You mean you’re not going to throw me out?
Greg Epstein, the “humanist chaplain” at Harvard, is rather too easily pleased.
Yesterday, the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships unveiled an unprecedented new initiative: The President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge…for me and perhaps for millions of my fellow nonreligious Americans, there is one particularly historic and controversial aspect of the challenge that cannot be ignored. As with his other main speeches on interfaith cooperation, President Obama has gone out of his way to make clear that this initiative must be fully open to and inclusive [of] atheists, and agnostics, and Humanists.
Well, just for one thing, it can’t be. An Interfaith Challenge offered by an Interfaith Office can’t be fully open to and inclusive of atheists. It rejects atheists in the very language it uses. We shouldn’t be pretending it doesn’t. We shouldn’t be pretending there is nothing exclusive or particularist or antisecular about faith-based offices and faith-based challenges in and from a branch of government. I don’t feel included in Obama’s challenge. On the contrary; I feel very pointedly and explicitly not included. That’s one reason I (and many other people) think presidents shouldn’t have offices and challenges of that kind. It was Bush’s innovation, and Obama should have ditched it.
I can vouch for the fact that we have been included every step of the way; not only in big public moments like the inaugural speech shout-out to “nonbelievers”, but also behind the scenes. Last June, I was invited to visit the White House as part of a small gathering of University and college presidents, deans, chaplains, and interfaith student leaders to discuss the initial plans that led to this initiative.
Dude, you can’t vouch for that; “we” have not been included in a company of that kind; chaplains and interfaith student leaders: that doesn’t include us. You may have been included, and your “we” may have, but I haven’t.
Dubois, a young African American Pentacostalist, took the podium and talked about how the group gathered that day was one of the most diverse in the history of the White House. It included many different kinds of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others—and, he emphasized, there were even secular activists in attendance (I was joined by my good friend August Brunsman, Director of the Secular Student Alliance.) To emphasize that point, Dubois even mentioned me by name and title, had me raise my hand, and everyone in the room applauded at the idea that we were there. I felt chills—despite polls consistently showing atheists like us to be the least electable demographic group in the US, here was a key representative of the highest authority in the land, looking us in the eye, in public, and making it indisputably clear that our beliefs, our Humanist values, and our secular colleagues were every bit as American as anyone else.
“We” are allowed to tag along with the much larger group of normal people. That’s called tokenism, and it’s insulting. Epstein seems to have internalized so much of the routine atheist-phobia of the US that he all but bursts into tears just because he gets a name-check from a crowd of godbotherers. He’s way too easily pleased.
[…] . .for inclusion in an interfaith convention is to have a representative to whom one delegates moral authority, be […]
Who is the clown?
Jesus, he makes me want to punch a wall. Hop of religion’s collective dick, Mr. Epstein. You do what exactly? Sit around a nice comfy office and highlight portions of whatever’s on Oprah’s reading list? Fuck this guy. I can’t mention being an atheist without people I’ve been having perfectly normal (by Marine standards anyway) conversations with for the last half hour without them doing a double take or getting all weird. And I haven’t been able to rely on ‘humanists’ like Mr. Epstein to do anything but tell me to go along with it and stop being difficult.
We are “other”. Lovely.
Fair cop, but I can’t be angered by this. It seems to me that the effect of these endeavors will be that, in short order, it will become utterly un-PC among the interfaith crowd to claim that belief in supernatural agency is essential to morality. In his own, perhaps creepy, way, Epstein is contributing to the dismantling.
And the thought of campus interfaith groups throughout the country concluding, after thoughtful reflection, that they mustn’t exclude the SSA? That’s kinda funny.
Oh I get it. Since being nonreligious is just another kind of religion—haven’t you heard: it takes more faith not to believe than it does to believe!—that means secularists get to be included in the “faith” community. We “get to be.” What a treat!
Why does the term ‘Uncle Tom’ come inexorably to mind?
And why are there zero comments? Is Greg perhaps holding them back until he gets a nice one?
I always feel weird about Interfaith stuff. On the one hand, it gives us a venue in which to correct some of the bizarre stereotypes and misconceptions about nonbelievers (as well as giving the attendees a chance to keep an eye on the competition). On the other hand, it’s an attempt to smooth over the intrinsic conflict between religions by appealing to shared values (most obviously, faith). But people who don’t share that value are still outsiders! I don’t see how someone can just not notice how bizarre it is to go to an interfaith conference, as part of the one group that thinks there shouldn’t really be any faith at all. Besides which
He ends with: “It is no longer enough for any of us to simply tear down and criticize others. On this historic day of inclusion, we will be judged by what, and whom, we build up.”
But I have to wonder; what does “building up” stuff have to do with religion? Is there any way in which charitable interfaith work is better than charitable secular work? I don’t see how it benefits any sort of project to begin it by dividing people up into different groups based on personal convictions, then encouraging them cooperate to between groups. Why not just encourage cooperation without making a big deal out of this arbitrary carving-up of people in the first place? It seems like a) a distraction, and b) a PR/marketing exercise between all the groups (and I mean all of them) pointing out how moral they are, how their personal philosophies are so useful, how tolerant everyone can be…
There’s some legitimate debate, but it’s sort of limited by the cooperative aspect. I think it would be better just to have serious “dialogue” where it would be encouraged to be really critical and brutally honest. But I’ve no illusions that that would also be a pretty threatening environment to some people. It’s not really what the interfaith stuff seems to be about.
I guess I’m really not the target audience. The primary interaction I want to have with believers qua believers, is to stop trying to make everything (politics, social interaction, morality) about religion (followed closely by pointing out that their beliefs don’t make sense anyway). Interfaith stuff is sort of contrary to the ideal of religious questions being de-emphasized in the public sphere.
I knew I could count on you to call this one out, Ophelia. Good show. I was boiling when I came across this article.
Epstein was proud at being introduced by a Pentecostalist? What a crock.
Looks like promoting from where I’m sitting.
This Interfaith Office is a disgrace to secular government.
Greg has some funny writing habits. Christians get a capital C, Jews get a capital J, Muslims get a capital M, Hindus get a capital H, Buddhists get a capital B, and even Humanists get a capital H, but atheists and agnostics just have to skulk around in the background with their lowly lower-case status.
I think Atheists deserve a capital letter too, and a scarlet one to boot. Get with the program, Greg. Capital. Fucking. A.
The comments feature at On Faith is still switched off with respect to the page for Greg Epstein’s essay.
Greg writes,
Screw that. I got my law degree 32 years ago, and so I am not being “challenged” to join in this wonderful “interfaith” enterprise, but if I were a student today, I’d say no, no, no. I want nothing to do with any sort of initiative that is pushed or spearheaded by a federal government office that currently helps to dole out federal tax dollars to religious organizations, that proceed to legally discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, and sexual orientation when they hire, promote, or fire employees for these wonderful “faith-based,” “community” programs that they run.
I say it’s broccoli, and I say to hell with it. Makes me wish that Juan Epstein was the “humanist chaplain” at Harvard. He wouldn’t be doing a worse job than Greg.
I don’t want to be part of any faith group hug. I find religion grotesque and will always fight against it.
There’s no angry, name-calling atheists here!
@Andrew
Meaning what exactly? Atheists should never complain or come across as flippant?
For the record I’d been drinking when I commented. Probably could have left a good bit of it out. That said, I stand by the sentiment it expresses.
@ Julian:
nothing wrong with disagreeing and voicing so! How else will a dialectic emerge, right?
