reaction I have received, and not only from those who do not believe in God, has been ‘Well done. About time we had some rationality in politics!’

Oh, James! On whom do you call now to save your gracious Queen?

On whom will you call in the coming years to save your gracious King?

Will he too kneel to Allah? Or be replaced with a caliph?

(Hat-tip to our British associate Chauncey Tinker)

Non-feminist women. Anti-feminist women. Republican women. Conservative women. Women for President Trump. Mothers (or, translated roughly into Leftish: Heterosexualist Anti-Abortion Overpopulators).

They exist. Unapologetically, what’s more. Though most atheists in the United States, being on the Left, might be surprised to hear it.

What is not surprising is that Leftists do not invite conservatives or Republicans to their conferences. However, Lauren Ell, founder and president of Republican Atheists, feels that atheism could be a bridge between the godless sections of the Left and the Right.

While we do not expect that hypothesis to be tested, we appreciate her optimism that our opinions might be listened to with forbearance, if not respect, on the other side of the Great Divide.

Impressive Conservative Atheist Women that US atheist organizations continue to ignore

By Lauren Ell

(First published on the website of Republican Atheists. Republished here by kind permission of the author.)

While many US atheist organizations have started focusing on women representation in their public speaking engagements, I can’t help but notice the lack of spotlight on outspoken conservative atheist women who have serious clout.

I came across yet another atheist speaking event while briefing through social media. This event is titled Freethought Alliance Conference and is taking place in California this year. The description said, “We are celebrating Women’s Equality Day by having nine wonderful female speakers from around the country to enlighten and entertain us with new ideas and interesting topics.”

I have noticed that female speakers have become a “thing” at many atheist speaking engagements across the United States since social justice has become the latest fad during the last few years and atheist organizations have tried to cater to the ideas of equality.

I briefed over the women who were speaking at the event. There was an LGBTQ activist, a humanist from Afghanistan, the organizer of atheist group Los Angeles Sunday Assembly, and a number of women who focus on science-related topics. While I am sure all of these women have interesting things to say, I was disappointed to see yet another atheist event not give spotlight to an atheist conservative woman.

It often seems the general US atheist community is not aware of outspoken atheist conservatives, which isn’t surprising since atheist organizations tend to not given them spotlight. I will share a few atheist conservatives I think highly of, and I will say they all coincidentally happen to be women! I’m not highlighting them for the sake of being women – I just genuinely feel the most impressive atheist conservatives I have come across are, surprisingly, all women. I will give a shout out to Republican Atheists’ Board Member Dr. Robert M. Price who has been great at sharing his political views at speaking engagements and with podcasters.

The most impressive atheist conservative, in my book, is Jillian Becker, a novelist, prize-winning story writer, critic, journalist and lecturer. In fact, not only is she the most impressive atheist conservative in my eyes, but the most impressive atheist in general. Becker’s most famous book is Hitler’s Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang (1977), which happened to be selected by Newsweek (Europe) as book of the year in 1977. She spent months in Lebanon during the war and interviewed Lebanese people about the oppression they experienced from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Additionally, Becker helped advise the British Parliament on terrorism in the 1980s. She has managed the popular blog The Atheist Conservative since 2008. I could go on about her biography.. Look her up! I have asked Becker if atheist organizations have ever reached out to her, and to my surprise, and disappointment, she said no, they haven’t.

Jillian Becker

Then there is Edwina Rogers, a lobbyist and former White House staffer. Rogers served as the president of Secular Coalition for America from 2012 to 2014, where she worked on developing the organization nationwide. Right out of graduate school she worked with President George H. W. Bush on international trade at the Department of Commerce from 1989 to 1991, and then later served as General Counsel of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1994. Rogers received some coverage from atheist organizations while she was president of Secular Coalition for America, but since leaving that post atheist organizations seem to have dropped her off the radar. I personally am disappointed I had not learned about her when she was president, it would have been quite striking to acknowledge a Republican woman manning an international atheist organization.

