Concept

Atheism as Escapism

Intro

Christians are often told that faith is escapism. Believers, the charge goes, cannot face a world without meaning, so they invent a God to make death bearable and life feel important. This page turns the question around. Can atheism be a way of escaping something too?

The answer is yes, sometimes. If there is no God, there is no one to answer to. Nobody has the right to tell you how to live. Guilt is just a feeling. Death is the end, so whatever you did, it does not follow you. For some people, that is not a bleak conclusion they were forced into. It is a relief they were looking for.

Before going any further, one thing has to be said plainly: why a person believes something does not decide whether it is true. An atheist could have bad motives and still be right. A Christian could have bad motives and still be right. So this page is not an argument that God exists. It is a tool for clearing away a false picture, the picture where the atheist is the cool-headed realist and the believer is the one running from hard truths. Motives run in both directions. Once that is admitted, both sides have to go back to the actual evidence.

The point can be put in one sentence: Sometimes the strongest objections to God are feelings that let us avoid the arguments. That is true of some believers. It is also true of some unbelievers. The honest test for anyone is simple: "If this turned out to be true, would I be willing to face it?"

◎ See this page's graph and discover linked topics →

In full

Atheism as escapism is the claim that, for at least some unbelievers, the rejection of God is motivated in part by the desire to be free of what God's existence would entail: moral accountability, binding obligation, real guilt, and a judgment after death. It is the mirror image of the "religion is a crutch" objection associated with Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud, and it is answered by Religion Is a Crutch Objection Defeater from the other side.

The claim is a statement about motive, not about truth. Used as a refutation of atheism it commits the Genetic Fallacy, exactly as the crutch objection does when used against theism. Its legitimate uses are three:

1. Symmetry. It removes the assumption that unbelief is the default, motive-free position and belief the motivated one. If wish-fulfillment can explain belief, aversion can explain unbelief.
2. Self-examination. It gives both believer and unbeliever a question to put to themselves about whether their conclusions are tracking evidence or comfort.
3. Biblical anthropology. Scripture predicts that human beings will suppress knowledge of God for moral reasons (Romans 1:18-20; John 3:19-20). The page tests that prediction against what unbelievers have said about themselves. See Suppression of God Thesis for the full philosophical convergence.

The talk-track below is built for conversation, not for debate scoring. It concedes the logical point first, then presses the symmetry, then invites the other person to ask the honesty question of themselves.

Concede first: motive is not truth

Start here, every time. It costs nothing and it disarms the obvious reply.

• The genetic fallacy cuts both ways. "You only believe because you are afraid of death" does not show Christianity false. "You only disbelieve because you do not want to be accountable" does not show atheism false. Both move from the psychology of the believer to the truth of the belief, and both are invalid. See Genetic Fallacy.
• Many atheists are not escaping anything. Plenty of unbelievers reached their position through grief, honest doubt, bad experiences with churches, or arguments they found persuasive. Some would very much like there to be a God and cannot bring themselves to believe. This page is not a diagnosis of every atheist.
• So what is the point? The point is to level the ground. If the conversation begins with "you are the one with motives and I am the one with evidence," it will go nowhere. Once both sides admit they have motives, the conversation can turn to evidence.

Suggested opening: "I'll grant that people can believe in God for bad reasons. I'll even grant that I might. Can we agree that people can also disbelieve for bad reasons? Then let's both set motives aside and look at the arguments."

Reversing the crutch argument

The best-known version of the "faith is escapism" charge is Freud's. In The Future of an Illusion (1927) he argued that God is a projection of the father, an exalted protector invented by people who never outgrew the helplessness of childhood.

The psychologist Paul Vitz, himself a former atheist, ran Freud's logic in reverse. In Faith of the Fatherless (1999) he proposed what he called the defective-father hypothesis: if belief in God grows out of a child's relationship with his father, then a dead, absent, weak, or abusive father should make belief in God harder, and make rejection of God easier. Vitz then surveyed the biographies of prominent atheists and skeptics, including Nietzsche, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Camus, and Freud himself, and found that pattern repeatedly. He set them beside prominent believers of the same periods, such as Pascal, Chesterton, and Wilberforce, whose fathers were present and loving.

Use this carefully.

• It is illustrative, not proof. Vitz's method is biographical, just as Freud's was. That is the point: if Freud's method counts against belief, Vitz's counts against unbelief. If neither counts, the crutch objection falls with it.
• It explains, it does not accuse. The defective-father hypothesis is compassionate. It suggests that some people reject God not out of pride but out of wounds, and that the God they reject is often shaped like the father who failed them.

What atheism lets one escape

If God exists, certain things follow that many people would rather were not true. Naming them honestly is the heart of this page.

1. Accountability. If God exists, I answer to someone who knows everything I have done and thought. If not, I answer to no one but myself and whatever consequences I cannot avoid.
2. Moral obligation. If God exists, there are commands that bind me whether I agree or not, including in areas such as sex, money, and forgiveness where I would most like to make my own rules. If not, morality is open to renegotiation.
3. Guilt. If God exists, guilt can be real moral debt and not just a feeling to be managed. If not, guilt is a psychological state with a therapeutic solution.
4. The seriousness of death. If God exists, death is followed by judgment (Acts 17:30-31). If not, death ends every story the same way, and nothing I do now carries past it.

Every one of these is a reason someone might prefer atheism. None of them is a reason to think atheism is true. That gap is the whole point.

Paul's message at Athens names the accountability directly:

The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31, ASV)

Hostile witnesses

The strongest material for this conversation comes from unbelievers themselves.

