[lit-ideas] Disbelief
- From: "Steven G. Cameron" <stevecam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 11:36:02 -0500
A timely essay especially for the various levels of non-believers among
us. It raises a number of important issues, not the least of which is
"organized" religion itself...
TC,
/Steve Cameron, NJ
Keeping the Faith in My Doubt
By JOHN HORGAN
Published: December 12, 2004
Garrison, N.Y.
WITH the presidential election over and the holidays upon us - a
religiously charged political season followed fast by the most religious
time of the year in an overwhelmingly religious nation - unbelievers may
be feeling a bit beleaguered. To cheer themselves up, they might visit
the virtual home for a group called the United Universists.
Founded last year by a few brave souls in Birmingham, Ala., the
Universism movement "denies the validity of revelation, faith and dogma"
and upholds science as our most reliable source of truth. The
Universists are asking atheists, agnostics and other infidels to join
them in their effort to counter the influence of religious zealots in
our culture. Since the recent election, the Universists have posed this
question on their home page in large type: "Who will fight for the
faithless?"
Good question. Obviously neither major political party wants to
associate itself too closely with unbelievers - and understandably so,
given polls showing that Americans are even less likely to vote for an
atheist for president than for a homosexual. But as an areligious person
myself, I'm intrigued by the notion of unbelievers banding together to
increase their political clout, perhaps by speaking out on issues like
sexual freedom, abortion, stem-cell and cloning research, and prayer in
schools.
There are more of us heathens out there than you might guess. According
to the Pluralism Project at Harvard, which tracks religious diversity in
the United States, the number of people with no religious affiliation
has grown sharply over the past decade, to as many as 39 million. That
is about twice the number of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and
Episcopalians combined.
Not surprisingly, a slew of organizations - including older ones like
the Council for Secular Humanism and the American Atheists and newer
ones like the Universists and the so-called Brights - are competing for
the devotion of the godless. The Universists, who claim to have enlisted
5,000 members so far, are especially feisty and shrewd at
self-promotion. In September they took to the streets of Birmingham to
protest Alabama's ban on the sale of sex toys, and last week they
organized an online chat with Sam Harris, author of the anti-religion
polemic "The End of Faith."
And yet I have no plans to sign up with the Universists or any other
areligious group. First of all, I'm just not a joiner, more out of
laziness than anything else; I avoid commitments that might jeopardize
my sports- or sitcom-watching time. An organization for freethinkers -
one of the Universists' self-definitions - also strikes me as
oxymoronic, like an anarchist government. Isn't the point of being a
freethinker eschewing categories like Satanist, Scientologist or Universist?
I'm also disturbed that these areligious groups have exhibited the same
sectarian squabbling that they deplore in religious believers. When
Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and director of the
Skeptics Society, was invited to speak at an atheism convention in
Florida last year, some organizers objected because he is agnostic - a
mere doubter of God's existence rather than a denier. Mr. Shermer has
likened this hair-splitting to the dispute between Baptists and
Anabaptists over whether baptism should take place during infancy or
adulthood.
At that same conference, two anti-religion educators also proposed that
negative terms like "agnostic," "atheist," "unbeliever" and "skeptic" be
replaced with the more upbeat "bright," which describes someone "whose
worldview is naturalistic - free of supernatural and mystical elements."
The term, which can serve as a noun or adjective, has been promoted by
the philosopher Daniel Dennett and the biologist Richard Dawkins.
Members of some other groups have reacted with annoyance to the Bright
movement, no doubt seeing it as an intrusion on their turf. Defenders of
the old standbys "atheist," "agnostic" and "secular humanist" complain
that "bright" is self-aggrandizing - and the implied antonym, "dim," a
tad demeaning. Critics of the Brights include the Universists, whose Web
site also distinguishes Universism from (and not-so-subtly asserts its
superiority to) atheism, deism, humanism, pantheism, transcendentalism
and Unitarian Universalism.
All this goes to show that even groups founded with the best of
intentions - and what groups aren't? - usually become concerned above
all with self-perpetuation, often at the expense of other groups with
similar aims.
My main objection to all these anti-religion, pro-science groups is that
they aren't addressing our basic problem, which is ideological
self-righteousness of any kind. Obviously, not all faithful folk are
intolerant bullies seeking to impose their views on others. Moreover,
rejection of religion and adherence to a supposedly scientific worldview
do not necessarily represent our route to salvation. We should never
forget that two of the most vicious regimes in history, Nazi Germany and
the Soviet Union under Stalin, were inspired by pseudoscientific
ideologies, eugenics and Marxism.
Opposing self-righteousness is easier said than done. How do you
denounce dogmatism in others without succumbing to it yourself? No one
embodied this pitfall more than the philosopher Karl Popper, who railed
against certainty in science, philosophy, religion and politics and yet
was notoriously dogmatic. I once asked Popper, who called his stance
critical rationalism, about charges that he would not brook criticism of
his ideas in his classroom. He replied indignantly that he welcomed
students' criticism; only if they persisted after he pointed out their
errors would he banish them from class.
OF course we all feel validated when others see the world as we do. But
we should resist the need to insist or even imply that our views - or
anti-views - are better than all others. In fact, we should all be more
modest in how we talk about our faith or lack thereof.
For me, that isn't difficult, because I've never really viewed my doubt
as an asset. Quite the contrary. I often envy religious friends, because
I see how their faith comforts them. Sometimes I think of my skepticism
as a disorder, like being colorblind or tone-deaf. Perhaps I'm missing
what one geneticist has called "the God gene," an innate predilection
for faith (although I'm skeptical of that theory, too). But skepticism
has its pleasures; I like the feeling of traveling lightly through life,
unencumbered by beliefs.
Instead of banding together, maybe we unbelievers should set an example
by going in the opposite direction. We should renounce all "isms" - that
claim to speak for our most profound personal beliefs. Or rather, since
we seem to be headed in this direction anyway, each unbeliever could
create his or her personal ism, perhaps with its own name. Since
Universism is taken, I'll call mine "Horganism." You can revile it,
admire it, or ignore it, but you can't join it.
John Horgan is the author, most recently, of "Rational Mysticism."
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