So how many partnerships is the White House organising for groups defined as “X but including ~X”? It all seems rather random. What next “Republicans, including Democrats and all other parties”, a women’s initiative (men and androgynes included), “logicians who are not members of clubs of logicians”, …
Besides the “faith” word which indicates this is tokenism, the real actions of Obama also tell us this is tokenism. Let’s not forget he has *increased* Bush’s spending on faith-based groups.
chaplain: 1. a clergyman in charge of a chapel. 2. a clergyman officially attached to a branch of the military, to an institution, or to a family or court. 3. a person chosen to conduct religious exercises 4. a clergyman appointed to assist a bishop.
clergyman: a member of the clergy
clergy: a group ordained to perform pastoral or sacerdotal functions in a Christian church.
Ok, sorry for all of the dictionary definitions but I was trying to figure out why someone with the title “chaplain” was the (supposed) representative for atheists on this committee. I’m certainly with Ophelia here… he’s not MY representative. And in fact I don’t want to be represented on a “faith based” committee. Fifty years from now atheists may have become main-stream and it may have happened because of tokenism like this, but it’s not the path that I would prefer.
I’m reminded of the punchline of the old joke: “What you mean ‘we’, Kimo Sabe?”
I went to see Sam Harris speak at Harvard, and Greg Epstein introduced him; it is sickening now to see Epstein promoting the legitimacy of the “faith” concept, when he gave a simpering, sycophantic introduction to Sam a few months ago, Sam who could not be any more disparaging of the “faith” concept. He is clearly a ridiculous self-promoter — which, while maybe good for his own brand of “Humanism,” does not in any way contribute to the extirpation of dangerous religious ideologies.
interfaith : the three so called abrahamic religions has one imported idea in common: they hate women. That is the reason for an interfaith discours.
Egbert 2? There’s more than one Egbert?!
Wow. This makes me sick.
The headline is, “Nonreligious must embrace White House’s Interfaith Service Challenge.” Must, you say? Fuck you. But I mean that in a gentle, inclusive, interfaith kind of way.
Commenting is active, by the way. You have to scroll to the bottom and click the All Comments button to seem the comments. You have to register with WaPo to add a comment. I allowed myself some choice words.
Heh. Exactly. I took issue with that “must” at Facebook yesterday. The hell I must! Writers don’t write their headlines though.
During a break at an interfaith meeting, a christian came across a piece of toast on which the margarine resembled a face. “A miracle!” Exclaims the christian, “This is the face of Jesus”. A Muslim sees the face and says “No, it is the face of Mohammed”. Then a Jew says “No you are both wrong, it is clearly the face of Moses”. Along comes a Buddhist who takes a bite and says, “I can’t believe it’s not Buddha”.
(For non-uk citizens, there is a brand of margarine called ‘I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter’)
Obama has tied himself in knots. He wants to get credibility from “belonging” to some “community” of faith and he wants to stay true to his real convictions. No way. He is fighting on both sides now. He needs to stop and declare himself so that people know where they are. Is it possible, or has he gone too far?
I reserve judgment on other policy areas, but with regard to religion he has sold his soul, and he has sold Humanism down the river. This is still better treatment than we would get from a Republican administration, which would be tempted toward out-and-out theocracy; yet it does nothing to reduce the threat.
Out and out theocracy is, if anything, more honest, and more easily attacked.
When the administration pretends to support us they are attempting to debilitate our objections, by making the objectors seem mean and hostile (evil gnu atheists). Political slipperiness at its ‘best’.
Commenting was activated over at the On Faith site, and I was logged in and posted a comment yesterday, but my screen has been stuck in “posting” mode for roughly 18 hours now, with the little wheel icon spinning but nothing else happening. As of this time (5:22 AM EDT in the U.S. Midwest), the number of posted comments — which I still cannot see — has jumped from 3 to 5.
The word “Humanism” makes me cringe and the phrase “humanist chaplaincy” makes me sick to my stomach. Maybe it reflects a divide within atheists between people like Mr. Epstein who have a religious orientation, and atheists like myself who don’t want a religion, even an atheistic one. I don’t want to meet every Sunday to hold quasi-church (complete with potluck and meditation) with fellow atheists. I support the Secular Student Alliance as part of a civil rights struggle in this country, but I get the feeling that Epstein really wants to have “Humanism” be just another religion. The New Atheists have fought hard for the right to criticize religion, and “inter-faith dialogue” is Religion’s mutual admiration society where Religion attempts to eliminate the possibility of that criticism. Mr. Epstein is free to do what he wants, but I’d appreciate if he left me out of it.
Yes. That’s why he became a “chaplain” rather than, for example, a social worker. Religion is designed to provide a living for parasites.
Why not focus more on the actual charity work/community service and helping people in need, instead of focusing on the religious beliefs or lack thereof of the people who are giving the help? This is why I support secular charities that hire people of any faith or none, and who help others without discrimination. I think it’s a good idea for people of different faiths to work together, and that it should be encouraged, but let’s not pretend that the interfaith groups are the only way to do it. People of different religions and no religion who are working for or raising money for a secular charity (e.g. Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, Amnesty International, March of Dimes, American Cancer Society) are also working together and helping others, and can learn while doing so that they have things in common with others whose beliefs are different from their own. For example, a school club planning a walk to raise money for the American Cancer Society can also have students from many different faiths and no faith participating.
Legally, I think government funding and support should go to charities that hire and help without discrimination.
I also can’t help but notice (as a previous commenter did) that sometimes the different faiths find common ground because they discriminate against the same people, such as women, LGBT people, etc. Plus, there may be a willingness to overlook the discrimination another religion or denomination is promoting, in the name of getting along. (For example, what do you do if one of the groups you’re working with are giving wrong medical information, telling people its wrong to be gay, etc.?)
I like the buddha joke. (We have that ad in the US too, or rather we used to.)
Exactly, about the religiously-oriented atheists like Epstein, and about secular charities.
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Well, one thing is for sure! “We” can certainly cast our votes in 2012 with very open eyes concerning the way this creep hates liberals, atheists and gays. I have to say I haven’t seen Obama do one darned thing that he promised to do-rather he has “reached out” to republicans by giving them everything they want and slamming his own liberal base at every turn. I think in 2012 I will join him in “reaching out” to republicans by voting republican-what have we got to lose-either way the right wing christian conservatives win.
As someone who has worked beside Greg Epstein for some years, and who appreciates the extraordinary work he has done for Humanists, Atheists, Agnostics and the Nonreligious, I find the tone and the lack of thought evidenced in some of these responses somewhat frustrating. I’ll submit a longer comment when I’m back at my desk, but for now let it be known that there are those out there who do appreciate Greg’s approach and who are willing to grapple with the difficulties of engaging in interfaith work.
We know that, James, but we don’t think atheists should be doing “interfaith work.” We think interfaith work is something for faith people to do. Some of us – quite a few of us – really do dislike “faith” as such and don’t want other atheists trying to push it at us. We – some of us – don’t think Greg Epstein should be bowing and scraping to faith-ists in this way; we don’t think he should be overcome with gratitude to be allowed to sit at their table. We think we should be allowed to go our own way instead of being pressured to “reach out” to people we disagree with.
Good heavens, James, you really took me seriously. For the record, I don’t really think that Atheists, Agnostics and the Nonreligious should be capitalized, and I don’t think that Humanists should be either. When you’re writing in English, it comes off as overblown and pretentious. Not that I speak for all atheists, but to me, capital-H Humanists have a hard time getting their point across in writing because the capital H makes them look silly and overweening right off the bat.
Patrick Moore: I hope you are joking. No matter how bad Obama is, any declared Republican will be worse.
