Atheism Leads to Wokeness! By James Reed

Does Atheism lead to Leftist woke? That seems at first glance not strictly correct, since we have notable examples of supposed theists, who allegedly believe in God, being ultra-woke, with the present Pope being one example. And when I went to church, I saw these types every week, so now I just pray at home on my own. In any case it has been argued that countries like America have high levels of religiosity and low levels of atheism, but still have high wokeness. Australia has long ceased to be majority Christian, and has high levels of wokeness. Eastern Europe has high levels of religiosity, low levels of atheism, but low levels of wokeness. Much of Western Europe is somewhere in-between America and Australia.

Thus, the relationship between atheism and woke is not a simple causal one. I would propose that atheism puts humans as being the moral centre of the universe, so it is quite likely that Leftist beliefs would be adopted if the only standard of moral goodness is that which serves human interests. Once Leftism is accepted, then woke is a "natural" evolution. If on the other hand Christianity is accepted, there is a presumption that Christian tradition would be maintained, which would counter Leftist woke ideologies such as the denial of binary sex, that there is a justified distinction between males and females. Still, Leftist woke beliefs may come to be imposed upon people, who may inconsistently adopt the woke beliefs, say to keep a job, but be Christians on Sundays.

Thus, atheism has a tendency to lead to woke, but the links are not simple and mechanical.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/why-its-fair-to-blame-wokeness-on-atheism/

"Non-woke atheists have a problem – their worldview opens the door for wokeness.

Colin Wright is an evolutionary biologist and an atheist who holds to the truth that sex is binary.

He is also critical of transgender drugs and surgeries for minors and left academia due to hostility he faced for his factual views (though unorthodox in higher ed) about sex and gender. He recently suggested atheists are not to blame for the growth in wokeism.

"It's possible that the decline in Christianity created a void that wokeness rose to fill. But who/what is to blame for that?" he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

"It is the fault of atheists for lacking belief? Or is it the fault of Christianity for not being very factually believable?" he wrote on August 21.

A day earlier, Helen Pluckrose posted an essay on Wright's Substack page, "Reality's Last Stand," titled "Atheism Did Not Cause Wokeness." Pluckrose is a British author who is critical of "diversity, equity, and inclusion."

She participated in the "Grievance Studies" hoax, where she, along with Portland State University Professor Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay, had fake papers published. The papers were ostensibly about feminism, gender studies, and other socially leftist ideas, but were actually nonsense to prove the low publishing standards in academia.

"As we (anti-woke atheists) clearly see that wokeism is terrible for society, can we not admit that Christianity was better and consider going back to it?" Pluckrose wrote. "Absolutely not, no."

While agreeing with Wright, she appears to take a contradictory stance that religion is rising, and so is wokeness, therefore atheism cannot be to blame.

This is a fallacy – a town can have 10,000 people, 5,000 of whom are morbidly obese and 5,000 who run 5 miles a day.

She was challenging the "Substitution Hypothesis of Wokeism," which, in her words, "holds that people need a religious structure to bring them community, purpose and meaning, and, as religion declines, they seize onto another quasi-religious structure to take its place, and this is wokeism." (Wright agrees that community and "ceremony" are needed).

Her short essay essentially argues that America has high levels of religiosity (based on a survey about prayer) and low levels of atheism. Therefore, if wokeness is higher in America, it cannot be due to atheism.

Let us first define wokeness.

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There are two types of "wokeness" – sexual wokeness and racial wokeness.

To "stay woke" was a warning for black Americans to "be aware of racially motivated threats and the potential dangers of white America," as reported by Vox.

It might be more accurate to say the potential dangers of racist white people, not "white America" in general. It was used in a 1938 song about "nine Black teenagers in Scottsboro, Arkansas, who were accused of raping two white women," according to Vox.

In the sense of being aware or staying "woke" to actual injustices against people on the basis of race, Christians should be "woke."

However, the term woke has taken on two other meanings. It now encompasses a broader array of racial politics that includes terms like "microaggressions" and "white privilege." When corporations "go woke," they embrace "diversity, equity, and inclusion" and hold "white privilege" trainings, for example.

Wokeness also pushes unjust ideas, like separating people on the basis of race and providing college scholarships only to non-white students. Christians must oppose these ideas because they discriminate on the basis of race and unjustly divide human beings.

