The hubris of atheism

When I was in college, I noticed something annoying: that the writers and thinkers throughout history that seemed wisest about life and how to live it were men who believed in God. They didn't believe in God in the same way -- Kierkegaard's God is not the same as Dostoevsky's, if you follow me -- but they all believed in God. At the time, I counted myself an agnostic, and I couldn't get away from the feeling that I was missing something. If Kierkegaard believed in God -- indeed, if most educated men throughout history have believed in God -- then maybe I was the one with the unsustainable presumption. Eventually this nagging thought helped drive me toward reconsidering theism, and ultimately to Christianity.

Daniel Larison makes this point in his answer (well, one of them) to Heather Mac Donald's claim that theism is not necessary to conservatism. He's responding in particular to HM's offhand remark that she didn't study enough history at university. That's the problem, says Larison. You really need to read his complete set of comments, but I thought this part was especially good:

Perhaps the most stunning thing about atheism is the sheer presumption of it. I don’t mean simply the presumption against God, which would be enough in itself, but the presumption that you and a few other adventurous souls have figured out something that the vast majority of mankind has never known about a subject for which the atheist can obviously have no empirical evidence one way or the other. Heady stuff, indeed. Say whatever else you will about it, this setting of the ideas of the self over and against the inherited wisdom of ages is one of the main things that is unconservative about atheism. Even if atheists were right, we should be clear that there would be nothing conservative about their position, but would, if adopted by society as a whole, quite obviously involve a cultural revolution and destruction of a significant portion of our cultural inheritance. In the end, what is it that atheists would conserve of our civilisation, when so much of the substance of our civilisation has its origins in Christianity or in the cultural derivatives thereof?

Would greater familiarity with history weaken an atheist’s certainty that religion is unnecessary for the healthy flourishing of society? I almost have to think that it would. The nightmare of the 20th century, defined to such a great extent in so many parts of the world by organised godlessness and the official repudiation of all religion, should give any convinced atheist pause. If man does not flourish in a godless regime, and if godless regimes have a record of unusually great barbarity and human cruelty, it does at the very least suggest that religion aids in human flourishing and probably has some moderating effect on the use of political power. On sheer pragmatic grounds alone, someone familiar with the historical record would have to conclude that atheism, at least if embraced officially, is bad for the health of society.