I woke up this morning fairly convinced I was living in the 21st century. But I began doubting my conclusion, and perhaps my sanity, when I read in the Washington Post that the election of Councilman Cecil Bothwell in Asheville, North Carolina, was being contested because he does not believe in god. No, your morning coffee is not laced with LSD; you read that correctly.
In other news, two witches were convicted in Salem yesterday. More at eleven.
Elected officials in North Carolina are constitutionally disqualified from office if they "deny the being of Almighty God." But let us not pick on the ignorant bias of the Tar Heel state, for they are not alone in primitive thinking appropriate to the 1600s. Many in Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas all deny atheists the right to hold public office. Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled way back in 1961 that the U.S. Constitution trumps such outrageous religious discrimination through the supremacy of federal law. That particular invocation of the supremacy clause from our Supremes came about when some poor guy by the name of Herb Silverman in Maryland could not be appointed as a notary for his crime of not believing in god. Herb spent eight years claiming a right that any other American would take for granted without a second thought. In other news, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Catholics can run for public office. Don't touch that dial!
State sanctions applied against one belief system in favor of another are an abomination, a stain on our society, and in direct contradiction to everything our Founding Fathers wished for our great country. Consider the deep irony of a conservative group of people who claim a unique fidelity to the Constitution while they actively undermine the document's most important principles. To understand how outrageous these prohibitions against atheism really are, just substitute "Christian" everywhere atheism is mentioned in the offending state constitutions. Let's prohibit Christians from becoming notaries or holding public office. Absurd? Why is that not acceptable but somehow discrimination against atheism is so mainstream as to be codified in state law?
"Atheist" is derived from the ancient Greek adjective atheos, which means "without gods." Defining anybody or any movement as the negative of another is a bad start. I refuse to be defined as an absence of what somebody else supposedly has; I simply cannot be without something that does not exist. The idea is ridiculous. Calling me an atheist is like defining me as a man without a dragon tail, and then denying me my rights because I do not have a dragon tail! I cannot be absent something that is nothing but another's myth. I am a rationalist, and if others wish to believe in an invisible man in the sky with magical powers, we can label them arationalists. Denying my right to hold office because I refuse to acknowledge dragon tails has no place in modern American society.
The problem partly lies in the power of words to impact our perception. Atheism is a pejorative term, and with that inherent negativity comes implied permission to discriminate blatantly and openly. We can trash that which we do not respect. During the Second World War we called our enemies Japs and Krauts among other degrading epithets in order to diminish them as humans, making them easier to hate, fight and kill. Our cause was just enough without the name calling. Many Christians use "atheists" in a similarly derogative vein. The solution is to abandon completely the use of the term atheist, just as polite society no longer uses the "N" word to describe African-Americans, "Rag Heads" for Arabs or "Wet Backs" for those south of the border. Offensive? Yes, just as is the use of the word atheist.
Atheism is pejorative because of an inherent assumption embedded in the word. African-Americans were once called "Colored" when civil rights were a distant dream. That word is offensive because of the implication that all others must be compared to the pure "standard" of White. If black skin was considered the standard, all Caucasians would be properly called "a-pigmented" or "uncolored." Likewise, the word atheist implies a standard of religiosity in which belief in god is somehow the measure by which all others must be judged. Religion is no more legitimate as a standard than is white skin.
Discrimination against atheism makes no sense on multiple levels. First, rationalism is a worldview not a religion, and therefore an odd victim of institutionalized bias. The absence of dogma is not another form of dogma; the commitment to rational thought is not another form of belief along the spectrum of religious doctrine. My worldview is available for disproof; religion is not. Second, the establishment clause in the First Amendment is unambiguous of intent. Third, the label of atheism is itself invalid, and therefore an invalid subject of discrimination; atheist is an idea that allows others to conveniently confuse rationalism with religion, and confounds the baseline from which people's views can be measured.
The latest dust up in Asheville reveals an ugly truth in modern America: our commitment to the founding principles embedded in our Constitution is in jeopardy. Paradoxically, efforts to undermine our most cherished ideas are couched in terms of patriotism and respect for the rule of law. From the Post article we learn the following about the challenge in North Carolina:
H.K. Edgerton is threatening to file a lawsuit in state court against the city to challenge Bothwell's appointment because, "My father was a Baptist minister. I'm a Christian man. I have problems with people who don't believe in God," said Edgerton, a former local NAACP president and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black southerners.
Am I the only one to see the problem here? Discriminating against blacks is bad, but perfectly OK when directed against people with a different world view?