Edwina Rogers

Another noted atheist conservative is Heather Mac Donald, a published author, essayist, speaker, journalist and attorney. Mac Donald has received considerable attention for her research reported in her noted books The Burden of Bad Ideas (2000), receiving a positive review from a New York Times critic, and The War on Cops (2016). In 2017, Mac Donald was scheduled to speak at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA in spring of 2017, but was forced to relocate after protesters blocked attendees from entering.

Heather Mac Donald

Activist, feminist, author, scholar and former politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a noted atheist who has been a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2018. Ali was born in Somalia and is a former Muslim. She lived in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopa and Kenya before arriving to the Netherlands in 1992. She was elected in 2003 to be a member of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the States General of the Netherlands. Ali became a victim of death threats for participating in projects speaking out against Islam, and eventually relocated to the United States after the Netherlands government decided to no longer pay for her security. She is founder of AHA Foundation, an organization that defends women’s rights, and openly speaks against female genital mutilation, child marriage, honor violence, and Islamic extremism. Conservative groups have been more accepting of Ali’s criticism of Islam.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Finally, there is me, Lauren Ell, President of Republican Atheists, the first organization to represent atheist Republicans. I may have not published books (yet) or worked at the White House, but I have put considerable effort into trying to network with atheist organizations, speakers and related, and presenting the organization to the public. I can say from experience that atheist conservatives tend to be deliberately ignored by atheist organizations and speakers. This creates a level of contradiction especially when atheist organizations and speaking engagements claim they are working for equality among women. One would think at some point they will break down and give conservative atheists some spotlight, considering they are out openly representing as atheists.

Lauren Ell

Either way, atheist conservative women, and men, will continue to speak up and gain more attention over time as conservative views become more common in the atheist community, which has been occurring for some time.

When you have the time, be sure to give a shout out to Jillian Becker, Edwina Rogers and Heather Mac Donald, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali considering most atheist organizations will not.

Fortunately, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Heather Mac Donald appear often in print, on TV, and on speakers’ platforms.

A shout-out to our editor-in-chief, Jillian Becker, would not bring her to a conference. Her public speaking days are over. But her opinions are flaunted shamelessly here on The Atheist Conservative website and its FaceBook page, ready to provoke any Leftist who cares to look our way.

What is the root, hub, core, foundation, or essence – any one of those words will do, no mixing of metaphors – of Islam?

Allah, of course.

Take away Allah and the whole growth, movement, body, edifice, or idea will wither away, stop, die, collapse, or fail.

Allah the War God is no more and no less a cause of Man-made Global Distress (MGD) than is Jehovah the Vengeful or that ludicrous empyrean bureau, the Trinity.

Christians and believing Jews have no valid argument against Islam.

So it is now the most important task of atheists to destroy Islam by destroying Allah, with Reason and laughter.

Trouble is, atheists on the Left have forged an alliance with Islam. They not only refuse to argue with it, they fiercely attack atheists on the Right who dare to say a word against that deeply immoral religion.

Attacks must not deter us.

Criticizing God is our business. Making him a laughing-stock is our pleasure.

(Hat-tip to Don L for the symbolic device)

World Religion News recently interviewed Lauren Ell, the founder of REPUBLICAN ATHEISTS.

She makes many interesting points, among them these:

WRN: Is there a historical precedent for this [Republicans being atheists], or would you call this a relatively new thought process?

LE: I don’t think atheist Republicans are new. They are new in the sense of being more outspoken about their atheist views, but they have existed as far back as the Civil War era. My organization, Republican Atheists, is the first organization I know of at this point that is representing atheist Republicans.

WRN: So you’ve mentioned you had this treatment by certain podcasters and writers, could you go into that in more detail?