In one of Michel Houellebecq’s novels, the narrator says (I quote from memory), “I figured things couldn’t get any worse. That’s how young I was.”
Just show the video, James. Stick with that and I’ll stop carping. I love the video. :- )
Come on guys, this is hilarious. Greg Epstein is the ultimate troll: he is trolling the atheists by practicing the secular religion of Humanism (which is properly capitalized in English, because it’s a religion), and he is trolling the religious by taking some of their taxpayer-sponsored faith-based funding money for his atheist church.
Humanism’s inclusion in the faith-based funding office is going to completely erode the program from the inside. Obama doesn’t have the balls to dismantle the office himself, so he’s just going to water it down with non-Protestant Christian groups so more tax dollars go to supporting non-Christian religions, which is the opposite reason why the program was started.
By the way, taxpayer-sponsored funding of religious institutions and ministries became allowable under the Charitable Choice law drafted by John Ashcroft but signed by Bill Clinton. Clinton was nervous about the church-state implications of public funding for churches, so he opted not to enact the program. Bush signed it into law through an Executive Order, bypassing Congressional hearings.
The fact that non-Religious Right, Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox Jewish groups now have to move over a little because their enemies are also sucking at the same government teats means that this program is not going to be the cash cow for churches that Bush thought it would be when he created the office of faith-based funding. And there is no way that Religious Right politicians are going to maintain support for faith-based funding if it means that they have to share the taxpayer money with non-Christians, and *gasp* atheists too.
+1 to Greg Epstein for totally messing with everyone’s minds.
I see a typo in my post, I didn’t mean “non-Religious Right” in that last paragraph. nbd
Roy Sablosky: I am dead serious, and unless you’re somewhere north of forty do not consign my sentiments to being those held by a young person.
I’ve voted Democrat all my voting life, both locally and nationally-even when the Democrat candidate was not exactly easy to bring myself to vote for. And I’ll openly admit that the idea of the neo-con right trampelling every human right and progressive ideal underfoot terrifies me as a bit of an all-too-close reality, but that being said, the Dems are on their own in this next one-at least as far as I’m concerned. Many of them have shown themselves as simply conservatives by another name. Obama is no exception.
The Obama administration has shown nothing but outright disgust for even the slightest representation of fairness towards progressivist ideals. His two conservative Supreme Court nominations, his thinly disguised hatred for gays, refusal to take a strong stance on reproductive health-care access for women, his refusal to punish war crimes committed under the previous administration, expansion of faith-based initiatives, amnesia about the public option that he so unctuously touted during his campaign, open disrespect towards liberals (calling us whiners in one recent quote-yet do you ever hear him calling out conservatives when they express disapproval), and his seeming failure to recognize that as President of this country he IS supposed to uphold the constitution-not ignore it, his nods to big banks, insurance companies and even Big Oil during the BP crisis are just a few of the reasons that I will not be singing his tune next time around.
And as for that ol’ “If we let their side win this next time, we’ll be sorry” scare tactic–yeah, I’ve fallen for that one before, too. But if liberals don’t show Democrats that we mean business, they’ll keep running over all of our ideals, knowing that we’ll vote for them anyway, because we’re too scared to challenge them by voting for anybody else–even former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs thought so–then came the 2010 elections and that “shellacking” that comes from slapping your own base around-so what did he do later that week-he blamed the liberals-again! I guess that’s the only tune he knows how to sing.
Change only comes when you make it happen. I say it’s time for a change.
Well said.
Although he might still be happily clenching the Interfaith Office “bone” in his teeth, if Epstein read this post by Ophelia then I’m quite certain his tail has ceased wagging.
Patrick Moore: Voting for Newt Gingrich (or whoever the Republican candidate is) will do nothing to address Obama’s crimes. You cannot use your vote to teach Obama a lesson. He will not notice your vote. You have to vote on the merits of the candidates, such as they are, at the time of the election. If you don’t like what Obama has done and seems likely to do in the future, you still have to compare it with what Newt Gingrich (or whoever) has done and seems likely to do in the future. Be warned that if the Republicans take back the executive branch in 2012, there will be practically no limit to the atrocities they can commit.
I had friends who did not vote in 2000. They said, “Bush, Gore — they’re politicians, they’re crooks, there’s no real difference.” Partly because of their stupidity, we got Bush as our president, who was hell-bent on invading Iraq and whose dream came true when the World Trade Center was destroyed. I’m not sure how Gore would have done as president, but I’m damned sure we would have been better off under Gore than under Bush.
What all believers have in common is that they want their beliefs to be respected. The more enlightened ones, the ones that are willing to sit at a table with people from other faiths, realize that they should grant the same deference to other faiths as they demand for their own. All interfaith efforts are more or less based on respecting other people’s religious beliefs and the idea that faith, whatever it contains, is a good thing.
A lot of atheists are not willing to respect religious beliefs just to get a seat at the table. For me, having atheists accepted by believers is just not as important as confronting beliefs that are hostile towards women, LGTBs, science, personal freedoms, education and the environment. In fact, for someone who cares about those issues, respecting religions is a bad place to start. Interfaith cooperation just works to protect religious belief from criticism by making anyone not willing to respect faith look intolerant and illiberal.
Roy Sablosky: Take a lesson from Wisconsin. Standing together in protest is far more productive than expecting any results from our elected officials. As for Obama not listening to people who do not vote for him or who vote the other side, why don’t you look at the facts on DADT-he wouldn’t even consider signing any bill to repeal any part of DADT until that famous “shellacking” during the 2010 mid-terms in which the democrats finally saw that despite Robert Gibbs and others who thought that liberals “know what they had better do” a smaller than expected voter turnout on the Dem side led to a republican take-over of the House. Following that Obama was quick to sign a pathetically dialed back repeal of DADT and even remarked that he “might actually change his thoughts on gay marriage as well, a few weeks ago the White House announced that it’s Justice Department would no longer defend the DOMA. That’s not a huge change in favor of progressivist ideals, but it does show to me that at least to some degree, that shellacking must have caught his attention.
You vote how you want to< I still haven’t decided who I am going to vote for, but I know who I’m NOT going to vote for. I really don’t expect the outcome to make a considerable amount of difference in this country’s economy or civil rights stances.
trust you you know, well you may be right about Epstein’s trolling, but he’s also persuading at least some people that atheism is part of the “interfaith alliance,” and I don’t want to be drafted into that army. Call me selfish.
Honestly: people are claiming that “interfaith” doesn’t mean what it does mean, it means something pretty much opposite, which includes atheists. But I want to get away from faith, god damn it! Epstein doesn’t get to drag me into it by redefining words. Call me literal.
I myself have worked in a limited way with Greg Epstein for a few years, and I find him to be sincere, even though I largely disagree with his accommodationist position. It is good that James Croft, part of the Harvard Humanist staff, reminds us that our criticism should be cogent rather than hostile. I myself would call Greg’s work ordinary, rather than extraordinary; but that isn’t a slur. It will take a lot of ordinary work — planning, stumping, hand-shaking, grant-making, programming, phone calling, and so on — before the people in his constituency (Humanists in search of organized community) will find themselves inheritors of the kind of institutional, congregational, non-doctrinal secular ‘church’ they’re eager for.
Nowhere does Greg say that Humanism is the only kind of community involvement appropriate for nontheists, or that interfaith participation is the only kind of civic representation that secular people can look forward to.
He’s working toward a culture in which a certain type of Humanist will have access to the same kind of community that any theist nowaday has. And that’s a good thing, in my book, provided there is always a weather eye open to the perils of dogmatism, exclusionary rhetoric, and authoritarian or compulsory forms of leadership.
