Ah, I’m sure my religious readers are excited that I, the atheist, am going to comment on their faith, an experience that I have never directly experienced [1]. First, I am prompted by some statements that were asserted in the Frontpage Symposium:
Here is the difference between Christian and Muslim extremism: Jerry Falwell called Muhammad a terrorist. He killed no one and called for no killing. In response, eight people were killed and 90 hurt in riots in India, and an Iranian official called for Falwell’s death. All involved invoked Islam.
I agree that Christian fundamentalists in the West are not violent [2]. But, the example of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda (thanks to Head Heeb for the link), the attacks on African religion practioners in Brazil & Catholics in Central America by Evangelicals and assualts on Buddhist relics & temples by Fundamentalistsin Korea attest to the fact that the bite has not been totally taken out of Old-Time-Religion. The Reformation, the Renaissance and Enlightenment have tamed Christianity. But when introduced to a new culture, Christianity is often stripped of its Western cultural accretions to make it more acceptable and compatible with indigenous cultural traditions, which may result in the awakening of ancient atavistic ferocity in the faith [3].
Charles Murtaugh comments on religion as well. I would say to his statements about liberal misunderstandings of religion-we atheists often wonder at this idea that the society and media is irreligious when there are National Prayer Breakfasts, In God We Trust on coins, and Churches on every corner. The key I think though is that unbelievers tend to view all religion as irrational and beneath consideration-while liberals with the least dash of religion will wink and accept “spirituality” and wish-washy mainline Christianity as acceptable manifestations of faith. America is a pro-religious society, at least judging from the myriad covers on Newsweek and Time about how many of us believe in angels and how science is proving the existence of God. Old-style unbelief is just not fashionable. Wendy Kaminer has addressed American society’s attitude toward atheism in her essay The Last Taboo. Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell can agree on one thing-that liberal Christianity and evolutionary theism are incoherent and untenable.
That being said, the attitude toward exclusivist Old-Time-Religion is unfavorable. This explains the disproportionate attention paid to elite oriented numerically marginal religions such as Zen Buddhism or the New Age movement [4]. When Americans of a broad-minded bent focus on Islam, they look to elite Sufis, and try to marginalize the vibrant if scary Salafi & Islamist Reformist movements as outside the mainstream of the faith. The division is between those who think religion is good, rather than a particular religion is good. Remember how George W. Bush was attacked for stating that Jews go to hell because they don’t believe in Jesus? This is not a controversial statement in the light of an ancient (and generally dominant-remember Pelagius?) thread of Christian thought-the ideas among modernist Christians that all faiths lead to Christ is the one that deviates from the historical norm [5].
The theology and worldview of nearly half of America’s Christians is being marginalized by the “mainstrem” as “intolerant” and beyond the pale of respectable. This is factually true, I don’t think liberals should dispute this. But this is not resulting in an atheist America-but rather a fuzzy, spiritualist and firmly irrationalist (from my viewpoint at least) nation under many gods.
Now, as for Charles’ last remark about his fear of irreligious conservatives-what, like me? What do you have to fear Charles? 🙂 What type of neighborhood would you want to settle in? One in the inner city of Detroit that still had a vibrant black church community, or one in the suburbs of Portland where Unitarian Republicans were the norm? (Bob Packwood, William Cohen and Nancy Johnson are examples of Unitarian Republicans-and we all know that Unitarianism is the closest you get to godlessness under Church Steeples) Yes, I am throwing up a straw-man, but self-identified atheists, of what-ever-political-stripe are not the nihilists & evildoers that most Americans think we are.
[1] Though I’ve been a self-aware atheist since the age of 8, before that point I can confidently say that God(s) had little meaning or importance to my conception of the universe. In fact, I remember thinking in a primitive fashion that God was the Ground of Being when I was 5 or so, but didn’t really elaborate or consider a more anthropomoprhic or personalized role for the deity….
[2] A little terminology, from what I know, the terms “Born Again,” “Evangelical” and “Fundamentalist” have different meanings in the American context. Very roughly, each is a subset of the preceding, though there are exceptions to this. In other words, though 40% of Americans may identify as “Born Agan,” only 25% may identify as “Evangelical” and 10% as “Fundamentalist.” The numbers change, but their general magnitude is on this order. Jerry Falwell is a Fundamentalist-he looks to scripture as the final authority. He is a literalist and theological conservative. But not all Evangelicals are literalists or theological conservatives. Jimmy Carter for instance is both Born-Again and Evangelical, but not a Fundamentalist (and he left the Southern Baptist faith because he felt that it was veering too close to that branch of American Christianity). Members of The American Scientific Affiliation (such as Francis Collins) are Evangeicals, but generally not Fundamentalists, and take a strong stand against Young Earth Creationism. Of a different stripe alltogether is the Charismatic movement, which Pat Robertson is associated with. Generally conservative, they emphasis the Holy Ghost but do not place as much importance on scriputural study & reading as Fundamentalists.
[3] I think though a compelling argument can be made that modern Christians are less prone to organized acts of violence against other faiths than Muslims, at least by the examples of Nigeria, Sudan or Uganda. In the last case, Idi Amin, a member of the small Muslim minority, banned Judaism, expelled the Asians and promoted Islam. In Nigeria and Sudan, Christians are a non-trivial minority (in Nigeria nearly half the population) but tend to be targets for persecution and pogroms in Muslim dominated areas that have traditionally been temporally ascendent.
[4] Though New Age beliefs do permeate much of non-Fundamentalist America, in particular, about 25% of Americans assent to belief in reincarnation.
[5] Funny anecdote-a friend went to a wedding that was presided by an Episcopal Priest, the bride’s father in fact. He found out that my friend was from Alaska, she, a red-headed girl of Irish extraction. He asked her, “What tribe are you from? What is your religious tradition? What gods do you worship?” He explained that he’d learned a lot about indigenous Native American beliefs in divinity school.
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