The Church of Atheism
In New York Magazine this week, Sean McManus finds that the fastest-growing faith in America is no faith at all. And now some atheists think they need a church:
…some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God. The most successful movements in history, after all—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.—all have creeds, cathedrals, schools, hierarchies, rituals, money, clerics, and some version of a heavenly afterlife. Churches fill needs, goes the argument—they inculcate ethics, give meaning, build communities. “Science and reason are important,” says Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain of Harvard University. “But science and reason won’t visit you in the hospital.”
Many atheist sects are experimenting with building new, human-centered quasi-religious organizations, much like Ethical Culture. They aim to remove God from the church, while leaving the church, at least large parts of it, standing. [...]
Founded by Felix Adler, the son of a rabbi, to drive social-justice initiatives and promote good without God, Ethical Culture walks like a church and talks like a church—congregants sit in pews, rise to sing hymns, and pass around a collection plate. But at one of their Sunday-morning meetings in January, their Senior Leader, in a very unchurchlike fashion, cited agnosticism as the only intellectually defensible religious position. More to the point, Epstein is eyeing the group’s building as a prototype for the church of New Humanism. Modeled on a Greco-Roman coliseum, Ethical Culture has semi-circular pews to promote conversation and a low stage designed to minimize the distance between leader and congregation. “I want to build big, beautiful buildings like Ethical Culture in every big city in America,” says Epstein. Unfortunately, his organization only brings in $200,000 a year. And while that’s up from $28,000 four years ago, it’s not enough to build a New Humanist church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, let alone Central Park West.
All of this would be music to John Gray’s ears. This from the author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia writing in the Guardian last March on how the ‘secular fundamentalists’ have got it all wrong:
Zealous atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam. Just as much as these religions, it is a project of universal conversion. Evangelical atheists never doubt that human life can be transformed if everyone accepts their view of things, and they are certain that one way of living – their own, suitably embellished – is right for everybody. To be sure, atheism need not be a missionary creed of this kind. It is entirely reasonable to have no religious beliefs, and yet be friendly to religion. It is a funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human. Yet that is what evangelical atheists do when they demonise religion. [...]
Nowadays most atheists are avowed liberals. What they want – so they will tell you – is not an atheist regime, but a secular state in which religion has no role. They clearly believe that, in a state of this kind, religion will tend to decline. But America’s secular constitution has not ensured a secular politics. Christian fundamentalism is more powerful in the US than in any other country, while it has very little influence in Britain, which has an established church. Contemporary critics of religion go much further than demanding disestablishment. It is clear that he wants to eliminate all traces of religion from public institutions. Awkwardly, many of the concepts he deploys – including the idea of religion itself – have been shaped by monotheism. Lying behind secular fundamentalism is a conception of history that derives from religion.
Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.
(Psst. Full disclosure: I’m agnostic!)
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Interesting. I think the best spiritual home for atheists is Unitarian Universalism. And that's not because UU is atheist itself – it's not – but because it encourages toleration of people from all faiths and atheism together. It's non-creedal and so discourages both religious fundamentalism of any sort as well as secular militancy. Strident atheists would feel just as uncomfortable at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church where I go as would fundamentalist Christians. I am a Jew, my wife is Catholic (or raised Catholic…) and we attend TVUUC because it allows us to worship according to our common spiritual longings – despite differences in method, tradition and theology.
I am an atheist, but I find this kind of pseudo-religion as troubling as the real thing.
Replacing one dogma with another sure doesn't sound like the best way to promote free thinking.
On one level, I do understand the urge to congregate, however. Atheists are the orphans of US society., and the separation of church and state is very porous and undependable.
Just recently an atheist soldier was sent home early from his tour in Iraq because of death threats by his fellow soldiers. While our military is being indocctrinated about tolerance for the local population, the powers that be apparently don't bother to address tolerance for some of our own.
That kind of thing can make people angry, angry enough to go to exremes of theri own. Bad mistake, IMO.
“…some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God.”
Lost me right there, at the start. I don't know what the beliefs of the person writing this are, but anyone, atheist or not, who subscribes to this view has a very poor understanding of the concept of atheism.
Atheism is ONLY a lack of belief in a god or gods. Note that it is not an ANTAGONISM towards the concept of god or religion (different concepts), which is called Anti-theism. Naturally enough, the vast majority of anti-theists are atheists, but not all, and conflating the two is a mistake made both by believers and non-believers. Likewise, no position, moral or amoral, can be taken in the name of atheism, since atheism simply describes a lack of belief, not a positive affirmation of anything. If you wish for a moral structure you have to look elsewhere, humanism is the common place to find the moral structure sans-supernatural beings.
I do in fact appreciate the impulse itself, as a matter of fact. It's clear that religion gives people something, and those who have no belief might have an easier time of it if they have alternative venues that give them everything organized religion gives theists (the art, music, community, chance to come together to do good etc.) without having to pledge allegiance to a deity they don't believe in. However, I think that the belief or lack of belief must be kept utterly separate from such activities. Certainly they should be done without god(s) but they must not be TIED to atheism, that is, you should NEVER imply, in any way, that the only way to participate in these groups or experience the activities, is if you are an atheist or agnostic, that otherwise you won't appreciate it. At the most, I'd accept these places and activities offering a chance to experience god-free practices to people of all faiths or none at all. Of course it's more likely that atheists or agnostics participate, but if you make it exclusionary you're just creating another exclusive tribe.
Didn't South Park cover this a few seasons ago when Cartman went to the future to get his Wii? Either way, I think this is a horrendous idea. Sounds like the wet dream of the religous right to have an actual atheist church to bitch about. I find its entire foundation suspect.
Ayn Rand's objectivism provides a world view complete with system of ethics. But no Sunday School.