Anyone who’s unhappy that the White House is inviting Greg Epstein to special events, should ask: who else should be invited, or could be, that could be considered a representative of unorganized, non-congregational Atheism? Dave Silverman comes to mind. I’d accept the invitation myself, come to that. So as soon as you’ve clicked “post” on your own comment here, sharing your views on Greg Epstein’s views, go ahead and write to the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships yourself, and make your recommendation. Greg is an obvious figure in the nontheistic community; if we want more and different representatives, we have to identify, support, and publicize those figures.
Participate in the discussion: http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ofbnp/contact.
Zachary Bos, Massachusetts State Director for American Atheists
Ophelia, I agree with you on not wanting to be pigeon-holed under a larger umbrella of “faith” constituencies. But without taking a seat at the table now, we don’t stand much of a chance of influencing this language.
In my view, religion and nonreligion, or theism and Atheism, are different flavors of conscience or worldview. So what I’d want asked, by whoever is representing the Nones at the next meeting of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, is: Why isn’t the the Office of Conscientious Civic Partnerships?
One answer is that such an Office should not exist at all, and there are those who advocate for that outcome. I’m not sure, strategically, where my interests lie. Is it better to reform the Office (and similar program), to purge any notion of government sponsorship of faith from the program? Often I feel like we’re better off with a more robust SOCAS, and cutting the program and its peers entirely.
A question of language.
Is there any kind of inter-BLANK alliance, which would accurately describe a roomful of religious and nonreligious representatives, all working toward building constructive neighborhood-government partnerships? The way “inter-faith” is used, tends to conceal or exclude people who have conscientiously rejected faith as a valid or ethical way of living.
Patrick Moore: If true, this anecdote about DADT would support my point, not yours. You can’t make Obama a better president by voting him out of office.
Zachary Bos: We don’t need “a roomful of religious and nonreligious representatives” involved with the government. We need all the religious representatives to stay the fuck away. Failing that, we need what Ophelia said earlier: a government that does not ask people what “community” (read: shared delusion) they belong to. If there’s a job to do, we need qualified people to handle it. Religious belief is irrelevant. It qualifies you for nothing. It is a distraction, a smokescreen, an excuse.
Rob Sablosky:
Ah, to you and me it isn’t relevant, but from the perspective of the government, “religious identity” is shorthand for “membership in a community of potential voters that I can access easily through the leadership at the top.” That treating with Atheists is like herding cats may have as much to do with why we’re politically neglected, as with the personal prejudice of politicians.
I’ll take your response to mean that you’d rather see the Office of etc. be eliminated altogether, than to see if somehow modified to serve the interests of nontheistic neighborhood groups as effectively as it does for the interests of theistic groups now.
Good point, Zachary. That’s another reason there is some need for atheism to be a “movement,” however irritating some of the side-effects of that may be. One reason some of the gnu-haters are gnu-haters is because of the (alleged) tribalism and groupthink of “movement” atheists, and they’re not wrong that that exists, but…
But as you inidicate, we need to have some clout, and being an identifiable “movement” is probably the only way we can get it.
Zachary Bos: It’s Roy, not Rob.
Yes, and the leadership at the top are professional liars. They do not represent the community. They are self-appointed. They are tyrants.
The interests of nontheistic neighborhood groups? We have no separate interests. We are the real humanists. We want everyone to benefit, not just us.
So, yes. The Office of Faith-Based Doublespeak and Graft cannot be fixed and should be eliminated. (As Ophelia pointed out, it was created by fiat in the Bush administration, and Obama could dissolve it by the same method. He should have done so on his first day.)
Zachary has said some of the things I wanted to say, but I still feel the need to wade in here. In my judgment there really isn’t any need for the sort of extreme reaction some respondents have made. First, I want to say something generally about the Chaplaincy and its aims, because many here seem to have an odd idea of what we’re setting out to do. What we’re trying to do at the Chaplaincy is, as Zachary suggests, provide some of the same social and existential resources which religious people have access to to those who do not consider themselves religious. I feel that this is an entirely legitimate thing for a Humanist organization to do. Humanism is, at root, about promoting human flourishing and fulfilling human needs. Many people have a need for community and wish to discuss existential questions with others. If they aren’t members of a church community, and if they are committed to a naturalistic outlook, then it is hard to find spaces to engage in such discussions. While we certainly take some ideas from what has been termed “religious Humanism”, we don’t talk about what we are doing in terms of “creating a new religion” – that way is rife for misunderstanding. Also, we don’t receive any money from the government as far as I’m aware.
As for the issue of engaging in interfaith discussion, I take Ophelia’s point to heart. It’s a very difficult question for me personally as to whether we should engage with these sorts of initiatives. But I do think it is an issue about which thinking people may disagree in good faith. Again there is no need for silly name-calling and outright dismissal. Let’s leave that to others.
I accept that simply terming something “interfaith” immediately puts those (like me) who have a serious problem with “faith” as a concept on the outside, and may suggest that we’d need to leave our criticisms at the door. I would go further, and say that the whole interfaith movement seems religio-centric and really, by definition, excludes those who do not adhere to a religion and who want to criticize religion per se.
That, for me, doesn’t close the case, however. I want to take a further step and ask, “given the difficulties and challenges of engaging in interfaith work, might I still find good reasons to participate?” In other words, it isn’t necessarily the case that because something gives rise to certain challenges it should be avoided. There may be gains which balance or even outweigh the challenges. I think the gains of getting involved in an initiative like this MIGHT outweigh the challenges. Being seen as positive partners in an enterprise to do good for others might benefit the nonreligious community by showing Humanism and Atheism in a different light. It has certainly been my experience, when performing service work for the Chaplaincy, decked out in our Humanist Chaplaincy t-shirts, that people respond positively to what we are doing and are interested to learn more about the values we espouse. Often, I’ve had people say that seeing us engaged in service, including interfaith service, has changed their opinion of atheists. I think that’s a gain, and a gain worth taking on a little discomfort in order to achieve. Such work certainly won’t be for everyone, but it should, I think, be supported by those who do not wish to do it simply because of the positive benefits it brings the community.
In closing I think I’d simply like to point out that despite our disagreements on issues such as this, we are very much on the same side. It’s rather unseemly to see people who should be supporting each other tearing each other apart over minor disagreements. I despair for the future of our movement if this is how we respond to every disagreement. I think we can do better. [/end sermon =P]
Thanks James. That’s a helpful comment.
Point taken about the last para – but I think one problem with the religious-esque language and trappings is that we don’t necessarily realize the extent to which we are on the same side. I get that much better now because of (absurdly enough) Facebook, but the more public stuff – the written stuff that is – does seem overtly pious. It’s somewhat misleading, in other words.
Yes I take that point. I’m guilty more than most because I personally have a penchant for the more poetic language that religion often uses… We should try harder to avoid sounding pious =D
My analogy:
Greg Epstein has been invited to dinner by the cannibals. Now Greg doesn’t believe in eating human flesh but he accepts the invitation in the hopes that years down the road he can convince them to eventually change the menu. And hopefully they will… before Greg finds himself on the menu. Ophelia says, “No thanks. I don’t eat that and I’m not sitting down to table with people who do.” Zachary and James seem to be in the camp of: “oh c’mon, a little taste won’t hurt and besides we can all agree that the baked potatoes are good.”
As I said in an earlier post, this acquiescence may in the long run work out to achieve parity for atheism but sometimes there are principles that some of us just don’t want to violate. I’m not dining at the cannibals dinner party no matter how good it tastes.
I agree with “Die Anyway”.