LE: I started Republican Atheists in February of 2017 as an experimental project. I haven’t been involved with atheist organizations at all in the United States, such as American Atheists, Freedom From Religion Foundation, or Secular Coalition for America. Originally I had assumed these organizations would take some interest in Republican Atheists. I didn’t expect them to embrace our political views, but I thought at least they would maybe mention the existence of Republican Atheists to their base, considering many of these atheist organizations claim they are representing the entire atheist community in the United States. But I found when I contacted groups I did not get much response from them. They did not respond to the idea of mentioning Republican Atheists to their base. I was in contact with the Secular Coalition for America who at first had interest in Republican Atheists and said they would publish a guest article by me. I was in touch with their media coordinator and we discussed a topic to write about, and I wrote an article for them. It ended up being scrapped because they didn’t like my wording in the article, so I wrote it according to what they recommended and did multiple edits over a period of months. Despite all that time and effort of meeting their requests, at the end of the day they did not publish the article and didn’t even mention Republican Atheists to their base. They actually have not been responsive to me ever since. Some organizations haven’t responded to us at all, so I keep chipping away to build our relevance in the atheist community.

WRN: I would be interested in knowing about podcasters because you mentioned that specifically.

LE: I had an experience with one atheist podcast called Cognitive Dissonance. I actually hadn’t listened to them much, but I sent them an email introducing myself and offered to be interviewed on their show. They agreed to do a 45-minute interview. I was pretty excited because they are one of the more known atheist podcasts. I would say they have around 17,000 followers on Facebook. I ended up doing the interview with them, but they hung up on me 15 minutes into the interview because I mentioned something they didn’t agree with. They called it “the dumbest interview they’ve ever done”. I have actually been met with much more interest in gaining understanding by Christian podcasters.

WRN: What was the particular issue they didn’t agree with?

LE: We were talking about prominent movements such as Women’s March and the Occupy Movement which was big back in 2011. We discussed who is behind the movements in terms of people who financed protests, and I mentioned the name George Soros. The hosts didn’t want to continue the conversation after that.

In the course of the interview Lauren was so kind as to make favorable mention of our editor-in-chief, and simple vanity brings that part of the interview to this post:

WRN: So they’ve associated specific views on issues that don’t relate to Christianity directly, but they still associate it with Christianity. You’re saying within the Republican Party base you can reach a similar conclusion but through a different process and different thinking?

LE: Yes, that is what I do when I communicate with Republicans and Christians. I don’t bring up my atheist views up front and instead focus on what we have in common. I actually never really feel the need to talk about my atheist views unless I am trying to make a point about the existence of atheist Republicans. When I talk to people, I try to find what we have in common in terms of political policies and social policies. We’ll talk about education, taxation, freedom of speech, and so forth. I find a commonality with them, and once we have that commonality, they see that even though I’m atheist we have a lot in common. That is the situation I like to be in.

RN: This reminds me of Christopher Hitchens who was both an outspoken atheist and had several politically conservative stances. Is there anyone who you look to as a person who’s advocating besides of course yourself?

LE: There is a woman who is very impressive, and I wish she was mentioned a lot more. Her name is Jillian Becker, and she manages a blog called The Atheist Conservative. One thing I point out about Jillian Becker is she does not promote the Republican Party. Her thing is just conservatism, and there’s a difference. I always have to point out there’s a difference between an atheist conservative and an atheist Republican. I know a lot of people get it intertwined and sometimes conservatives get a little irritated. But Jillian Becker and I get along pretty well because we see eye to eye on a lot of issues. If you look her up you will see she has an impressive resume. She’s on Wikipedia. She has spoken with the British Parliament in regards to terrorism in the past. She’s a published author, has been featured in interviews, and is very outspoken. She is older now, so I wish she was mentioned more often. I also note Heather Mac Donald who is a published author and a conservative atheist. She was recently shut down on college campuses in California, and she has been interviewed about it.

We too are admirers of Heather Mac Donald, and strongly recommend her books – all of them.

Read the whole interview with Lauren Ell here.

