Atheists at prayer

Please clue me in here, regarding Saturday’s Reason Rally.  What was the point?  Seems to me, if you’re truly an atheist, wouldn’t making of show of not believing in God feel like taking pride in not believing in ghosts, vampires, leprechauns, and tax cuts creating jobs and increasing revenue?

I don’t believe in God anymore.  I don’t feel smarter or wiser or more grown-up for this.  I just feel robbed.  So I don’t consider myself an atheist.  I feel my lack of faith as a loss and I don’t think a true atheist would feel that.  And I backslide.  I don’t pray but I catch myself about to and have to stop me.  I also catch myself thinking about Jesus of Nazareth as if he was Jesus the Christ, the miracle-working son of God. 

And I don’t know.

I don’t know God or a god or some sort of god doesn’t exist.

I suppose this makes me agnostic.  But the word has connotations of thoughtfulness and intellectual consistency that don’t describe my thinking, mainly because my thinking is all over the place to the point of its not being thinking at all, just a mess of conflicting emotions and mutually contradicting half-baked ideas cancelling each other out.

This is pure opinion on my part, but atheism, I think, is not simply a non-belief in a deity or a divinity.  Atheists, I think, don’t care that God or a god or the gods exist and don’t care that they don’t care, and in fact, hardly even think about the fact that they don’t care. And they don’t care if you care about what they believe or don’t believe.  It’d never occur to atheists, true atheists, to try to prove to you there’s no God or explain why they don’t believe or even think to tell you that they don’t believe.  In fact, I’d doubt the word of any self-professed atheists who felt the need to profess their non-belief the way born-again Christians feel the need to profess their belief.

(By the way, no prizes for the first commenter who thinks they’ve caught me trying to get away with a No True Scotsman argument. I’m giving my opinion not insisting on a definition.  But no true atheist…)

I’ve known only a couple of people who were what I think of as true atheists.  Mostly, I’ve known people who are agnostic or who like me could be called agnostic for want of a better term for their skepticism or confusion.  They’re non-believers in that they don’t believe there’s a wise, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and personal deity who involves himself---or herself or itself or theirselves---in earthly affairs, but they don’t know.  They’re open to the possibility that there’s something out there (or in here) but think that whatever or whoever it is is unknowable and so they don’t worry themselves with trying to get to know it, let alone communicate with it. Or him or she or them.

The self-professed atheists that I know of, through the internet, through their books, through their appearances in the news, through their blogs and through their tweets, strike me as too insistent for true atheists.  They care too much, some to the point of militancy, even zealotry.  Most though just seem to have a chip on their shoulder about it.   And I wouldn’t even describe what they believe as non-belief.  It’s more like recalcitrance.  

As far as I can tell, they define their atheism in opposition to something, usually, it appears, to Right Wing Christian religiosity or authoritarian Catholicism.  In either case, it’s typically the religion of their childhood.  In their thinking there appear to be no observant Jews, no Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Unitarians, or African-American Baptists and evangelicals, no liberal Christians at all.  No Hindus or Muslims.  As far as they seem aware, the only believers are megachurch-going God-botherers and the only way to practice belief is to wage culture war and vote Republican, which happens to be what the megachurch-going God-botherers believe too, an unfortunate point of agreement.

These atheists also equate religion with belief and both with superstition and ignorance and so they think of believers generally as superstitious and ignorant, with the not always unspoken corollary that non-believers are more enlightened, that is, smarter, even though the intelligent position is to never assume you are more intelligent than those who don’t share your beliefs or non-beliefs.

And it looks to me as though a lot of them haven’t given up religion as simply substituted non-believing for believing.

Human beings can make a religion of anything.  There are atheists among whom atheism is treated in a way that is in practice religious.  For one thing, there are practices.  There are approved beliefs or rather statements of non-belief, sacred texts, special observances, a pantheon of heroes that reminds this lapsed Catholic of a communion of saints.  I don’t see any signs of a priesthood but there are preachers.