The “a little taste won’t hurt” folks have forgotten (or not noticed) that everything that religion tells us about right and wrong, good and bad, helping people or hurting them is partial, deceitful, self-serving. The fundamental justification for the Office of Faith-Based Etc. is that faith helps people in ways that rational thinking and rationally-thought-through interventions cannot. This is simply a lie, invented to keep religious entrepreneurs in business.
Imagine the White House being pressured by casino operators to create an Office of Gambling-Based Neighborhood Feel-Good Whatever, because everyone knows that reckless wagering is good for the soul. That would be no less malicious.
Zachary and James seem to be in the camp of: “oh c’mon, a little taste won’t hurt and besides we can all agree that the baked potatoes are good.”
This is a good example of how arguments by metaphor can fail spectacularly. Roy, you and I are largely in agreement about the utility of the Office of etc. — whence the vitriol? Let’s just can that. Let the ideologues misrepresent each other endlessly. We’re in the reality-based camp; we can engage each other frankly and accurately, without any of this carping.
This is simply a lie, invented to keep religious entrepreneurs in business.
Alternately, it is a mistake, earnestly believed. And you and I and Greg and James and Ophelia and P.Z. and Randi (and so on) may have different views about how best to see the consequences of that mistake wreck as little damage as possible, and how (going further) we might do something about correcting that mistake.
As I said in an earlier post, this acquiescence may in the long run work out to achieve parity for atheism but sometimes there are principles that some of us just don’t want to violate.
What acquiescence do you mean, DA? I have attended interfaith events as a representative of an Atheist organization, and as private Atheism acting on his own, and on all such occasions I have introduced myself as Zachary Bos, “an Atheist working to challenge theism as a normal way of thinking about the world, to publicize the dangers of faith, and to advertise the attraction of a reason-based worldview.” The people who take me at my word and consider me welcome, I can get along with — that’s a show of good faith. The people who can’t stomach the idea of talking to or working with an Atheism who actually means what he says, they make themselves known, and I can treat them accordingly. And if I’m in the room where “interfaith” activities are happening, it gives me the chance to say, to an audience that’s already make known its interest in the topic, that I find the idea of “interfaith” problematic. The people who organize interfaithery aren’t here reading B&W; nor are they at the Dawkins foundation boards, or the JREF threads, or the Friendly Atheist blog. If you want to change minds — let’s say it, if you want to challenge erroneous thinking — you’ve got to wade out into the deeper water where its found.
Roy Sablosky: If Obama were the only Democrat in office then what you say would be true, however sending all dems the message that their liberal base has decided to start looking elsewhere is the only way that liberals are going to wake the democrats up to the fact that all of us in the liberal community CAN vote otherwise and damn well will. Without a reason to change their minds about us, they won’t.
Patrick Moore: So you’ll teach the Democrats a lesson by voting Republican? That makes no sense.
One, it’s not as either/or as that. There’s a wide spectrum of things we can do, and different things will reach different people, at different times. Some interfaithery organizers do read Dawkins, and plenty of people between the two camps also do. There’s exchange and debate.
Two, seeking out more ways to engage belivers is one thing, and verbally endorsing “faith” is another.
But you’ve had experience at interfaith events, so that’s relevant too.
Zachary Bos:
I said: “This is simply a lie, invented to keep religious entrepreneurs in business.”
You said: “Alternately, it is a mistake, earnestly believed.”
This is one of the misunderstandings that so hamper the secularization of public policy. Church members might have sincere beliefs that happen to be wrong (though I have argued that they do not). But when we talk about public policy, groups of “potential voters,” and so on we are talking about a different class of people: the church leaders. The notion of faith-based government agencies did not arise from the community at large. It was invented by the paid professional advocates of theocracy, mega-church pastors and Catholic bishops–not the people who subscribe to religion, but the people who run religion. These are not victims of some innocent mistake. They created the mistake.
Roy Sablosky:
Who said voting republican is any different? President Obama is a conservative Christian regardless of what letter he puts after his name-the party affiliation hardly matters to me anymore. I guess to you it does, so go ahead and vote for a democrat that believes in conceding to republicans everything they want, if that makes you feel better. If Donald Trump runs, I’m voting for him regardless of what letter he’s wearing!
Patrick Moore: You’re fired.
Ophelia says “seeking out more ways to engage belivers is one thing, and verbally endorsing “faith” is another.” I entirely agree. In engaging with this initiative we at Harvard hope to do the first while avoiding the second. If I play any part in Harvard’s Humanist Community’s role in the proposed initiative I will be upfront about my reservations regarding religious faith while trying to engage believers in thinking about their own beliefs and encouraging them to think better of Humanists.
I know you do. I can even tell you how I know: you wouldn’t have included that “free your mind” bit in the video if you didn’t.
And then of course any friend of Stephen Fry’s is a friend of mine! :- D
Roy Sablosky: hahahahahahahahaha! Okay, I guess I have to hand it to you–THAT was good! I never saw it coming
@James Croft. I don’t have any problem with non-religious people who want social or “existential” activities or want to pal around with pentecostals. Just leave me out of it. I found the offensive bit in Epstein’s piece to be this:
Who is the “we” that “must” here? I have no desire to engage in “inter-faith dialogue” beyond arguing that religions are false and harmful. I also have no desire to participate in a government organization that I believe is wrong-headed and possibly unconstitutional. I feel like a lot of Epstein’s schtick is putting a happy-face on atheists, and I don’t want religious people to feel comfortable with us if that means agreeing to disagree or signing kumbaya around the inter-faith campfire. I want people who are having doubts about religion to feel uncomfortable about those beliefs and know that atheists won’t tenderfoot around the arguments in order to be “nice guys”.
NICE GUYS FINISH LAST. iNTERFAITH GROUPS ARE THERE TO SHOW THE WORLD THERE CAN BE A MEETING OF DIVERSE PEOPLE, BUT REMEMBER ONCE YOU HAVE EXPOSED YOURSELF TO THEM, THE NEXT WITCH BURNING WILL BE YOU.
James Croft: I really appreciate your contribution to this conversation and ‘insider perspective’ in regards to interfaith efforts.
Die Anyway #61:
That analogy fails because it involves a violation of morals. By engaging in community alongside people espousing various worldviews, I would hope that would not constitute violating morals for you. Sure we have qualms about the labeling of the enterprise, but do we have qualms with the pulp of it too? I see people here writing of religion as if it is essentially oppressive, dishonest and malevolent, and I wonder: how do you characterize a religiously-inspired charity that is helping feed, clothe, and house the poor without stipulation? Truly, how much of a problem is it for nontheists to work alongside these religious people in doing good deeds, and to advocate for such things? I cannot see how the interfaith enterprise is immoral in the way that Die Anyway’s analogy suggests. “I cannot sit with you to dinner because you believe in God?” Have any of us really sunk to that attitude? Sure, SOME religious beliefs / actions are reprehensible… but it is naive and dishonest to generalize that to all religion. I doubt that the religious people engaged in interfaith efforts are not condoning the stoning of adulterers, the molestation of youth, God-ordained racial hierarchy, and the burning of witches / heretics. The efforts deserve praise and recognition, and it is good for nontheists to be willing to participate.
typo: “By engaging in community service alongside people…”
Sorry, and I meant to say near the end that “I doubt that the religious people engaged in interfaith efforts are
notcondoning the stoning of adulterers….”I’ll be more careful to check my posts before submitting from now onthe not was supposed to have a strike through it – Ophelia?