Under the auspices of The Freedom Association in Britain, Theodore Dalrymple – author of many excellent books, two of them often praised and quoted by Thomas Sowell, Life at the Bottom and Our Culture, What’s Left Of It – gave the inaugural Annual Jillian Becker Lecture on March 23, 2018. 

The annual lecture is in celebration of Individual Freedom and/or The Nation-State. It is given by a person who has spoken or written consistently in defense of either or both. Beyond that, the ideas expressed by the lecturer need not conform to either Jillian Becker’s views or those of the Freedom Association. A wide variety of opinion and context is to be expected and welcomed.

The surprise here is that the lecture is introduced by a Christian priest, the Rev. Peter Mullen, who mentions, in good humor, that both Jillian Becker and Theodore Dalrymple (aka Anthony Daniels) are atheists.

The Freedom Association fought long and hard for Brexit, and was one of the organizations that contributed significantly to the victory of the Leave campaign.

The title of the lecture is: Threats to Freedom.

This is a kind of review. But it is more of an argument about ideas that vitally affect the real world.

I am in emphatic agreement with roughly half of what Professor Steven Pinker says in his new book Enlightenment Now: the Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress*, and in vehement disagreement with the rest of it. Like him, I esteem the Enlightenment most highly; profoundly value science; and certainly want progress in everything that makes us happier and better informed, our lives longer, healthier, less painful, and more enjoyable. Like him, I am an atheist. It is chiefly with his ideas on Humanism that I disagree. Which may seem strange since humanism is atheist. And, certainly, on all his criticisms of religion I am in complete accord. More than that: where small “h” humanism is concerned with humane morals – the imperative to treat our fellow human beings and other sentient beings humanely – the great professor and I could sing in harmony.

“The moral alternative to theism,” he writes, “is humanism.”

But Humanism-the-movement holds principles that I not only do not like, but strongly dislike. They are principles of the Left. And  while he is not uncritical of the Left, Professor Pinker upholds those principles. Humanism, wherever it may be found, is a Leftist ideology. And because the Humanist movement is well-established, widespread, its opinions prominently published, and taught (or preached) where scholars gather, atheism is assumed by many to belong to the Left, inseparably, part and parcel of its essential ideology.

Atheism may be indispensable to the Left, but Leftism is not necessary to atheism.

Atheism as such carries no connotations. No political or ethical ideas logically flow from it. It is simply non-belief in the existence of a divine being. Nothing more. A person’s atheism does not itself make him more humane or less humane.

Steven Pinker implies that it does. Although he states that “atheism is not a moral system … just the absence of supernatural belief”, he also declares that “secularism leads to humanism, turning people away from prayer, doctrine, and ecclesiastical authority and toward practical policies that make them and their fellows better off.”

He reasons along these lines:

“Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis.”

Not from holy books. Agreed.

“Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change.”

Agreed.

There being no supernatural moral authority, and as human beings have natural needs –

“Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.”

So far, no cause for quarrel. But he elaborates on this last statement to demonstrate that Humanists do this “deriving” well:

“Humanists ground values in human welfare, shaped by human circumstances, interests and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem …”

There it comes, as if it followed logically from scientific knowledge and humane secularism, one of the main obsessions of the Left: concern for the planet, for which, the Left claims, human beings bear responsibility. The words “man-made global warming” silently intrude themselves; as does the “solution” for it – global governance, by those who know what the human race must do; total communism, the highest principle of the Left; its vision of a whole-world Utopia. Though Steven Pinker himself is not a Utopian, he writes a good deal in this book about the virtues of “globalist” politics. He sees globalism as an enlightened, reasonable, science-based, progressive, humanist creed. To “maximize individual happiness”, he remarks, “progressive cultures” work to “develop global community”. He has much praise for international institutions – including, or even led by, the (actually deeply evil) United Nations. He is confident the UN and other international bodies such as the EU, formed after the end of the Second World War, can help keep the world at peace. In fact, there has not been a single year since 1945 when the world has been without a war or wars.