There’s also an all too familiar smugness.  Non-believers announce their non-belief in self-congratulatory tones that assume approval on the part of listeners as if not believing in a heaven was the surest way to get there.

And there’s another familiar attitude.  A sense of persecution.

These atheists complain that they’re “stigmatized.”  They point at polls showing that most of their fellow citizens distrust them.  They wax indignant about how no atheists can be elected to public office, although I don’t know how they know there are no atheist mayors, city councilors, county legislators, sheriffs, school board members, state assemblymen and women, town clerks, judges, highway superintendants, receivers of taxes, or dog catchers anywhere in America.  Maybe there was a study I haven’t heard about.

I wouldn’t bet that there are any atheist governors and I’d need odds on U.S. Senators.  But members of the House of Representative?  If there aren’t any currently serving, it’s probably a fluke.  Since 1789, I’m sure there have been a few.

It’s probably true that no atheist is going to get elected President any time soon, but that might be a matter of demographics as much as prejudice, and even if it is prejudice, atheists need to get in line to be discriminated against on that score.  In the history of the Republic only three Catholics have ever been nominated, all three by the Democrats, which brings demographics back into it, and neither Party has nominated a Jew.  At the moment, the Republicans are having a hard time bringing themselves to nominate a Mormon.  And I doubt there’ll be a Hindu or a Muslim on either ticket in my lifetime.  In fact, never mind religion.  No women and only one non-white guy have ever headed the ticket.  As far as we really know, all the men who’ve been nominated have been straight. 

There are school districts in the country where no atheists need apply to be teachers.  But there are other districts where atheists are principals and even the school superintendant.  There are bosses who won’t hire you if they know you’re an atheist, but there are bosses who will gladly give you a corner office as long you went to the right school or play golf.  And whose chances do you like better going into a job interview, the able-bodied atheist’s or the wheelchair-bound or blind or deaf Christian’s?

Atheists may not be a beloved minority but they have a long way to go to prove that they are an all that heavily oppressed one.

The fact that people disagree with you does not mean they are persecuting you, an obvious point we have a hard enough time making to Right Wing Christians.

So, what I’m getting at is I don’t see the point of the Reason Rally.

Actually, to be honest, it didn’t even look to me like a rally. 

It looked like a group of people coming together to essentially pray in public and testify and to listen to sermons and shout the atheist’s equivalent of amen at the preachers. In short, it looked like…

A revival meeting.

Comments

[Janelle]

You've nailed it. For some, atheism is as much a faith system as belief in a god. And for others, it's a cottage industry.

[Sarah TX]

Let's say I agree with your points. Why, then, shouldn't atheists have 'revivial meetings', if they see a community need and a community desire for them? What's the difference between a religious revival meeting and, say, ComicCon or MacWorld or the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival?

Hemant Mehta, one of the organizers of the Reason Rally, grew up Jainist. I think you'd like his writing.

[Lance Mannion]

Sarah, funny you should mention it. I originally had a paragraph in here about Comic-con but I took it out because I was afraid people would think I was making fun of Comic-con. And of course there's no reason atheists shouldn't get together to march, rally, sing, dance, listen to speeches, trade stories, and just enjoy each other's company. But this seemed to be something more than that and so I wondered what was the point?

[S McCoy]

Lance - I hope you'll keep thinking those conflicting, mutually contradicting thoughts. They tell you you're still alive and open to the possibility that there really is a "God shaped hole" in your soul. The atheists you describe are completely close-minded. The very name of their event tells us everything we need to know about their willingness to be reason-able.

[Lance Mannion]

Btw, Sarah, thanks for the link to The Friendly Atheist. I think you're right, I probably will enjoy his writing. Also, thanks for the link to the Sheep and Wool Festival site. I'm not kidding. When we lived in Syracuse I used to love visiting the sheep and goats barn at the NY State Fair. And did you know I live right across the river from Dutchess County. I get over there regularly. Rhinebeck isn't that far away.

S McCoy, I know a poet who'd say I am headed for "a beautiful deathbed conversion."