I agree with Daniel Lafave, and the statement by Greg Epstein that he singled out —
— was the one that prompted me to attempt to post a comment over at “On Faith,” to no avail, because commenting was (suspiciously) switched off for most of the weekend, and then switched on but not really working, and then closed with only 13 comments. Epstein’s essay deserved far more comments than that. I smelled a rat, and I sent a complaint to the Washington Post ombudsman.
Over at the New Humanism blog site, http://www.thenewhumanism.org/authors/christopher-stedman/articles/best-practices-for-interfaith-work, Greg Epstein’s pal Christopher Steadman posted a two-part entry on the nuts and bolts of effective “interfaith” work, and comments are closed there on both parts. Steadman explained the bests practice of interfaith work with the following tid-bits, among others:
I have misplaced my lens of interfaith cooperation, or maybe I never got one, or maybe it broke as soon as I brought it out into the sunlight.
I’m sorry, but if the end-objective of this “interfaith” work is to do good to others (adult literacy projects, renovating the housing stock, etc.), why is it necessary to swap stories from the various religious traditions (what stories will the atheists tell?), and to pretend that the doctrines of those various traditions are not contradictory?
“Interfaith cooperation” seems more like a vehicle for therapeutic massage to the general religious sensibilities of believers, so that they can feel good about sharing some generalized impulse to promote human well-being and forget temporarily about serious and potentially deadly doctrinal disagreements.
But none of this seems to be well-suited to do what really needs to be done . . . to show the religious that holding a particular set of superstitions, or being “receptive” to vague superstition in general, is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to being motivated or prepared to do good to others in minute particulars, in specific acts.
I suppose that the participation of secularists, atheists and freethinkers in “interfaith” charitable or community projects could help drive the latter point home, if the non-religious participants felt free to say to the religious participants, “We don’t believe any, or most, of the spiritual or supernatural stuff that all of you talk about, but we think this is a very good, valuable, important project, and we want to pitch in and get on the work.” The non-religious participants are not supposed to point out that the spiritual or supernatural claims are not true, because that will somehow ruin the party. Christopher Steadman:
It is sloppy or dishonest or both for Mr. Steadman to conflate (a) non-believers’ convictions, which they can support with some precision and with specific evidence, that most of the core claims of religions are false with (b) the “conflicting feelings” that Christians in the room have. Everyone participating in an interfaith thingamabob is supposed to be free to “tell stories” (including much “witnessing” and testifying by the Christians and the Muslims) and to listen attentively, but it sounds like no one is permitted to point out that the stories are contradictory and mythical and largely fact-free. Meanwhile, when and how does the charitable work get done?
@Roy: But when we talk about public policy, groups of “potential voters,” and so on we are talking about a different class of people: the church leaders.
Sure, some. Not all. If we begin to think that this kind of account describes all church leadership, we’ve fallen prey to a dogmatic prejudice ourselves.
@Andrew: Sure, SOME religious beliefs / actions are reprehensible… but it is naive and dishonest to generalize that to all religion.
Well… if we take to heart the principle that a belief should be grounded in reason, along the lines of William Clifford’s concept of ethical belief, then *any* belief that follows from participation in religion is suspect. Not because it would bring about unethical actions, but because the act of possessing a belief which isn’t justified by reason, is itself unethical.
This doesn’t mean I go around telling all religious people that their beliefs are nonsense. In fact, it is often a productive conversation starter, when I observe that I can lay claim to many beliefs they’d recognize as compatible or even identical to their own. The difference being that my beliefs are derived through a process of reasoning (and are open to scrutiny, and are each contingent upon consistency and coherence, etc. etc.), unlike beliefs that follow from assuming forms of religious belief. Why be satisfied with the received wisdom, when you can work out a perfectly functional ethical from starting principles on your own?
This is maybe an overlong response to a small point; but it suffices as a sketch for the argument I use to justify my labeling of *all* religious belief and practice as dangerous. It isn’t the content of the belief, but the reasons one subscribes to it.
@Jeff D, this is the same kind of reason that I like you am not persuaded that swapping interfaith stories is a productive way to get past differences. The content of our stories may be interchangeable — certainly it is relatable, even as we can relate to the views of characters in science fiction or fantasy stories, whose difference from us is much greater than the difference between any Atheist and theist. But it is the conviction with which one hearkens to the apparent moral implications of the stories that can’t be compared. I agree with Chris Steadman — it is a nonstarter, and moreover just plain muddleheaded, to stand in judgment of stories: your story is wrong, mine is right. The story is just a story.
Where people can be rightfully called out for being Wrong or Right in ethically significant ways, is when they begin to derive moral principles from mere stories. A story isn’t veracious — it isn’t a thing that can possess veracity. An interpretation, though, can be valid or invalid; as when I tell a story about the time I felt a ‘stirring of the spirit’ in a churchful of Baptists. The story happens to be true — I got real emotional one night, when a whole big group of believers was singing hymns and putting their hands on me. But I interpret this as a sociological and psychological experience, one in which my feelings were provoked by the people around me, even though the setting was a religious one. I’m willing to open this interpretation to scrutiny, and explain why I am confident connecting the incidental facts of the matter (my feelings, the actions of the Baptists, the music and lighting of the church) with my interpretative deductions and inductions: that this was a mundane, sublunary, normal experience. If someone marches up to me with a religious interpretation — “That flutter in your heart? That was Jesus!” — then I have a hook to hang my criticism on: “Sorry, your *interpretation* is wrong.
There’s no point in comparing stories; only the principles by which we interpret out stories are of ethical significance. Stories are fun, and I’m sure interfaithers like to have fun as much as the next person, but my concern is to vex and to inquire, not to make friends. But then, I see the other side…I’m about to organize a set of comity dinners, between the members of an Atheist group I work with, and members of a local evangelical church. The ground rules for these admittedly contrived occasions, request that everyone participating refrain from being overly critical. Why?
Not because I find criticism taboo. Rather, because parties can’t engage productively in reciprocal criticism if there isn’t a shared sense of mutual investment (so they don’t walk away, bored or impatient); a shared sense of cooperation (so they don’t feel lured into a trap); and a shared sense of respect (so they don’t withdraw for fear of being made vulnerable to insensitivity). So, these comity events are intended to cultivate rapport. And when the Atheist and theists come to see each other as human persons and not just as representatives of their respective worldviews, then they can start admitting that they find each other’s views preposterous, contradictory, mythical, fact-free, etc. There’s little point in being critical of someone if they’re not going to stay engaged in the conversation.
@Zachary Bos:
Yes, exactly. I suppose it’s a tough thing to pull off, like standing up in a floating canoe as it drifts down stream, and keeping one’s balance, but it’s a worthwhile enterprise. I can cultivate and practice a “shared sense of respect” so long as it is respect for human beings and their rights of action and personal expression, and not “respect” toward the content of ideas or beliefs.
The other aspect of Chris Steadman’s above-quoted comment which bothered me, and which I forgot to mention, is this idea that “many nonreligious individuals who engage in interfaith work will continue to struggle with their personal belief that the religious stories they encounter are false . . . .” I don’t struggle with that personal belief of mine, and I think it’s more than just a belief. I can cite the reasons for my position. And I don’t feel the need that I “must articlulate [my] conviction” that the religious stories are non-factual or counterfactual except in response to vocal claims by the religious that their stories are true. I’d prefer that my conversations with the religious take the course and have the content that 99.5 percent of them usuualy take or have — about the mundane, wordly, non-religious problems, concerns, hopes, and activities of human beings as human beings.
Andrew Lovley:
You forget that the government can and does do humanitarian work through other means. Any funds given to faith-based projects have to be taken from other projects.
Yes, religion is essentially oppressive, dishonest, and malevolent. Charity is good. So let’s do charitable things and leave religion out of it.
