"But the madman sees what the jovial sceptics do not: what it would actually mean for there to be no God, for there to be only human beings who, having killed God, must now become like gods themselves."

Well, we killed off the mammoths, and we didn't actually become mammoths.

We killed off the Nazis, and we didn't actually become Nazis.

We 'killed off' the Comintern, metaphorically speaking, and we didn't actually become the Comintern.

So why does it follow that having 'killed' God, we must, or should, or would even want to, become gods ourselves? Only someone who was silly enough to think that gods were necessary would believe that.

Jon J,

Perhaps the idea of gods/God 'is' necessary.

Humans have a singular brain - a tool that in many respects we barely know how to use. We don't understand it well at all. Perhaps recourse to a deity is a necessary tactical response, a device that allows us to fill in the blanks and find "meaning" in the existence of everything, including ourselves.

The requirement to "become gods ourselves" is a grandiose way of saying that we need to realize that we are the masters of our own destinies, Our morals and ethics are for us to determine. That no one else can make things magically happen for us, and that we are fully responsible for our actions.

"The absence of God will not bring with it the presence of human harmony because we will still have to deal with our fear of each other, or our frailty in the face of nature, or our deluded sense of self-importance. It is in relation to these things, after all, that the gods are of most use to us."

Well, this statement might have been true in the past, but not these days, some of the world's least religious nations (in Scandinavia) have the world's most harmonious societies.

'New Scientist' 17/3/12 p44

The reason atheists prefer "self-congratulatory mocking" activities like atheist conventions is because their identity is so wrapped up in reason and science that, ironically, it creates an incomplete and misleading view of human nature. Human behaviour (in the absence of a god) can only be motivated by our emotions, desires or feelings. Alas, try talking to an atheist about feelings and they'll scurry off to the nearest nerd convention. Therein lies the reason why atheists, in general, fail to graduate to humanism - because they are so invested in "reason and science" that they cannot see, as philosopher David Hume famously said: "reason is ... the slave of the passions".

In truth, reason and emotion are generally complementary. Reason has informative power, but only emotion has motive power. They serve different functions. So there is no need for atheists to worry that emotion will replace reason. The future of atheism/humanism is the philosophy of desire. Bertrand Russell: "All human activity is prompted by desire... If you wish to know what men will do, you must know ... the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths."

So this is the future of humanism: to balance our desires and maximise our happiness/fulfilment without killing each other and the planet. This will take an entirely different breed of atheist leader than the Richard Dawkins types. Dawkins has done a brilliant job of ridiculing religion. But we need to build on that with a new breed of atheist/humanist leader. Philosopher Alain de Botton is one such leader - see his recent TED Talk - Atheism 2.0:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oe6HUgrRlQ

Strike me pink! Whatever happened to agnosticism?