It came across my social media feed the other day
that several states still have wording on the books to prohibit atheists from
serving in public office. At least one article I consulted suggests that federal
freedoms would trump those limits from ever being enforced, should an atheist ever
attempt a campaign in one of those religiously steeped places, but it’s a
chilling comment on the theocratic tendencies in United States culture that
such laws ever existed.
In my experience, the debates and dialogues between
skeptics and sincere believers tend to focus on who holds the correct viewpoint
and searching for the most logical way to refute one’s ideological or
theological opponent. Since I don’t see this as an argument that should or
could be “won,” I sometimes tire from the stridency I see on all sides. In my
experience, people in love with their own rhetorical convictions and persuasive
powers can be found in religious communities and atheist circles alike.
These difficult but entertaining conversations got a
much needed change-of-pace when Chris Stedman released his book Faitheist and began to seek out “interfaith
dialogue” between atheists and theists. Stedman suggests, “I work to promote
critical thinking, education, religious liberty, compassion, and pluralism, and
to fight tribalism, xenophobia, and fanaticism. Many religious people are
allies to me and other atheists in these efforts—and a good number of them cite
their religious convictions as the motivating factor behind their work. I am
far more concerned about whether people are pluralistic in their worldview—if
they oppose totalitarianism and believe those of different religious and
nonreligious identities should be free to live as they choose and cooperate
around shared values—than I am about whether someone believes in God or not.”
Thinking about Stedman’s inclusive perspective and
living in a state with discrimination against atheists on the books, I realize
I probably have been guilty of disparaging remarks against those whose
humanistic beliefs are in the minority here in the South or using my beliefs as
a form of social credibility in this religiously-shaped culture. For this, I am
sorry.
Further, I’d like to confess some of my motives for
embracing personal spirituality and religion as a collective practice. I’d like
to confess why I am not an atheist.
Religion and spirituality provide daily practices as
much as vigilant viewpoints, mostly about saving oneself—not so much the burden
of convincing you that my religion is correct or saving you from punishment or saving
the world from itself. After years as a new age, hippy, Jedi, Taoist, neopagan,
etc. spiritual seeker, my reconversion to Christianity included an introduction
to writers and pastors like Carlton Pearson and Rob Bell, who in their books Gospel of Inclusion and Love Wins respectively, argued against more
conventional ideas about hell. Relieved of what Bell calls a “toxic” idea
concerning selective salvation and pervasive damnation, my faith can be
motivated by notions other than converting all my atheist friends in order to
save them from hell.
I’m not an atheist because I believe that science
and humanism, complete with an ever-changing and ever-expanding base of
knowledge, and all the expected subjective agency of those, would require more
faith (not less) than religious or spiritual disposition. Placing faith in
something invisible, unknown, eternal, universal, and intangible (something that
some of us choose to name God) might actually be easier than having faith in one’s
own abilities and what can be rationally apprehended at any given time.
I’m not an atheist because in the quiet rumblings of
my head and heart, in my guts and in gravity, I regularly hear the gentle
inchoate voice of God. For the atheist who hears similar whispers, I imagine
there are ways to explain those voices, but I am guessing some of them involve
medication and perhaps even hospitalization. Many people experience paranormal
phenomenon; religion and spirituality can provide a benign context and
interpretive matrix for dealing with these while maintaining sanity and
perspective.
I’m not an atheist because I have a problematic and
paradoxical view of human nature. We all contain some spark of the divine
goodness, but many of us left to our own devices are selfish, greedy,
power-hungry, outright jerks. That is, for me, atheist humanism has a higher
view of human nature and even a loftier moral code than expected in religion.
That sounds strange, but the spiritual path of my choosing provides a narrative
mechanism to explain my failures and shortcomings, a mythopoetic language of
sin and redemption. One does not need to read the Adam and Eve story from
Genesis as historical document to take away from it profound truths about the
limits of human subjectivity and our innate craving for collective
reconciliation. Religious myth, religious community, and spiritual practice
broker my relationship with the harsher aspects of reality in such a way as to
provide some glimpses of peace and harmony.
I’m not an atheist because I am in recovery from
alcoholism and other addictions. For more than five years, trying to follow the
12-steps by the book and in the context of a supportive community, I have
remained sober and my life has radically improved. Coming to believe in a power
greater than myself as endorsed by the programs of recovery fits well with the
progressive Christian mystic path I am currently exploring. There are lots of
helpful workarounds to the God language in recovery, so that we might remain
inclusive of our atheist friends, but a whole-hearted embrace of God by
surrendering and letting go of my previous ideas about God turns out to work
quite well for this alcoholic.
Perhaps I'm not an atheist because I am just not smart enough or good enough. Perhaps religion is just another drug, and since I cannot do the other recreational drugs anymore, it is the one that currently gets me high.
It turns out to my surprise that lots of Christians are
atheists, and the idea of “supernatural theism” to describe an all-powerful
magical-dictator-in-the-sky has fallen out of fashion among progressive
religious thinkers of all faiths. That said, since the mysterious side of
religious faith deals not just with the God within but also with that which is
entirely other and unknown, I tend to focus on what could be called a higher or
more traditional view of the Trinitarian God, but I try not to do so from the
realm of dogmatic domination or apologetic argument. Part of following faithfully
and falling into the mystery means allowing the mystery to be mysterious.
Like Chris Stedman, I think that intelligent dialogue
between the religious progressives and non-religious activists can be a force
for good against totalitarian thinking and practice, and I am so thrilled that
Rude Pundit saw this blog as just such a venue for that kind of discussion.
Mentioned here: http://faitheistbook.com/
