“He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.”

This was a wise saying from the nihilist philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. The statement also translates to, we must not become the very thing we despise and avoid the same pitfalls that our nemeses have committed. It applies to us, secular humanists – we must not become like religion, the opposition which we seek to depart. In this article, we will distinguish secular humanism from militant atheism and remind ourselves of what sets us apart. For better or worse, we are imperfect humans prone to making mistakes, just like the believers of religion. This awareness of our own imperfections is what will prevent us humanists from committing the same errors of religion as the militant atheists do.

Recently, I read David Niose’s article on the “The Myth of Militant Atheism.” In it, he demonstrated that there exists a double standard in this society wherein if a believer expresses his religious beliefs, he is exercising his freedom of speech. But if a non-believer is openly secular, expresses his disbelief, or criticizes religious dogma, he is labeled as a militant atheist. This double standard implies that if you’re an atheist, you should be silent about criticism while believers are allowed to express their beliefs no matter how condescending it may go against atheism.

If this is what is meant by militant atheism, then all non-believers are actually militant atheists. And I definitely agree with Niose in his conclusion that if militant atheism is just a scapegoat for this double standard, then militant atheism is a myth.

However, that is not the kind of militant atheism I am referring to. Hence, we need to be clear about what militant atheism is; to essentially draw the line on what it means so that the word does not lose its meaning in the context of this article especially if we consider that the word militant atheism itself has a ‘vague’ meaning. So what is a militant atheist?

We could call someone a militant atheist if that person is aggressive towards believers to such an extent that they will impose their beliefs.

When I speak of Militant Atheism, I am referring to the kind of disbelief that is caused by hatred and guilty of the same pitfalls that are ascribed to religion. It is the type of atheism that is intolerant of religion and whose hostility is extreme – one that is willing to cause war or is in favor of violence for an anti-religious cause on the basis of hatred for religion and burn churches to the ground. We could even call someone a militant atheist if that person is aggressive towards believers to such an extent that they will impose their beliefs, not leave them alone until they are ‘proselytized’ towards disbelief and are unwilling to revise their own stances in light of evidence.

In a real-life example, there existed an extreme case of militant atheism in history wherein the same pitfalls were ascribed to organized religion. This takes the form of the Russian League of Militant Atheists during the 1940s, where they aided the Soviet government in the execution of clergy and devout believers. This resulted in the deaths of over a hundred bishops, tens of thousands of Orthodox clergy, and thousands of lay believers. By then, the number of religious communities of all faiths was reduced from 50,000 in 1930 to 8,000 in 1941. They were guilty of the same mistakes of religious oppressors who weaponized dogma to justify violence and intolerance against non-believers. One could wish that this was not a reality since believers are also human. As secular humanists, we are to treat our fellows as human regardless of what they believe in. We condemn all the actions of the League of Militant Atheists as a violent means to impose disbelief, for it is against the humanist value of tolerance and respect. It is important to note, however, that they are not representative of atheism and irreligion as a whole in the same way that the actions of the Inquisition also do not speak for the totality of religion. The only thing that can be deduced from the latter is how certain religious beliefs that enable oppression can be used to justify such in the guise of obedience and faithfulness. As Armin Navabi pointed out :

“While some theists also hold fundamentalist beliefs, just believing that some god exists is not enough to cause wars and violence based on the belief alone. How many wars have been caused by deism? You’d need some additional dogmatic beliefs in order for that to happen. No one commits mass murder in the name of theism or atheism alone. Additional dogmatic principles are needed to justify such grisly outcomes. In the case of theism, religions like Christianity and Islam provide such dogma, creating convenient excuses.”

The only common denominator with atheists is the assertion that the supernatural does not exist.

On the other hand, atheism does not have a concrete uniform dogma, so it is not reasonable to argue that atheism condones violence or that dictators have killed in the name of atheism since no two atheists uphold the same beliefs or values. The only common denominator with atheists is the assertion that the supernatural does not exist. Atheism alone is not an ingredient nor a requisite or an essence for violence; one will need to believe in authoritarianism before committing such actions. It then follows that there are morally upright, compassionate atheists and aggressive, unkind, extreme atheists in the same way that there are tolerant, kind believers and intolerant, hypocritical religious extremists.