We also learn that the head of a conservative weekly newspaper says city officials "shirked their duty to uphold the state's laws" by swearing in Bothwell and his evil atheism. David Morgan, editor of the Asheville Tribune, said he's tired of seeing his state Constitution "trashed." Again we encounter a deep irony. Mr. Morgan is offended because his state constitution is being "trashed" because the state is upholding the U.S. Constitution! You could not make this stuff up. But imagine how far we must come if upholding our founding document against blatant religious discrimination engenders outrage in the very elements of society that so piously claim patriotic fervor and so loudly proclaim the right to practice their religion unhindered.
Fellow rationalists, we have our work cut out for us. We live in a secular country in which the vast majority of citizens incorrectly believe the United States is a Christian nation. We live in society in which a Christian majority exceeding 70% claims to be a victim of discrimination. We are singled out in state constitutions as particularly unworthy of holding public office. We witness a Supreme Court Justice that believes surrealistically that the Christian cross is representative of all religions - and rationalists.
Let us start fighting back by forever abandoning the oppressive label of atheist; let us fight anachronistic and reactionary attempts to exclude rationalism from public discourse. Let us, finally, reject the false inevitability of creeping religiosity in American politics. We are a small minority but have on our side facts in place of fiction. The atrocity of stupidity in North Carolina is a call to political arms.
As we approach the year 2010, the United States owns the dubious distinction of being the only western country in which a candidate's qualifications can be challenged because he does not believe in god. Do we really want to emulate the theocracies of the Middle East? The citizens of North Carolina who support Morgan, Edgerton and their ilk are more like the radical Muslims they apparently have such disdain for than they could ever possibly imagine. I hope we can do better in the next decade.
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PART 1
If god were never invented, we’d all be atheists, by default. Any suggestion of supernatural phenomena would be met with uncomprehending puzzlement. Considering, however, that religion has been around for several millennia, Atheism, as it is now, is more an attempt at corrective action, against the illogic of religion.
It seems natural to suppose that religion was originally the product of questioning minds, and that its explanations for various phenomena was the best man could do, prior to the development of the various sciences; god had to be invented, to provide a framework for understanding the world. Religion, therefore, has a long-standing role as a provider of explanations for these various phenomena, and has taken on an emotional attachment in its practitioners that defies erosion from advances made in knowledge and enlightenment. Once the “genie was out of the bottle”, as it were, it has proven monstrously difficult to put back in.
Science developed gradually, as observation led to the development of theory, and, because of the success in getting predictably similar results through testing, such theories progressed to being established fact.
So, on opposite ends of the spectrum, we have science, based on observation, theory, testing for repeatable results, and logic, and, on the other end, religion, whose tenets are increasingly being proven fallacious, and, whose appeal is more atavistically emotional than rational. This is the crux of the problem modern man faces, and which well-meaning people, such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and others fail to address: an understanding of science is inadequate to work against the emotional appeal of religion, precisely because the two “disciplines” work on unrelated planes: science on the logical plane; religion on the emotional.
When god and religion were merely precursor(s) to science, and gradually stood aside as science took over the role of educating people, it would have been a benign enough phase of mans’ existence. That is, however, not the case. Over the centuries and millennia, it became apparent to some that religion could be used to gain advantage over practitioners of it. Such people reasoned, one imagines, that, by carefully positioning oneself as a “middleman” between god and the masses, they could not only control the flow of knowledge, but enjoy the perquisites of wealth and power over others inherent in this hierarchy.
Among the most troublesome aspects of religion is its tenaciousness: as stated above, while the various sciences continually uncover truths, religion is static and has nothing new to offer, except for whatever arguments have been constructed to counteract the encroachment of truth upon religion.
When i mentioned Jefferson believing in God,, I was trying to compensate for those who I've discussed this with that automatically turn off the debate when they here something totally opposite of what they believe,,, like Jefferson being used to say the founding fathers declared America long ago a Christian nation,,,,,,,,,, because of some wording he inserted into the constitution,,,,,,,
Because when I just come out and say,, jefferson was actually an athiest,, it usually ends the discussion,,,,,,, a habit you get growing up in a Baptist family who actually believe Christianity to be a way of life,, above any label like ,,,,,,,,,just another plain old,,,,,,,Religion!!
It was however my impression that Jefferson left room for doubt about whether he believed anything about the Christ fairy tale,, as some would say it,,,,,, I never got the impression he was an atheist tho because of his denials of the Bibles version of spirituality,,, I know he had trouble with the trinity many in America believe,,,,,,,, therefore,,,, if I'm sure of one thing,, it's the politicians who use that faith to win votes have got to be,, held more accountable by those who vote them in,,, and this belief in the "greater good" gives them too much room to play with the truth and allow them to get away with things like,, lying us into wars and other things just to get to some "Christian" agenda...
