Can you be an atheist and an environmentalist?
Ask anyone “Should we protect our environment?” and almost without exception they will answer yes. Thousands of square meters of forest area are lost to deforestation every second around the world: A total of 20,000 hectares per day, equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. [1] Who would say that we shouldn’t be at all concerned about air pollution, animal rights, or the permanent destruction of our planet’s rainforests?
The trickier question is why we should be so concerned.
Why save the Earth?
It may seem like an absurd question, because concern for our natural environment seems so obvious, and … well, natural.
“Naturalism” is the worldview that the natural world is all that exists: Nothing that cannot be explained physically and via scientific experiment exists. But if the natural world is all there is, what’s to stop human beings from doing what comes naturally
to them? If humans are merely animals, essentially no different than cats or monkeys, shouldn’t humans just do what’s natural, including wreck the environment if that’s what they “naturally” do? Where does responsibility to the Earth come in?
When we say we “should” do this or that, it implies a moral responsibility: That a particular action is morally preferable, or, on the other hand, morally deplorable. But this is exactly what naturalism does not allow for. There is no “ought”, there only “is”. If we are merely animals, what we call morality is merely an illusion, for a moral law requires some sort of outside standard, which is exactly what’s missing in a naturalist view of the world.
Where morality comes from
Contemporary philosophers struggle with the issue of morality when they approach it from a naturalistic perspective. Atheist philosopher Michael Onfray for example says our society is not truly secular, it is actually more like secular Christianity, and that without God we can be free to devise our own morality. He concludes that the basis for our understanding of what is moral is rooted in God’s existence.
The argument could be stated something like this:
- Real moral laws exist. We are obligated to do good and avoid evil.
- Either the atheistic (God doesn’t exist) or the theistic (God exists) conception of reality is correct.
- But the atheistic view is incompatible with the existence of real good and evil.
- Therefore the theistic view of reality is correct; God exists. [2]
Naturalism is incompatible with morality. Philosopher Greg Koukl gives the following illustration:
One evening in the middle of a Scrabble game, you notice the phrase “do not go” formed in the random spray of letter tiles on the table. Is this a command that ought to be obeyed? Of course not. It’s not a command at all, just a random collection of letters.
Commands are communications between two minds. Chance might conceivably create the appearance of a moral rule, but there can be no command if no one is speaking. Since this phrase is accidental, it can safely be ignored.
Put simply, a moral law requires a moral law-giver. In atheism, no moral law-giver exists; therefore there can be no real moral laws.
Can you be an atheist AND an environmentalist?
So this helps explain why there is (or should be) internal tension for the atheist environmentalist. This does not mean an atheist cannot, in practical terms, be moral and/or an environmentalist; of course a person may be both. But it leads us to question where the grounding for such a combination could possibly come from.
On one hand they (or you?) believe that the wanton destruction of our natural environment is wrong. And it is wrong. Not just wrong in the sense of “I don’t personally like it” but in the sense of being objectively wrong.
But on the other hand, there’s no grounding for such a belief in objective right and wrong apart from belief in God. Greg Koukl continues:
If I stood at an intersection and put my hand up, cars might stop voluntarily, but they’d have no duty to respond. They could ignore me with no fear of punishment because I have no authority to direct traffic. If, on the other hand, a policeman replaced me, traffic would come to a halt.
What is the difference between the policeman and me? My authority is not grounded. It doesn’t rest on anything solid. The policeman, however, represents the government, so his authority is justified.
Standing firmly in mid-air
Without God claiming an objective moral rule loses its grounding because there is nothing (no one) to give it legitimate authority. You lose your grounding: It’s like trying to stand firmly in mid-air. So it seems as though a person can be an atheist, or be an environmentalist, but not both:
A moral atheist is like a man sitting down to dinner who doesn’t believe in farmers, ranchers, fishermen, or cooks. He believes the food just appears, with no explanation and no sufficient cause. This is silly. Either his meal is an illusion, or someone provided it. In the same way, if morals really exist, as I have argued, then some cause adequate to explain the effect must account for them. God is the most reasonable solution. [3]
Something to think about
If you believe that destroying our Earth is wrong, really wrong, this necessitates belief in objective moral values, which in turn necessitates the existence of a God to provide the grounding for moral laws. Think about this, and please continue to think about some of the resources for further reading listed below.
Notes & Further Reading:
[1] “Net forest loss 20,000 hectares per day”, Cited 20 March 2008.
[2] Adapted from Peter Keeft, “Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God” Cited 20 March 2008.
[3] Gregory Koukl, “Evil as Evidence for God” Cited 20 March 2008.
Great point. I’ve been giving this issue some thought too lately. I can’t really see why an atheist would not just live hedonistically, a la Oscar Wilde, since sans God, there is no moral code we should live by.
“On one hand they (or you?) believe that the wanton destruction of our natural environment is wrong. And it is wrong. Not just wrong in the sense of “I don’t personally like it” but in the sense of being objectively wrong.”
Actually, “I don’t personally like it” is a perfectly valid reason to be an environmentalist. People don’t need to believe that a supernatural being dissaproves of ecological devestation in order to realize that its consequences will be unpleasant for them.
(Edit)
“Devastation” not “Devestation”
Wallaby07, thank you for your comments. They confirm the point of the article; that if there is no real objective right or wrong, “I don’t personally like it” is the only valid reason for doing it. But that also means that 1) There’s no necessity for me to do it, 2) There’s no justification to try to convince someone they should do it. (“should” implies a moral standard) If there is no real right or wrong, then a person could say “I don’t give a flying fart about the environment, I’ll be dead by the time any real effects are felt so why would I care about it?” and that would be equally (equally notice) as morally valid as the alternative. That the two opposite perspectives could be morally equivalent seems misguided, to me at least.