But since Wright's work focuses more on transgender and "sexual identity" issues, let us assume he is talking about atheism and sexual wokeness. This would include false ideas like the "gender unicorn," that boys can become girls, and declaring your "preferred pronouns."

So, does atheism cause wokeness? At its core, atheism would appear to just be the belief that there is no God.

But this suspicion of religion, which logically follows from not believing in God, then leads atheists to have a need to develop their own belief system. Atheism must extend beyond just the wrong idea that there is no God – I assume that's why we need "New Atheists."

Pluckrose wrote in her essay:

Rather than trying to get people to all hold a shared belief system, let's work for a consensus on better managing the different belief systems any society of humans will inevitably have. Let's strengthen and enforce the liberal principle of, "You may believe what you wish but you must not force it on me." Let's expand and enforce the secular principle of separation of Church and State to include separation of wokeism and state (and any other ideology and state).

Notably, this is a shared belief system. It might be called "Enlightenment values" or "classical liberalism." When people "work for a consensus" on how to manage "different belief systems" and "strengthen and enforce" a "principle," that is a shared belief system.

But it suffers from an error in that its end is to have a system of beliefs without any other moral structure besides just letting people do what they want. A libertarian would make the same mistake in viewing anything that comes from a free-market capitalist system as inherently good. The ends don't justify the means, but also the means don't justify the ends.

Pluckrose should realize her error, because what she is fighting against, it seems, is people making wrong choices. Pluckrose wanted to expose academia for promoting what she viewed as nonsense ideas. But why? Why does she not respect their right to publish nonsense?

Because, I assume, that while she believes in free speech, she also wants to combat errors.

What might be troubling Wright and Pluckrose is that they see the gender nonsense – and it is coming from their own atheist friends or at least people who are not conservative Christians.

They should acknowledge that the people they were fighting the most in academia were not Latin Mass-attending Catholics or Evangelical Christians, but either declared atheists or nominal Christians (i.e., Unitarians).

After all, a Lutheran, a Catholic, or a Jew can look at Genesis and see "Male and female, He created them." Christians can look to their church for guidance on important moral topics like abortion, marriage, and human sexuality.

Atheism at least opens the door to wokeism.

Several thought experiments can help Wright and Pluckrose see this.

If someone asked them where to send their kids to college so they would not go woke, would they pick A. A secular liberal college known for promoting atheism or B. A conservative Christian college?

If they had a big expose on the transgender drug industry, would they find a more receptive audience at the annual American Humanist Association conference or a Family Research Council event?

In other words, why is it that sexual wokeism has taken such a hold within atheist communities?

Because without a guiding structure, anything can flourish.

While there are examples of Catholic parishes and organizations going woke, it still seems generally true that the more dogmatic and structured a religious group is, the less likely it is to embrace wokeism.

In other words, while Pluckrose lumps all religions together into one, we can create a spectrum.

On one side would be the Catholic Church, then the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and high church Anglicans. We can go down the line until we end just before atheism, at Unitarian Universalists.

This latter group believes basically what Pluckrose, an atheist, believes.

"Our beliefs are diverse and inclusive. We have no shared creed," the Unitarian Universalist Association explains. "Our shared covenant is expressed through the inseparable and deeply interdependent shared values of interdependence, pluralism, justice, transformation, generosity, and equity."

The first sentence is almost the same as Pluckrose's philosophy: "Rather than trying to get people to all hold a shared belief system, let's work for a consensus on better managing the different belief systems any society of humans will inevitably have."

But again, this falls apart easily – how would Unitarians handle some members who wanted the church to oppose abortion while others wanted it to take a stance in support of abortion? One view must win out – even not taking a stance is implicitly being pro-abortion.

Ultimately, this is where Pluckrose and Wright's vision fall apart – someone's ideas are correct, and someone's ideas will win out politically. Those are not always the same, unfortunately.

They would acknowledge this – that sex is binary, yet public schools and our laws sometimes teach that gender is on a spectrum.

This is why it is not possible to have a values-neutral public square. Pluckrose said she wants to separate "wokeness" from the "state." But this requires having a value system and, in a way, forcing a belief onto someone.

For example, if a school board forbids teachers from talking to kindergarteners about sexuality, it is forcing this belief onto them (but for good reason). It is not respecting the views of teachers who believe kindergarteners should be talked to about sexuality.

Some view must ultimately win – let us hope and pray it is a Christ-centered worldview and not a woke and atheist one."