[C. Adolph]

Why the umbrage, Mannion? Your false equivalence to ghosts, vampires, leprechauns, etc. is pretty weak tea. I don't recall many instances of believers in ghosts, vampires, and leprechauns espousing bigotry toward others, torturing, slaughtering innocents, burning people alive, or drowning women for witchcraft.
Believers in gods, on the other hand...
This is why people of reason need to speak up and be recognized in numbers. Two quotes from your link state this effectively:

"People have this notion that atheists are immoral, not trustworthy, unelectable," Mehta says. "How do you change that at such a huge level? It starts by people everywhere just coming out of the closet as atheists."

"We certainly want to let people know, again, we're your friends, we're your neighbors, we're good people," she says. "But I think it's also to our benefit to let people know that we're to be reckoned with, that we're not going to let ourselves be doormats, and that we're mobilized, we're organized, and when people get us angry, we're going to take action."

Now, just because you lack the grapes to fully come over to the obvious (sounds like they still have their fear hooks into you a bit) there is no need to be puzzled as to why others might want a public voice in the matter.
I am what you would call a "militant atheist". When I look around and see the things that go on in this world simply because of people's childlike belief in supernatural hogwash, I feel there is a need to call that irrational shit out on the carpet.
It is absolutely galling to me that, in the beginning years of the 21st century, so many people can remain duped by the greatest bit of hucksterism ever concocted. They have been fear fucked.
And, yes, they are ignorant, deluded, and quite certifiably insane for believing any of it.

Yours in Christ,
C.

[Lance Mannion]

C Adolph, did I miss a recent auto-de-fe?

[Nancy]

This is why Lance is completely and utterly wrong.

And frankly fell alot in my opinion through this demonstration in ignorance and false equivalence.

[velvet goldmine]

Lance, as usual -- interesting ruminations, gracefully explored.

As for C Adolph: Well, I guess we need militant atheists as outliers in what could be a vital discussion, especially when church and state seem to be getting chummier and chummier.

It sure does make for turgid reading, though.

[C. Adolph]

Well, no, Mannion. Scant auto-de-fes recently. But, in light of your obtuse riposte, here are some gems from the past few years:

Catholic Church's Sex Abuse Scandal Goes Global
Woman Who Exposed Islamic Clitorectomies Brutally Beaten
Man Accused of Killing 5-Year-Old Boy He Thought Was Gay
Abortion Doctor Shot to Death in Kansas Church
Afghan Immigrants in Canada Found Guilty of Honor Killing
US 'Christian Militants' Charged After FBI Raids

And on and on and on...

Yet, who am I to step on anyone's toes for their sacred beliefs? Torquemada is soooo 15th century. Everyone is much more enlightened now. Just look at these swell fellas:

http://www.utmostforchrist.com/an-army-of-brave-and-experienced-warriors/

Luv,
The Turgid Outlier (h/t Velvet Goldmine)

[Lance Mannion]

C Adolph,

I thought you read the blog regularly. Then you know what I think of the official Catholic Church and Right Wing Christians. The offenses you list are offenses against humanity in general not against atheists particularly and everybody of conscience and heart ought to band together in horror and outrage and in fact have. But the Reason Rally wasn't really about that, was it? It was about atheist solidarity. Nothing wrong with that, it just looks a little bit like a church forming to me and I don't see why atheists would feel a need for one. Which is why I opened the post with the question.

[Lance Mannion]

Also, C. Adolph, you seem to have at least one thing in common with the second kind of atheists I describe: you don't seem aware that there are believers who aren't Right Wing Christians or authoritarian Catholics.

But, thanks for bringing up Torquemada.

[Lance Mannion]

Hello and welcome to new folks looking to leave a comment. You may be wondering why your comment hasn't appeared. Just a note about comment policy. First, comments are moderate and I reserve the right to edit for language and to not publish comments that are designed to inflame or throw off discussion or sell stuff without my permission. Anonymity is respected and protected provided you provide a valid email address (which will not be published)so I can check that you're a real person and so that you take responsibility for your comments.

Here's a fuller accounting of my comment policy.