Thomas Nagel. The NYU philosopher Thomas Nagel, an atheist, wrote in The Last Word (1997):

I want atheism to be true... It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that. (Thomas Nagel, as quoted in Frank Turek, Stealing from God, PDF p. 120)

Nagel went on to describe this as a cosmic authority problem and to suggest it is common among his peers. He is not confessing that his atheism is irrational. He is admitting that he has a stake in the outcome, which is exactly the point.

Aldous Huxley. In Ends and Means (1937), the novelist and essayist Aldous Huxley looked back on his own earlier unbelief and admitted that he had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, assumed that it had none, and found reasons for the assumption without difficulty. He described the philosophy of meaninglessness, for himself and many of his contemporaries, as an instrument of liberation, partly political and partly a liberation from a moral system that interfered with their sexual freedom.

Neither witness proves God exists. Both show that the motive runs in the direction this page describes, stated in the first person by people with no interest in helping Christians.

What Scripture says

The Bible does not treat unbelief as a purely intellectual problem. It treats it as moral as well.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness; because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20, ASV)

Paul's claim is that knowledge of God is not missing but held down, and held down in unrighteousness. See Suppression of God Thesis and Innate Knowledge of God.

And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved. (John 3:19-20, ASV)

Jesus gives the motive in plain terms: people avoid the light "lest his works should be reproved." That is escapism defined in a single verse.

Use these texts with care in conversation. Quoting Romans 1 at an unbeliever as a diagnosis of his heart will usually end the conversation. The texts are better used to explain why Christians expect motives to be in play, and to invite the other person to consider whether any are in play for them.

What escapism is, and a test for it

Escapism is choosing or keeping a belief because of what it lets you avoid, rather than because of the evidence for it. It is not the same as having feelings about a belief. Everyone has feelings about the question of God. Escapism is when the feeling is doing the work the evidence should be doing.

The test is a single question anyone can ask:

If this turned out to be true, would I be willing to face it?

An honest yes does not settle anything about God. But a no, or a reluctance to even consider the question, is a sign that something other than evidence is guarding the conclusion. The question is fair to put to a believer about atheism, and fair to put to an unbeliever about Christianity.

Fairness: believers escape too

This page would be dishonest without this section. Christians can use faith as an escape just as surely as atheists can use unbelief.

For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3-4, ASV)

Paul is describing church people. "Itching ears" is religious escapism: choosing teachers because they say what you want to hear. Prosperity preaching that promises comfort without a cross, a God who affirms and never judges, a faith kept sealed off from hard questions because examining it would be frightening: all of these are ways believers escape.

The Christian answer to that is not to pretend it does not happen. It is to insist that faith must rest on what is true, not on what is comfortable, which is why Paul staked everything on a public historical event (1 Corinthians 15:14-19). See Faith is Belief Without Evidence Objection.

The refined thesis

The careless version of this argument says, "Atheists just want to sin." That is false as a generalization, it is insulting, and it commits the same fallacy it complains about.

The careful version says:

Sometimes the strongest objections to God are feelings that let us avoid the arguments.

This version is true, it applies to everyone, and it opens a conversation instead of closing one. It does not claim to know any particular person's heart. It claims only that human beings, believers included, are capable of letting what they want decide what they believe, and that the question of God is exactly where that is most likely to happen.

Questions to ask

These are meant to be asked gently, and only after listening.

1. "If Christianity were true, what would have to change in your life?"
2. "Is there any part of you that would be relieved to find out God isn't real?"
3. "What would it take for you to change your mind? Is that a standard you'd apply to other beliefs?"
4. "When you first stopped believing, was it an argument that did it, or something that happened?"
5. "If it turned out to be true, would you want to know?"

None of these is a trap. Each one is also a question a Christian should be willing to answer about his own faith.

Handling pushback

"That's an ad hominem."

It would be, if offered as proof that atheism is false. It is not. Agree immediately: motives do not settle truth. The point is that the crutch argument does not settle it either, and that once both are set aside the conversation must turn to evidence. See Ad Hominem.

"You just want heaven. That's your escape."

Grant it partly. Christians do want heaven, and that desire is no proof of Christianity. But note what comes with Christianity: judgment, repentance, self-denial, forgiving enemies, and a hell. If I were inventing a religion to escape into, I would leave those out. See Religion Is a Crutch Objection Defeater and Argument from the Fear of Death.

"I don't believe anything. I just lack belief in God."

Then this page does not apply to you as a position, only as a question. Lacking belief can still be motivated. A person can decline to examine a question because of what the answer might cost. The test still applies: if it turned out to be true, would you want to know? See Atheism is a Belief and Burden of Proof.

"Atheists can be perfectly moral. We don't want to escape morality."

Agreed, and many atheists are more moral than many Christians. The point is not that atheists behave worse. It is that atheism removes any authority above the self, so morality becomes something one chooses rather than something one owes. Some people find that freedom attractive, and it is fair to ask whether that attraction is part of the case. See I Can Do Good Without God Objection and Atheist Moral Realism Objection.

See also

• Religion Is a Crutch Objection Defeater, the objection this page reverses
• Suppression of God Thesis, the eight-line philosophical convergence on motivated unbelief
• Innate Knowledge of God, the doctrine of the knowledge being suppressed
• Thomas Nagel, the cosmic authority problem in his own words
• Paul Vitz, the defective-father hypothesis
• Sigmund Freud, the author of the projection thesis
• Genetic Fallacy, why motive does not settle truth
• Appeal to Emotion, when feeling replaces argument
• Appeal to Consequences, disliking where a belief leads is not evidence against it
• Argument from the Fear of Death, the existential argument from death
• Argument from Purpose Meaning and Hope, the existential argument from meaning
• Atheism, parent hub