Misleading. None of us have said anything like that.
As I pointed out earlier, the impetus for “faith-based” government work comes not from the community but from the executive leadership of powerful religious organizations. Catholic bishops are known to be facilitators of the molestation of youth. The religious entrepreneurs relentlessly oppose equal rights for women, reproductive choice, same-sex marriage, and the teaching of science. Demonstrably, these men have no concern for the public welfare. Humanitarian work happens despite religion, not because of it.
Zachary Bos:
Do not lecture to me about prejudice. I am talking about observable facts. Church leaders are professional liars. It is their job to say things that they know not to be true. The scriptures they have chosen to teach, even to the youngest children, are false, corrupt, and harmful. All these are known facts. Any good that clerics do is in spite of their profession, not because of it.
@Daniel Lafave: You ask “Who is the “we” that “must” [engage in interfaith work]? I have no desire to engage in “inter-faith dialogue” beyond arguing that religions are false and harmful. I also have no desire to participate in a government organization that I believe is wrong-headed and possibly unconstitutional.” You say you are “offended” by the part with the “must”.
You are far too easily offended. I take this as a simple rhetorical device – a call to arms. Some of us “must” get involved in this. Others, like yourself, can stay out. We are not interested in forcing anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. To insert that reading into the article is to display almost a desire to be offended. There’s no need to get so het-up over small differences in strategy. This is particularly galling when you throw around things like “The word “Humanism” makes me cringe and the phrase “humanist chaplaincy” makes me sick to my stomach.” For those of us who work alongside the Chaplaincy and see the excellent work it is doing promoting freethinking, rationalism, secularism, Humanism and Atheism, it is frustrating to see our hard work denigrated in this childish way.
@Andrew Lovley In #76 you put the point extremely well, I think. The cannibalism analogy is utterly ludicrous. By representing naturalism in a space that otherwise would be filled only with people of faith one is not compromising one’s values. One is interjecting oneself into a discussion and a venue one would otherwise be absent from, and therefore giving voice and representation to the naturalist community. It requires no sacrifice of any sort of values to sit at a table and talk about, say, poverty reduction with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians. Indeed I thikn it demonstrates a stronger commitment to Humanist values to engage in such discussions than to refuse to engage in them, because one tenet of Humanism is to attempt to understand better those who are different from us, and therefore expand our circle of concern. Therefore as a Humanist I consider engaging positively with people of faith (while reserving my right to criticize their faith) a moral necessity.
@Jeff D, #80: This concern regarding who is able to comment on which posts is approaching a conspiracy theory. Certainly Greg has no control over it at “On Faith”, and you’ll see over at The New Humanism we turn off comments after a while for all our posts (I’m not sure why we do this, and I personally would prefer we didn’t but we do and it is very consistent – just check the older articles). There’s no Orwellian attempt to stifle criticism. You ask:
“I’m sorry, but if the end-objective of this “interfaith” work is to do good to others (adult literacy projects, renovating the housing stock, etc.), why is it necessary to swap stories from the various religious traditions (what stories will the atheists tell?), and to pretend that the doctrines of those various traditions are not contradictory?”
This shows a poor comprehension of the passages you quoted. Nowhere do they suggest that one must swap stories from a religious tradition (it says “lived experience”), and nowhere does it suggest that one must “pretend that the doctrines of those various traditions are not contradictory”. Rather, the passage suggests that you not BEGIN with those disagreements if you are to have a fruitful discussion in which the individuals will come to know each other better. This sort of sloppy reading displays your bias, and it would be better if you were able to see what were actually written instead of what you imagine to be there.
You then say “It is sloppy or dishonest or both for Mr. Steadman to conflate (a) non-believers’ convictions, which they can support with some precision and with specific evidence, that most of the core claims of religions are false with (b) the “conflicting feelings” that Christians in the room have.” But in the passage quoted, again, no such claim is being made. Rather, Stedman encourages us to recognize that “we aren’t the only ones in the room with conflicting feelings”. No attempt is made to draw some sort of parity between these different sets of conflicting feelings. The “conflation” you decry simply does not occur in the text. This is merely an attempt to point out that interfaith work is uncomfortable for many participants for different reasons.
I think you fail to see this because you see interfaith work as “a vehicle for therapeutic massage to the general religious sensibilities of believers”. This is, frankly, a profoundly simplistic view, which overlooks the very real differences between religions. Do you think it’s easy for an Evangelical Christian to sit down with a devout Muslim and talk about their different faith positions? In this country? Come on. It’s hard for us, yes, and it’s hard for many religious individuals too. The topic deserves a rather more nuanced and thoughtful consideration than it’s getting from you.
Indeed, it is sloppy or dishonest or both for you, Jeff D, to so carelessly misread the work of others through the lens of your own preconceived opinion. It is also somewhat close-minded. Freethinkers should not be close-minded, in my view.
@Roy: Why is it when we are disagreeing, your comments are “observable facts,” but mine are part of a “lecture”?
You write, Church leaders are professional liars. It is their job to say things that they know not to be true. But since I know church leaders who are scrupulous, and earnest in their beliefs, your observation on this matter cannot be called a true fact.
And yet, I agree with you on the point: Any good that clerics do is in spite of their profession, not because of it.
James,
No, of course it doesn’t, as such. But if the table-sitting takes place at an “Interfaith Conference on Poverty Reduction” then for an atheist to join in does require sacrifice of some values. It represents at least tacit consent to the assumption that poverty reduction has some inherent connection with “faith.”
You guys seem to be trying hard to treat “interfaith” projects as if they were something other than “interfaith” – but that’s just what we object to.
James Croft, call me sloppy or dishonest if you wish. I am not deliberately trying to seem or sound offensive, but I think I am not alone in my struggle to understand
(1) just what these “positive,” “appreciative,” “interfaith” encounters and dialogues between various believers and non-believers are supposed to contain or consist of,
(2) how to determine when the conversations are insufficiently “positive” and “appreciative,” and
(3) why all of this talk — especially the explicit self-identification by each participant as coming from this or that faith tradition, or from none at all — why all of this talk is even necessary, if the objective is to accomplish real, tangible good works out in the world, in the community. Why not just reach a consensus on the specifics of the work to be done, develop an action plan and a division of labor, and get on with it?
Maybe it’s just my lack of exposure to, or tolerance for, a certain brand of social-science-speak that has become the lingua franca in places like the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, where “impact” is used more often as a transitive verb in 1 year than it was in the previous 300 years. I find a lot of it to be impenetrable, and rather precious. It puts me on alert, and then I read Mr. Epstein strongly suggesting that students “must” get over any misgivings about the word “interfaith.” Thank goodness I am long past my student years. I cannot get over my misgivings about “interfaith.” Especially when one of the most prominent promoters of “interfaith” projects is not Mr. Epstein’s private sector office, which is free to do whatever Mr. Epstein and his colleagues think is socially constructive, but this White House Office that enables and subsidizes blatant, religious-based employment discrimination by religious groups receiving federal funds.
Zachary,
Why?
Seriously: why? Would you organize a set of comity dinners between gay rights activists and homophobes? Between feminists and misogynists? Between secularists and theocrats?
I can see throwing comity parties, and just saying “All are invited.” I don’t see the point of throwing comity dinners for people who have strong disagreements.
Look: everybody already knows that people can get along provided they don’t discuss the things they disagree about. We know that. I know that, you know that, everybody knows that. We don’t need comity dinners to convince us of that. But the fact remains that we do have views, and we do disagree with people who have different views. I don’t see what comity dinners have to do with that.
