Julian Baggini wrote an article for FT Magazine earlier this month on what it's like to be an atheist in America. Mostly, it's a description of the isolation that atheists experience in the ultra-religious communities of small- (and not-so-small-) town America, an offering of anecdotes that blend feelings of ostracism in social and community settings, with concerns about religion in the workplace or the courthouse. The fact that I have mixed feelings about the article is, I think, a result of that blend.
I understand the worry about religion at work or in politics: prayer shouldn't be required in those settings, and in those settings religion shouldn't be assumed or catered to. I also think atheists can justifiably complain about the attitudes of some religious people, who often equate being an atheist with being a rapist or a murder, or at the very least a person of uncertain to negligable moral character. Where did that idea come from? The fact that someone is an atheist doesn't mean that they're going to kidnap you or beat you up (any more than the fact that someone professes to be a Christian doesn't mean that they're NOT going to do those things--I mean, one can hope they won't, but there's no guarantee). So I get this: being nonreligious doesn't necessarily mean being unethical or immoral, and religious communities need to refrain from endorsing that inference. That's all very reasonable.
But here's what I don't get.
Baggini notes that atheists often feel isolated in their communities because all of the social activities are church-centered--even, he points out, the volunteer opportunities. Again, I sympathize with the feelings of loneliness. I'm headed for a career in a field where it's not really socially acceptable for me to publicly express my religious beliefs, but where it's acceptable for authority figures to make negative comments about religion. I can practice my religion, of course. But if I talk about it, most people are going to give me funny looks. This has the potential to be lonely, right? People are going to be laughing about things that aren't humorous to me, and I won't be able to join in; there is a kind of non-religious solidarity that is sometimes exuded by my colleagues that I can't partake in.
But what should we do in scenarios like these?
Baggini implies that, in the case of the atheist, everything could be resolved if religious folks would just be a little more tolerant. And if tolerant means refusing to endorse the inference from "atheist" to "bad person," I'm all for it. But if it means making religious activities less, well, religious, I'm not on board. It seems unreasonable to expect a community to give up the things that make you uncomfortable, especially when those things are what define them (like the Jesus talk, for example, and the emphasis on a personal relationship with God).
I don't expect people to change the structure of the academic community for me and I certainly don't expect them to give up their beliefs (or repress them) in order to make me feel welcome (even if those beliefs include things like "Christians are creepy" or "Catholics hate women" or "Evangelicals are loony," all of which I've heard expressed at various times in the last five years). I'm prepared to volunteer and get involved even in organizations where I "don't quite belong," whose members share and advocate a system of (non?)belief that is alien to me.
I'm not saying that's not hard to do, and I'm also not saying that the lonely atheist is going to hit it off with every Christian group or person he or she meets. There are some really annoying religious people out there; I get it. But it's not impossible to make friends with people who are different from you, either. In fact, the mark of the tolerant person may be just that: the ability to interact constructively with people who disagree with you, even about things like the existence of God.
4 comments:
http://www.christian.org.uk/news/council-prayers-mps-blast-preposterous-ruling/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+christianinstitute+%28The+Christian+Institute%29&utm_content=FaceBook
Your post made me think about this story- hope the link works.No matter how tolerant we have to be, others will never be to us, or so it seems.
Hi Susanna. Thanks for dropping by and for the link.
I have to admit that in this particular case, I'm on the side of the court. As I said at the beginning of my post, I don't think religion should be assumed or catered to *in public life*--where the public life in question is the government. Acc. to the article you've linked to, the prayers that are being contested were being included as a "formal" part of the council meeting, and so I don't think it's unreasonable or intolerant to order the council to "cease and desist," so to speak.
The reason I think it's so important for political institutions to refrain from endorsing specific religions or religious symbols is complicated. But at least part of it has to do with the pluralism of many (most?)contemporary societies. I don't think the state is a representative of the interests of only one of those groups (whether or not they're the majority); in fact, it has an obligation to express the views of, and defend the liberties of, all its diverse constituents. It seems to me that incorporating prayer as a formal part of a political event--especially if the only prayer included is Christian--is unfair to members of the political community who don't hold any religious beliefs (or who hold a different set of beliefs). After all, they are just as much members of the political scene as we are, and our formal proceedings need to acknowledge that.
