Atheism is Pantheistic Nature Worship

Atheism is pantheistic nature worship.

One inexorable thing about religion is that human beings cannot escape it. Whether we change the words or deny them outright, religion describes (accurately) the way by which we relate to that which we find most true, compelling, and valuable.

A Christian, for example, finds Christ most true, most compelling, and most valuable.

Supposedly, an atheist finds science most true, most compelling, and most valuable.

Science, however, is not a thing or a content, but a methodology, one by which one filters varying types of empirical observations about nature. It is actually totally nature-focused, and as such gives nature pride of place as that which must be submitted to. In fact, this is what is indicated by saying atheism is nature worship.

Now, because atheism does not recognize an authority higher than nature, nature therefore stands in for its highest truth and authority, that which cannot be overcome, countermanded, or escaped. Practically speaking, whether something is true or not, whatever is one's highest truth or principle is one's god. As such, atheists treat nature as god, and so, since there is nothing beyond nature according to such naturalism, they are in this sense quite pantheistic.

Pantheism is the idea that god is Thing, and is All the Things. It fails to recognize a transcendental reality, but collapses on an extreme focus on material reality, infusing ultimate meaning therein and admitting nothing beyond it. This is precisely the position of atheism.

Atheism is thus just a modern form of an old saw: pantheistic nature worship. Do not let its reductive materialism, scientism, and advanced technology fool you, for these are merely a thin veneer masking one of the most primitive types of mentality.

Moral Arguments claiming "It's Natural" are False and Dangerous

It is not only false and irrational but actually dangerous to assert that because something is "natural" it is therefore also moral.

Simply because something happens in nature, or simply because animals are observed to perform some behavior in their natural setting, that it is somehow therefore morally acceptable for a human to perform the same behavior, is patently absurd and morally depraved thinking.

In short, it is false in at least two ways:

The first is that animals commit cannibalism, slavery, murder, war, even genocide. As such, if someone argues that "natural behavior" is okay because it occurs in nature, then one must also include by implication that cannibalism, slavery, murder, war, and even genocide are also okay, because they occur in nature and are equally "only natural."

The second way one gets oneself in trouble is because humans are also part of nature, and because they are equally a part of nature one implies that everything a human does can therefore be considered natural, and therefore moral. With this reasoning one again justifies rape, cannibalism, abuse, slavery, pedophilia, murder, torture, war, and genocide.

The first example is irrational because one has no criteria by which to deny any evil, and so there is likewise no criteria for determining any good either. One cannot proclaim something good in a system which cannot discern what a good even is, only what is natural - thereby not only letting in all the cruelty of nature, but actually justifying cannibalism, slavery, murder, war, and genocide. The second example suffers the same fate as the first, but is particularly grievous because it ends by making all human behavior self-justifying in its "naturalness."

In sum, one cannot rationally argue that because it is "natural" it is therefore okay, because then it is okay to do anything that animals do, or okay to simply do whatever terrible deed because it is simply a part of human "nature." This is irrational and completely undermines the entire moral force of an argument "from nature," actually disallowing any sense of morality, and dangerously justifying great evil.

Nature is no basis for determining right and wrong, and without right and wrong one cannot argue that ANY behavior is morally defensible.