I have often heard atheists and agnostics accused of believing in nothing, especially by apologists. As though, all belief has to be sourced in god or religion to exist at all. The usual response is that you do not, believe in belief. But I would rather say that, you do not want any more in unfounded, blind, unjustified belief, than you must have. Since it is at least, a simple observation, that most of us do believe in something, often many things. Whether it be, environmentalism, true democracy, human rights, science, socialism, capitalism, libertarianism, welfare, humanism, the green movement, progressive arts, the glory of nature, or some secular charity, etc., etc.

I do not therefore think that atheism/agnosticism is about abolishing belief, but about replacing old broken and corrupt beliefs with better ones. Just as Christianity, for example, replaced the corrupt state paganism, back in the days of the Roman empire. Since traditional religions today, are not just a problem because they directly oppose progress. But also simply, because they get in the way; taking time and resources from better more effective belief systems. Which, like secular charities, are not only better at forwarding what they do, by explaining what they want directly and being free from dangerous inherited baggage. But also because they are actually better at building communities and creating their own rituals, stories, narratives, metaphors and traditions, in fact all of the things that people look to traditional religions for.

This may not seem quite so true from a USA centric perspective, but it is a wide world, and to give just one example. Here in the UK each year there is an annual citizens science ritual, where people count the birds they see for one hour, on one given day each year. They then send their observations to the RSPB, ( A bird centred conservation charity. ) who compile statistics from them. And here is the rub. More people take part in that each year, than go to church.

Many apologists will also ask. How do you derive morality without religion ? Well the obvious answer to that is, that if you can not derive morality without religion, then from where did religion get its morality from ? ( However primitive that morality may be. ) Someone must have derived it from somewhere. There is, it is true, a quite strong philosophical argument, they will often fall back on, that. You can not prove morality just by logic, from first principles.

Which may or may not be true, I really don't care. Because it is very easy to derive morality logically in several ways, if you only allow yourself to start with believing in just a single prerequisite. Such as for example. “I would prefer to live in a happy world.” Or. “The well being of the world and the people in it, is a good objective.” Because then it follows that if I take, any one of many like those, as a given, then you have to ask what is logically the best way to achieve that. And your morality logically follows. You only need one of several such prerequisites, to accept belief in.

And to deny it, you would have find someone who was prepared to disbelieve a statement like. “I would prefer to live in a happy world.” Which is at least I think, is a much less incredible thing to believe in, than. “I believe in the holy trinity, the rapist, his baby zombie and whatever makes the priest talk funny.”