[Ken]

Here's something I learned in college, a Catholic college, at which I "lost my Faith." In a philosophy class, we read a survey of Existentialists, written by J.P. Sartre. In it, he claimed that Heidigger was an atheist. Pish tush, said the professor. He was no such thing. He never argued for or against the existence of any divine being. Like certain British Logical Positivists, he chose a position that is called 'non-theistic." The question of whether a God, or gods exist is meaningless. There is no evidence to support either position. So why bother arguing about it? It's pointless.
I have held that position ever since, quite happily. If someone asks me, "What happens when you die?" I answer, "You die." You may say something clever as you exit, or simply go "TA-DAH!" But that, I believe, is that. I have a moral code, which does not differ signifigantly from that of liberal Christians. "Be thou not a dick!" sums it up. I just don't expect ice cream in the afterlife.

But when those of us who are denounced by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for our non-beliefs, either one of whom might become president (Hey, ya never know!), it's time to take a stand. And if certain atheists seem strident, well, that's just too damned bad.

Atheists are not all in lock step about their beliefs, whether it's politics, literary taste, or favorite sports team. But the Reason Rally, awkward as bits of it may have been, was a way of saying "Here we are. And there's a lot of us."
No, there has yet to be an auto da fe. But if it makes our stomachs turn to hear "killers in high places say their prsyers out loud," we will say so, loudly and often.

[S McCoy]

Lance - me thinks maybe you planted C Adolph to prove your point that atheism is a religion -- complete with all the self righteousness, judgementalism and superiority that Christ came here to oppose. But alas, I don't blame him....if we Christ followers were actually more like Him instead of like the pharisees, perhaps the militant atheists wouldn't be so hard hearted.

[Ken Muldrew]

The problem with agnosticism is that it kind of misses the point of why people have gods at all. The point being that these are specific gods, with known attributes. At least some attributes are known, even if they accompany a hugeness and magnificent power that is beyond the believer's ability to imagine. A religion based on a god like Spinoza's is of no possible use to anyone, and therefore, of no account.

It becomes much easier to be an atheist when you take these specific attributes into consideration. Some Catholics believe that their god talks to the pope. A ridiculous notion. Most people will have no trouble deciding that they do not believe in that particular god. They don't know, of course, but they have a fine appreciation of nonsense when they see it, and the god who talks to the pope falls into the bin of non-belief. It's just more trouble than it's worth to determine a degree of plausibility for something so unlikely. So one becomes atheist about that particular god.

But not all Catholics think that their god talks to the pope. In fact, if you were to rigorously question a selection of Catholics, you would find that their precise beliefs about their god differed in many respects. And so one might find with each of these gods a particular bit of nonsense that forced one to choose atheism with that particular god. Even believers are likely to be non-believers for many, many different gods, even though they believe in their own particular god. Atheists agree with them on all the other gods, they just take that one extra step of not believing in the particular god of that particular believer as well.

Now refined and moderate believers will proclaim that these specific attributes are just anthropomorphic distractions, that there is an essence of godhood that they all agree with. But if you push them on specifics (e.g. the events portrayed in the Gospels for Christian believers) then they either brush everything off as analogy, metaphor, and the like (in which case they become as irrelevant as Spinoza) or they eventually reach an impasse where their god becomes defined by particular attributes.

One could easily express agnosticism about Spinoza's god (and the spineless essences of the academic believers), but one could also just as easily express agnosticism about whether a stainless steel refrigerator belongs in a residential kitchen. At least the latter has some practical application (though it's a matter of taste, it is, at least, a *matter*). At the end of the day, it's easy to be an atheist for all gods that matter, and pointless to care about any others.

[Rebecca Clayton]

I studied evolutionary biology in grad school, and, periodically, when opposition to teaching evolution in the K-12 curriculum flared up, we were expected to rally 'round Darwin's flag and discredit those crazy religious folks. Departmental loyalty demanded an expression of contempt for religion.