While it is rare to encounter this kind of atheist (although they do exist), we must be careful as secular humanists not to become a militant atheist in this context. It is understandable that many, though not all, non-believers and secular humanists in the present have experienced oppression and trauma from their past with religion. However, they must be careful not to be blinded by hate or intolerance so as to prevent becoming like religion, like the monsters they have despised. And I think this is one of the huge problems of militant atheism – intolerance, which is the same pitfall of religious extremism. As Karl Popper once pointed out through his concept of the paradox of intolerance, we must not tolerate the intolerant (in this case is both militant atheism and religious extremism) because unlimited tolerance leads to the extinction of tolerance and only reciprocate tolerance to those who tolerate us. Again, one of the core virtues of humanism is tolerance and respect for differences amidst criticism:

Tolerance is surely a basic humanist virtue. We do not wish to suppress the beliefs and values of those in society with whom we disagree, so long as they are not destructive of the rights of others. We need to live and let live, to respect diversity and dissent. Granted, but this surely should not guarantee everyone and anyone exemption from criticism.

We are first and foremost, humanists before being secular. We seek to set humanity as a whole in the path of perfection despite our own imperfections through righteousness, empathy, reason, and creation of meaning independent of supernaturalism. We should be the first to truly love our neighbors as ourselves. As they say, “there is no quite hate like Christian love” because they only love their neighbor if their neighbor is a Christian and wish ill of others who do not share their belief. I’m not saying that this is representative of all Christians or all religions, but the point is – we must be better than that. We should be the first to extend our compassion to all our fellow citizens regardless of our differences in beliefs and co-exist with them. If anything, the secular humanist must be the first person to be sympathetic towards believers and understand their situation especially if one was formerly like them. Whether we like it or not, believers are also victims of the dogmatism, distorted thinking, exploitation and oppression of religion which oftentimes, they are unable to see and transcend due to their brainwashed condition. The point, however, is to liberate them from these errors through criticism and provocative skepticism without contempt.

It is the idea that the supernatural does not exist that enables us to authentically live our lives in meaning and righteousness for if the supernatural does not exist.

The secular humanist must live by example because it is their life that will attest to the effectiveness of their stance. We must live by example to demonstrate that contrary to what most believers think – it is not so bad to disbelieve especially if one is just one god away from disbelieving. The problem with militant atheism is it being guilty of the same mistakes from religion. Secular humanism is nothing like militant atheism (except for disbelief in the supernatural) for it is nothing like religion. As Paul Kurtz implied in his works of Eupraxophy and Exuberance, it is the idea that the supernatural does not exist that enables us to authentically live our lives in meaning and righteousness for if the supernatural does not exist, there is no one to dictate our values but we are left to cultivate them on our own.

To conclude, it is then our choice to cultivate our values not just independent of religion but also in such a way that does not replicate the same pitfalls of religion and ultimately ground them from both reason and empathy. That is what distinguishes secular humanism from militant atheism – we must avoid becoming the latter.

Works Cited

• Cline, Austin., “Militant Atheist Definition and Examples,” Learn Religions, March 06, 2009.
• Kurtz, Paul., Eupraxophy: Living Without Religion (New York: Prometheus Books, 1994), 140.
• Navabi, Armin., Why There Is No God (California: CreateSpace Independent, 2014), 77-80.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich., Beyond Good and Evil trans. R.J Hollingdale (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003), 102.
• Niose, David., “The Myth of Militant Atheism,” Psychology Today, February 17, 2011.
• Popper, Karl., “Chapter 7, The Principle of Leadership”. The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge, 1945), 265–266.
• Pospielovsky, Dimitry., A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, Vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1987), 68.
• Stearns, Peter., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 278.
• Weeks, Theodore., Across the Revolutionary Divide: Russia and the USSR, 1861-1945 (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2011).