Disagreement is ok. Disagreement is good. Don’t try to “fix” disagreement.
@Ophelia: Seriously: why?
Members of the group specifically asked for it. As the organizer of a social group, I don’t have a dog in the fight. If they want to put together worldview wrestling matches, I’ll make the arrangements. But they asked for getting-to-know-you brunches, so that’s what goes on the calendar.
Would you organize a set of comity dinners between gay rights activists and homophobes?
Sure; sunlight being a good disinfectant. The sort of homophobe who would ATTEND such a dinner, are designating themselves as likely candidates for rethinking their position. Perhaps my religious counterpart on the other side of the comity dinner planning, thinks the same about us: if Atheists are meeting up with some evangelicals for noodles and drinks, they must be ripe for conversion? Maybe the Atheists who plan to go think the same way, as well. Well, who cares — attendance is voluntary.
Between feminists and misogynists?
This would look like, what, the make-up of the diners in any restaurant in the world at any given time?
Between secularists and theocrats?
I’ve tried, but the theocrats won’t come (really).
I noted above that the “why” is because members suggested it; for my part, I think it is good to work against the formation and fossilization of “pocket cultures”. People who spend time only among people whose views are in complete (and maybe compulsory) agreement with their own, tend not enjoy the social and intellectual of meeting those with a differing view. Atheists aren’t likely to socialize with evangelicals; all the more reason (in one way of thinking about it) to invite everybody to hang out for a bit.
Note, that the goal here is “comity” or fellow-feeling, rather than, say, the development of neighborhood-government partnerships which run the risk of violating the Establishment clause.
:- )
Good line about the restaurants.
Also good points. I still think a better way to avoid the perils of pocket cultures is just to be random – to mix with people in general as opposed to seeking out opposites in particular…except for official debates and panel discussions and all like that there. But it’s a good point about people who are willing to attend…
Ophelia: You say that “if the table-sitting takes place at an “Interfaith Conference on Poverty Reduction” then for an atheist to join in does require sacrifice of some values. It represents at least tacit consent to the assumption that poverty reduction has some inherent connection with “faith.” I don’t see it like that. I see it as an opportunity to make the case that poverty reduction has no inherent connection with “faith”. By being an explicitly faithless person sitting at the table, the whole framework of the discussion is put into question.
Jeff D, first let me say that I agree entirely that the White House should NOT, not at ALL, enable or subsidize “religious-based employment discrimination by religious groups receiving federal funds.” There we agree (and on a lot more, I imagine.
you ask three questions. Let me try to answer each.
1) In my understanding, the purpose of interfaith encounters is primarily to reduce hostility and prejudice between people of different faith groups and none, and to increase appreciation of mutual similarities shared across lines of difference. Thus, for example, when a gay atheist like myself engages in interfaith discussion, I might do it to try to understand and get to better know a Mormon who profoundly disagrees with my “lifestyle” and worldview. The benefit of this is that a) it humanizes the other, making prejudice more difficult to maintain; b) it thus reduces the potential for conflict based on such prejudice; c) it can lead to a changing of views, whereby by seeing me a Mormon might come to realize that i) atheists aren’t so bad and ii) gays are people too.
It is unlikely, granted, that the Mormon will give up his religious beliefs and become an atheist. It’s unlikely, too, that I’ll abandon my Humanism and become a Mormon. But this is not the purpose – proselytizing is not the goal of such encounters. Mutual understanding is the purpose.
Is this challenging? Yes. Don’t you think I want to yell at these people and tell them how much their church has hurt my gay friends in California? Yes I do. Is it worth it to keep that inside for a while to make myself a more broadly humane person? I think so. I have plenty of outlets to proselytize, and I use them. Sometimes I’m willing to stop proselytizing for a while and listen.
2) This is partly negotiated by the group and partly by the individual. There have been a few times when I’ve made my true feelings regarding the role of faith known and others in the interfaith setting have considered what I’ve said “offensive” – insufficiently positive and appreciative, I suppose. When this happens I simply tend to say that those are my views, that I respect the participants enough to give them honestly, and that I refuse to leave my honest opinions at the door for fear of offending people. I then tend to say that if “interfaith” discussion is going to include people like me, then it will by necessity involve dealing with feeling “offended”. That usually makes people think again a bit. But it requires some backbone, and a willingness to stand up for your principles. I understand some might be uncomfortable to do that.
3) This gets back to 1). It’s because some of the point is simply to understand other people better, not just to do good works together.
Perhaps part of my challenge here is that I don’t think it too difficult to understand. I see trying to get along with people who are different to me as an essential component of living in a pluralistic society. I don’t want to live in a world where I don’t know and don’t understand my neighbors. Even if I profoundly disagree with others, I want to try to understand them, get to know them, work alongside them if at all possible. None of this precludes vigorous and even biting criticism when necessary. It just makes for a more humane world. That’s what, as a Humanist, I strive for.
James, but of course getting along with people (who are different) is essential. But as I’ve said, we all already know that. I think several of us have explicitly agreed to that already. But we don’t agree that that requires doing interfaith anything.
You may think that what you’re doing by getting atheists included in interaith things is challenging faithy assumptions, but that’s clearly not what a lot of people understand from the articles that you (plural) have been writing about it.
James Croft,
Thank you very much for your answers, which did help me. Of course, I can get to know someone as a fellow human being with ordinary (next door, across the table at a meeting or a lunch, while waiting for the bus, without disclosing that I am an atheist, or without finding out, until much later, that my neighbor or fellow commuter or co-worker is a Mormon, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Muslim, or a Reform Jew, or a Baptist, etc. I don’t understand why it’s necessary, or preferable, to have people label themselves up-front as members of some specific religious group, or as one of the Nones, unless the dominant purpose of the interaction is to try to directly bridge these gaps or “divides.”
I have been practicing law for 31.5 years, and all but 8 of those years here in the “Bible Belt” Midwest. Want to know how many times a prospective client has asked me about my religious beliefs (if any) or even hinted at applying some sort of religious litmus test before deciding whether to hire me to draft their Wills and administer their dead loved one’s estates? Zero. Not once. That tells me that even the most fervent evangelical Baptists (and I have had quite a few among my clients, as well as devout Catholics and Muslims) really do not care much about religious differences in many aspects of their daily lives.
If I were a moderator or facilitator (fat chance!) at one of these interfaith events, I think I’d find it tougher to bridge the gaps between religious folks of different faiths (complex, nuanced, multi-dimensional, sometimes profound, sometimes ancient, often irreconcilable, pick your adjective) than to deal with the differences between the relgious folks in the aggregate over on this side of the table and the non-believer secularists on the other side of the table, who, truth be told, think that it’s all bunkum and have no emotional or social stake in pretending to believe any of it.
Religious differences between people should not be that important, except when they become important because of the good, and the bad, that people feel motivated to do, and the effect that religious belief can have on public policies under which the rest of us must live (e.g., Proposition 8 in California; Rep. Randy Forbes’s latest stunt, House Concurrent Resolution 13 to “reaffirm” “In God We Trust” as the National Motto; and the latest attempts by anti-abortion / pro-life legislators to legislate matters of scientific fact about fetal development and to criminalize miscarriages).
Were it not for that kind of dangerous nonsense, I’d be spending a lot less of my time at sites like Butterflies and Wheels.
Sorry, I omitted some words.
So would I…or rather, Butterflies and Wheels would be about other things. There are always plenty of things to be about.
Ophelia,
Yes, of course. There will always be other kinds of fashionable nonsense to learn about, to talk about, and to battle.
[…] Benson says it well: … “we” have not been included in a company of that kind; chaplains and interfaith […]
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