Pantheism as "Sexed up Atheism" http://www.pantheism.net/atheism.htm
"So what's the difference between Atheism and Pantheism? As far as disbelief in supernatural beings, forces or realms, there is no difference. World Pantheism also shares the respect for evidence, science, and logic that's typical of atheism.
However, Pantheism goes further, and adds to atheism an embracing, positive and reverential feeling about our lives on planet Earth, our place in Nature and the wider Universe, and uses nature as our basis for dealing with stress, grief and bereavement. It's a form of spirituality that is totally compatible with science."
Theism arose during the aeons when humans couldn't adequately explain mysteries like our origins (either in utero, or in the past), why the heavenly bodies moved or even what they were, why the world was divided into animate and inanimate objects and why the first became the latter. Today science has answered most of the day-to-day questions and theism has been shoved to the margins. Even the evangelist Billy Graham (my biography of whom stirred up the current tempest in the first place) places creation 5 billion years in the past. God may or may not exist, but the concept is irrelevant to our modern lives- except that it offers psychological comfort to some, no small matter, but an interior one. I would bet that a majority of those who self-identify as Christians, at least in the modern industrial world, do not actually believe that God or Christ intercedes in their daily lives.
Whether I'm right or wrong doesn't matter, either. The question of God's existence is not actually very interesting.
Then why do they pray for that?
How can you say we are a secular country while also stating that Christians exceed 70% of the population?
How is it "incorrect" to believe that we are a Christian nation? It's 70% correct at least.
Earlier in the article you say that atheism is lacking dogma. What do you call the quote above?
I am an atheist and a rationalist. So please keep the comments focused.
I'm not an "a-astrologist".
I'm not an "a-creationist".
I'm not an "a-alternative medicine-ist".
I simply follow logical, reasonable and rational thought supported by evidence. I hadn't considered "rationalist" as an identifier, but I think I will use that from now on as it bests describes my positions politically, religiously and otherwise.
If only we didn't have to label ourselves at all.
Scientists have already located a suspected abnormality in the brain that makes one susceptible to religion.
It's no different than pedophilia or alcoholism.
Religion is a disease.
One cure for this illness is to eliminate the tax free status of organized religion.
God is love.
Agnostic also has its issues in America, if you tell the average believer that you are agnostic in their mind it means you still believe their MIGHT be the Christian triune god. But that isn't the position of most agnostics, most agnostics are atheists when it comes to that specific god. They just philosophical don't feel they can rule out EVERY god.
Christians use atheist negatively because the term and the subject frighten them. It is one thing to see people of a different upbringing or ethnicity believe a different religion, but having someone who looks like them, was brought up the same way and then rejects their religion. That is scary.
So, does abandoning the term "Atheist" mean you're allowing Christian extremists to keep you scrambling for a way to identify yourself?
Honestly I don't know. Several times, when asked directly about my religion, I've said I was an Atheist and the responses I've gotten have been shocking -- even from non-church-goers with no religious affiliation (but still clinging to the imaginary life raft). So obviously there's something in the name.
For unrelated reasons that I won't go into now, I've taken to calling myself a "naturalistic pantheist" in polite company. After clarifying that, no I don't mean the hoofed god of ancient Greece, people's eyes usually glaze over and don't pursue the conversation. But at least they don't freak out like they did when I said "atheist."
I'm not sure if I like the idea of applying politically correct linguistics to this problem. The more we insist on being called by a certain title, the more we will be seen as different from everyone else.
feel better holding their little blue blankets...
The "belief in God" law is one of those unfortunate relics of the past that happens to old cornerstones of the nation get tripped up by their history. Indeed, when I was growing up in that area, there was more of a "live and let live" attitude--really bizarre behavior would be explained away with a simple, "Well, they're just different."
Church is fine, and church participation has stabilized the South, I believe. But stoking fears and hatreds, seeking justification for it in the Bible, becomes dangerous. As taxpayers, we are called upon to financially support churches, no matter how dangerous their views--even terrorist cells can and do call themselves churches. These tax laws obviously need overhaul. Sevice to the poor is acceptable--political organizing by tax-advantaged churches is not. As taxpayers, we have our own political causes, thank you.
A lot of the stability of the South derives from old-fashioned morality I believe. But it is moral to accept the friendship and talents and abilities of all, believers or not. A wounded war hero noted, "I never asked the buddy carrying me to the hospital whether or not he was a Christian." Judge not, lest you be judged.
Check out Asheville. Great place.