To the globalist view he opposes the populist view. Not wrong when stated thus. But he does not see the populist view as the one held by 63 million Americans who voted Donald Trump into the presidency of the United States because they wanted more jobs, lower taxes, and secure borders; or that of the British majority who voted to withdraw their country from the undemocratic and corrupt European Union. No. He sees populism as a cult of “romantic heroism”, a longing for “greatness embodied in an individual or a nation”.

He is adamantly against the nation-state. He thinks that those who uphold the idea of the nation-state “ludicrously” envision a “global order” that “should consist of ethnically homogeneous and mutually antagonistic nation-states”. Who has ever expressed such an idea? And he puts “multiculturalism” (the failing experiment of enforcing the co-existence of diverse tribes within a nation’s borders) on an equal footing with “multi-ethnicity” (the melting-pot idea that has worked so splendidly for the United States of America).

To him, nationalism is ineluctably authoritarian and fascist. He sees President Trump – who is in fact unswervingly for individual freedom – as a “charismatic leader” of the dictatorial Mussolini mold. The politics of the Right for Professor Pinker are irredeemably dyed in the wool with Nietzschean anti-morality, “superman” aspirations, and genocidal urgings. Libertarianism is tainted with it too. He writes: “ … Ayn Rand’s celebration of selfishness, her deification of the heroic capitalist, and her disdain for the general welfare had Nietzsche written all over them.”

Interestingly – and restoratively to my esteem for him – he also asserts that certain Marxists and certain Leftist movements are equally, or even more, colored with Nietzsche’s inhumanity: “[Nietzsche] was a key influence on … Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault, and a godfather to all the intellectual movements of the 20^th century that were hostile to science and objectivity, including Existentialism, Critical Theory, Post-structuralism, Deconstructionism, and Postmodernism.”

Steven Pinker’s humanism, then, is not far to the Left, just “left-of-center”. And most of the humanists I have known (and argued with) would also place themselves on that section of the political spectrum. “[T]he moral and intellectual case for humanism is, I believe, overwhelming …,” he writes.

He concludes (and here he specifically rejects Utopianism):

“We will never have a perfect world. And it would be dangerous to seek one. But there is no limit to the betterments we can attain if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing. This heroic story … belongs not to any tribe but to all humanity – to any sentient creature with the power of reason and the urge to persist in its being. For it requires only the convictions that life is better than death, health is better than sickness, abundance is better than want, freedom is better than coercion, happiness is better than suffering, and knowledge is better than superstition and ignorance.”

That is the vision of the Decent Thinking Western Man. He believes that all human beings ultimately want the same things; that the good life is defined for all in the same general terms; that all  would agree to the Golden Rule, which has been “rediscovered in hundreds of moral traditions”.

But are those beliefs true? He himself records that there are many who do not value knowledge above ignorance, reason above superstition, freedom above coercion, even life above death. Which is to say, he writes about Islam (in which there is no Golden Rule). He knows Islam has no trace of “Enlightenment humanism”. He declares it an “illiberal” creed, and observes that “[M]any Western intellectuals – who would be appalled if the repression, misogyny, homophobia, and political violence that are common in the Islamic world were found in their own societies even diluted a hundred fold – have become strange apologists when these practices are carried out in the name of Islam.”

He finds one explanation for the double-standard of these intellectuals in their “admirable desire to prevent prejudice against Muslims”. But when it comes to revulsion against ideologists of repression, misogyny, homophobia, and political violence, is it prejudice or is it judgment? He says also that some of the apologetics are “intended to discredit a destructive (and possibly self-fulfilling) narrative that the world is embroiled in a clash of civilizations”. (Or, as I see it, of civilization against barbarism.) I wonder how anyone can look at the drastically changing demographics of Europe, or at least the Western part of it which will surely be under Islamic rule before the century is out, and not notice the clash.

But he does say that “calling out the antihumanistic features of contemporary Islamic belief is in no way Islamophobic”. Being the decent thinking Western man that he is, he is firmly for critical examination of all ideas.

