Plato on atheism

Plato’s Laws is the last book he wrote. He was old and grumpy, repeating himself, perfecting his system, refining, always refining, searching for the perfect form to express ideas, and adding content to the forms he had already discovered. The Laws is a funny book, because it has the same topic as his most famous book, the Republic (how to construct an ideal political community); and yet he felt the need to follow it up with a far longer book on the same topic. Usually, great writers don’t write another version of their magnum opus—it would be like Melville writing Moby Dick 2.

I get the feeling that a big part of why he felt the need to write the Laws was because years had passed since the Republic, and many things had annoyed him, which he needed to address. Stupidity was growing, and Plato felt his mission in life was to try to destroy stupidity, as much as possible. In this respect, special attention is given to atheism, which attracts young minds, and requires the most patient and special argumentative power. A lifetime of exasperation oozes through in Plato’s discussion of atheism (more accurately, atheists). Perhaps nobody irritated Plato more than this type of person, who is still very much around today.

What did Plato have to say about atheists in his time, 2000 years ago? “It’s inevitable that we be harshly disposed toward, and hate” them. He says that atheist beliefs “are put forward by men considered wise by young people…” Plato systematically goes through the atheist beliefs against the gods, with an exasperated tone (we won’t go through all that here)—but the interesting thing is how stupid and hateable he views these people, and how it is a kind of trap for young minds to get ensnared in. This was the case then, and is equally now. A trap for young minds, which we can and should inevitably hate.

The striking thing about Plato’s discussion of atheists is how well it describes the atheists of today. Maybe now, in 2024, atheists are less prevalent, in a way—they were at their peak maybe 15 years ago, with the rise of figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and others. Now, Dawkins is retired, Sam Harris’ career flamed out (thank GOD), Dennett and Hitchens are dead, and that whole weird movement seems lost in time, often dismissed as a form of reddit bullshit. Still, it was a formative part of 21st century cultural politics—and its real legacy was in laying the groundwork for the rise of 2010s STEM supremacy, the belief that science, tech, engineering and math were the most perfect things in the world that would change and save everything. Elon Musk rode this wave of STEM bullshit to the top of the world—and nobody is more clearly full of shit than he is.

The atheist surge of 15 years ago, attempting to destroy all notions of spirit, and valorizing science as the only source of light, truth, goodness, and value in the world, led to the rise of STEM supremacy. Yet that atheist surge was so clearly riddled with the kind of gross insolence that Plato so accurately described thousands of years ago. So it’s no surprise that the fruits of atheism—STEMlordism and scientism—have been so rotten. The 2020s is very much the product of that wave of awful reddit atheism.

But we don’t see the same atheist groundswell nearly as much in 2024 as we did in 2014, or especially like 2008. Still, the form of what Plato saw in atheist beliefs—something that young minds see as wise, and which we should inevitably hate—is everywhere. So much of what we see and hear today is just this—something that maybe a young mind would view as wise, or interesting; and something that rightly arouses hate in us. It isn’t just about atheism, it’s all things now. Politics, culture, social media has brought it all down to this one level.

We don’t see as much overt atheism now in the same way we did 15 years ago, because there is no need for it—society has been fully made godless.