I also think, from a Christian perspective, that there is something wrong (maybe even "profane") about incorporating prayer as a formal political ritual. If the prayer is formal, wouldn't be offered on behalf of all the members of the council? But what happens if some of the members are not religious? Wouldn't that make for a really inauthentic prayer? Shouldn't prayer be offered *by believers*?
What do you think?
Note that the article never said the ruling would prevent individuals from meeting prior to the official event to pray together, nor would it prevent them from praying privately and individually before the start of the meeting. If the ruling did prevent this, I would have a problem with it.
Sorry this ran a bit long. But thanks again for the article link!
hi Allison,
thanks for the post (and the link), which both gave me lots to chew over.
i'm with you that it's salutary for people to be open to volunteering and getting involved in organizations whose non/belief-systems are more or less alien. i do a fair bit of volunteer work for my church, and churches connected with it (at the moment, i'm involved in two "drop-ins" (what in the states are called "soup kitchens"?), and one night shelter.
the interesting thing is that in all these involvements, i've been struck by how willing non-Christians are to pitch in. For example, at one of the drop-ins, two different people who lived near the church (but didn't attend it (or any other)) saw our guests coming in every thursday night, and asked whether they could help us. One signed up for the cooking rota (= rotation); the other comes every week to help serve food, tea and coffee, wash up, etc. Also, at both drop-ins, many (non-Christian) guests have gradually morphed from guests into guest/helpers, or helpers, without joining the Church, getting baptized, or the like. They get involved in preparing, serving, food, etc. But in certain cases, they also get involved in what i guess one might describe as the "non-credal" part of Christianity. They sometimes say things like: I don't believe that stuff about Jesus being God, etc. etc., but I want to "live a good Christian life".
Now I'm not sure how many of the people I've been describing are atheists (as opposed, say, to agnostics, who suspend judgment about the existence of God). I'd imagine some are, and some aren't. But I think that what contradistinguishes a certain kind of atheist--the kind represented by Dawkins and Hitchens--is the belief that Christianity, and/or more generally theism, is not just a false belief, but a pathological one. that's the view you express when you title a book 'The God Delusion', or say 'religion poisons everything'. & i wager it was the view being expressed by those whom you heard say, "evangelicals are loony", and "Christians are creepy". if you're *that* sort of atheist--as opposed to the sort of "friendly atheist" Willian Rowe describes himself as in "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism"--then it's no wonder you'll be loth to get involved with Christians in Christian projects, however much good you might think Christians are doing. Fear of mental illness (unlike fear of consorting with people who have false beliefs) is a deep and powerful thing.
hope this makes sense...
Hi Chris. Yes! That makes lots of good sense. One of the things that I found frustrating about Baggini's article was that I felt he didn't do a very good job distinguishing the atheists he was describing (maybe this was deliberate or maybe it's difficult to draw the distinction when one is oneself an atheist, but anyhow...) I think the distinction is important for Baggini's piece because, while both varieties of atheists have grounds for complaint re: religion in politics, it seems to me that only the "friendly atheist" has grounds to complain about Christians being *unfriendly* or *unwelcome.* After all, if you really think religion is a pathology, then you're probably not going to be too worried about the fact that you feel uncomfortable or isolated in your interactions in a specific religious community; presumably, you're staying as far away as you can get anyhow.
The other thing I was curious about was how "militant" even the friendly atheists that Baggini is presumably describing are/were. At various points in the article, he talks about how some atheists were afraid to show their colors in small communities, but it was hard for me to tell if showing one's colors merely involved telling people, when asked, that in fact one did not believe in God or if it involved telling them so *all the time* (and even perhaps challenging the listener to defend their own beliefs). I can imagine that if one insists on the latter route, relationships will become strained rather quickly (and the same goes for the Christians who insist on overtly sharing the gospel every time they meet their non-Christian friends).
I appreciate Baggini's basic worry, which seems to be that Christians have a hard time believing that atheists can be moral. I am just wondering whether simply getting the religious community to understand this would fix the problem. I strongly suspect that a real solution would require that Christians also respect the intellectual autonomy of their non-believer friends *and* that the atheists themselves approach friendships with religious people a bit less stridently and a bit more tolerantly.
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