His optimism shines out of the book. He thinks Islam can be reformed, even that a Muslim Enlightenment is possible. He believes there was an earlier age of Islamic Enlightenment, an “Islamic Golden Age” which could serve as a precedent. Well, if one wants to see bright possibilities, Islam may come to prefer science to the assertions of its prophet. It may become humane in its law and stop oppressing women. It may contribute to human progress. But whatever changes may come to Islam in the future, at present it does not value life above death, freedom above coercion, knowledge above superstition. And there is no good reason to believe it ever will.

Jillian Becker    April 12, 2018

*Enlightenment Now: the Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker, Viking, New York 2018. The quotations in the article come from the last chapter, Humanism.

Yesterday, lured by a picture of Stephen Hawking, I read an article by Randy DeSoto, recording Franklin Graham’s regret that Hawking was an atheist.

I went to the comments. Some share the regret; some insist that the late great physicist is now – despite his atheism – with God. A few are by irritated atheists.

I succumbed to the temptation of writing something in the empty slot that had my thumbnail beside it. I asked: “What did God make matter out of?”

A design engineer, Matthew Winter, answered that as matter can neither be destroyed nor created, God must have given up some of his own energy to “create” matter. Not an entirely nonsensical notion. Matter is a form of energy.

He apparently understood God to be eternal and primal energy plus will. I wondered if he saw this theology of his as deism. I asked him if that was the same god who begat himself upon a virgin and answered personal prayers. I have not yet had a reply.

Some Christians, some believers in the gods of many religions, try hard to reconcile their faith with science. They often misquote Einstein to back up their arguments – as is done in the article on Hawking.

They fail, of course. Faith is not Reason. Science does not support the idea of divine creators, or of anything outside nature.

I continue to be amazed that adult, sane, educated, intelligent people can believe in the supernatural.

Jillian Becker    March 16, 2018

The “god” idea persists. (Where Was God When The Florida Massacre Happened? asks the atheist, Professor Steven Pinker, today – pointing out that “God” was nowhere.)

So let’s speak of it.

The human species is the only thing in our known universe that is a creator and moral law-maker. If “God” is a creator and moral law-maker, the human species is “God”.

Not any particular human being, but the species as a whole.

It is not omnipotent, it is not omniscient, but it is conscious. It consciously creates – not always successfully. It formulates moral principles. It judges, it rewards, it condemns – not always justly. It is a fallible god.

And it is subject to nature’s laws.

Nature’s laws – the laws of physics – were accepted as “God” by Spinoza and Einstein. And by the authors of the Declaration of Independence.

Nature’s laws are all-powerful, but they are not conscious; they are not moral. Conscious humankind can use them for its own purposes and control some of them sometimes. But cannot dominate them. Rather, they dominate – in that they produced, and sustain, and can destroy humankind.

Human consciousness and the laws of nature. Two “gods” then? Yes if you want to call them that. But: They do not need worship. They do not need ritual. They do not need sacrifices. They do not need temples. They do not need priests.

Call them two gods or call them, more interestingly and fruitfully, two interdependent worlds. And together they produce another, a third world.

Which brings us to the Three Worlds of Karl Popper*:

World 1: The physical world – material objects, natural events.

World 2: The mental world – individual consciousness, perception and interpretation of World 1.

World 3: The artificial world – things produced by interaction of World 1 and World 2 eg. speech, books, documents, buildings, ships, vehicles, cities, sciences, theories, governing laws, institutions, machines, computers, gardens, animal and plant hybrids, pianos, songs, works of graphic art …    And gods.

All three Worlds interact with each other.

There is nothing that is not of one, two, or all three of these worlds.

There is no supernatural “god”.

Non-existence does not have to be proved.

“Seeing no reason to believe is sufficient reason not to believe” – Karl Popper.

Or, as Christopher Hitchens puts it:

*Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem by Karl Popper, Routledge, New York & London, 1994.