Now, I'm down with the Nicene Creed, although I don't pretend to understand it. (I feel the same way about chaos theory and relativity.) I didn't appreciate my major professor demanding an expression of non-faith. On the other hand, the anti-evolution people (like Rick Santorum) have an economic motive for a worldview that says the earth is 6000 years old, climate can't change, and the Rapture's coming any day now. That world view indicates there's no need to conserve natural resources, protect nature for future generations, or refrain from wholesale pollution of the environment. Let's make all the money we can, and wallow in it, for tomorrow never comes.

I guess I'm trying to say "A pox on both their houses," which probably explains why I live at a ridge-end on Droop Mountain, and don't go out much. Thanks for your thoughtful essay!

[sfmike]

Recently I worked with a bunch of Serious, Self-Identified Atheists videotaping a ballroom dancing convention at an airport hotel near San Francisco, and when I asked the very smart, strange woman who had hired me through a friend why she was an Atheist, her response was sort of fascinating. "It's like being born gay. This is who I was from day one, it's not a reaction to my parents or my personal background, it's because I've found the entire religion-based world I was born into completely insane."

I've been looking at atheists differently ever since meeting her. Even though they can't help but look like a cult/incipient religion because they are so reactive, the Atheists have a serious political and philosophical point of view.

I don't agree with that philosophy, by the way, since I see god left and right in the world at every glance, but I admire their courage and sense that something is deeply wrong, antiquated and absurd with the our inherited religion-based belief systems.

[Ian Welsh]

I'm an agnostic, which is to say, I don't know, and I know it isn't knowable, and therefor I don't waste a lot of time on it. Who cares if there's a God? As for life after death, I'll find out one way or the other sooner than I like, I expect.

But I certainly do dislike militant atheists. Almost as self-righteous as the fundies they hate, and oh so sure that being an atheist makes them "brave" and "smart" as opposed to as obsessed with God as any fundy down on his knees.

Religion's just another ideology, and they all require belief in metaphysical entities, like liberty, or free markets, or rational actors, a historical dialectic, or an ID. They've always been with us, and they always will.

[chris]

"This is pure opinion on my part, but atheism, I think, is not simply a non-belief in a deity or a divinity. Atheists, I think, don’t care that God or a god or the gods exist and don’t care that they don’t care, and in fact, hardly even think about the fact that they don’t care. And they don’t care if you care about what they believe or don’t believe. It’d never occur to atheists, true atheists, to try to prove to you there’s no God or explain why they don’t believe or even think to tell you that they don’t believe. In fact, I’d doubt the word of any self-professed atheists who felt the need to profess their non-belief the way born-again Christians feel the need to profess their belief."

I don't understand at all why you think this. What does how vocal or quiet a person is about their atheism (or christianity or buddhism, etc.) have to do with what category of belief/non-belief they fall?

I've been confronted by very vocal christians in very public places and I know many christians who have never spoken to me of religion at all. I doubt any of those folks would say they were more or less christian because of it. I'm an atheist, but I've never been to a rally - I'm just not a joiner. But I'll freely admit to being one if asked and will engage in vigorous conversation if the other party is willing. Does that somehow make me more of an atheist than Richard Dawkins? Why?

And this bit is way too easy:

"Human beings can make a religion of anything. There are atheists among whom atheism is treated in a way that is in practice religious. For one thing, there are practices. There are approved beliefs or rather statements of non-belief, sacred texts, special observances, a pantheon of heroes that reminds this lapsed Catholic of a communion of saints. I don’t see any signs of a priesthood but there are preachers."

I don't (nor do I know any atheist who does) believe The God Delusion is any way 'sacred'. There's a vast gulf between The Bible and The End of Faith that you're trying to bridge with pithiness and baling wire. If you're talking about the Origin of Species, I don't "believe" in that either... I don't have to, it's actually true (in most respects and for the technology of the time).

There's a false equivalence here that I think you could apply to any medium-sized group of people... bridge players, baseball fans, protest movements, etc., etc. Sure, we refer to these things as "religions" sometimes, but not in a literal sense as you're trying to do to atheism. I just don't buy it.