Thanks, but no
Do atheists crave a replacement for church?
Atheism’s great awakening is in need of a doctrine. “People perceive us as only rejecting things,” says Ken Bronstein, the president of a local group called New York City Atheists. “Everybody wants to know, ‘Okay, you’re an atheist, now what?'”
Nah, thanks – I’m not in need of a doctrine. In fact the very idea is kind of…how shall I say…idiotic? Part of the point of being an atheist is not having to sign up to a ‘doctrine.’ It’s not a matter of thinking those other doctrines are no fun but our doctrine is just the ticket. It’s a matter of not liking doctrines in the first place.
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.
Yes…but atheists don’t want creeds, hierarchies, clerics, or fairy tales about the afterlife. I’m down with pretty buildings, schools are good, some rituals are okay if I always have a right of refusal, money is just fine if anyone wants to give me some, but the rest of it is a good deal too churchy for me, thanks.
The article goes on to give a toe-curling picture of pseudo-church (Secular Jewish church; go figure) that illustrates just why the idea is so unappealing. Singing secular hymns…noooooo thank you.
When Tim Gorski, a Texas physician, approached Paul Kurtz, an influential atheist who now chairs the Center for Inquiry, an atheist think tank, about his plans to start the North Texas Church of Freethought in the nineties, Kurtz discouraged him, on the grounds that atheists don’t need church.
Just so. Tim Gorski should have started an atheist think tank, instead. Did I ever tell you about the library at the Center for Inquiry? Biggest library of free thought in the country, or the world, or something. I liked to wander around it drooling slightly.
Dennett sees value in atheism’s great awakening, in the energy and money that come from organizing, but he counsels caution. “The last thing atheists want to see is their rational set of ideas yoked up with the trappings of a religion,” he says. “We think we can do without that.”
Although, as I mentioned, money and pretty buildings are always gratefully accepted if offered.
“In the larger war against supernaturalism, frankly, it doesn’t help to fraternize with the enemy,” [Dawkins] says.
Fraternize with or imitate.
It’s a good thing the mass media didn’t exist during the 18th and 19th centuries, otherwise we’d have all these snarky op-eds asking “are democracies just pining for a king?”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-unreason-of-the-age-of-american-unreason/
“
As one who is generally disowned by “the right wing” for being a snarling liberal and by “the left wing” for being a neocon apologist for imperialism, I have always taken a great refuge where category is concerned in Robert Conquest’s recommendation that, rather than beating worn-out steeds to death, we should forget about left and right and seek a United Front Against Bullshit. “
Ophelia, spot on! Let’s remain chaotic and disorganized with strong opinions, sharing only the openness to debate on those opinions with reason.
That’s why this ‘brights’-idea was, by the way, such a bummer – it misses the point entirely. The point isn’t that we need to weigh more, the point is that a bunch of superstitions should way less.
“Yes, we are all individuals.” ;-)
I belong to the NSS. That’s enough for me on the organization front.
There is something very interesting about this “atheist church” idea, though – it reveals, perhaps, the extent to which many ‘average’ Americans’ everyday lives have been taken-over by religious organisations.
This is a phenomenon that is still relatively under-developed here in the UK (thankfully).
But for so many people in the US, who is it organises the creche/toddler groups? Who runs the basketball/softball/whatever leagues (kids & adults)? Who even puts on singles’ (entirely chaste, of course!) dating nights?
Their church.
Plus it’s such a huge country, with greater geographical mobility for a large proportion of the job market, so when you pitch up all alone in a new city, all you have to do is walk through the doors of the denomination of your choice, and you have a ready-made social life.
In fact, in some (semi-rural) areas, if you aren’t participating in church-run activities, there actually isn’t much else to do… [resists obvious gag “apart from shooting up/smoking crack/drinking fermented potato peelings, chasing yer sister, etc.. :-) ]
Which, if someone has, say, finally realised that supernaturalism is quite silly, leaves them with a pretty big hole to fill…
Maybe it’s another reason Prof. Dawkins encountered so many folk over there who felt ‘isolated’ because of their atheism?
Atheist Church is still a crap idea, though. And yeah, that “brights” nonsense…that was cringeworthy in the extreme. :-)
“Singing secular hymns…noooooo thank you.”
It seems to me that some of the songs of the labor movement would count as secular hymns.
I agree with Andy, the churches in the US fill a useful role for which we don’t yet have good substitutes. For myself, Boy Scouts presents a similar dilemma. The organization is religious. As a parent, do I take a principled stand and forbid my son from joining? By doing so he loses out on the social activities and the education. Alternatively I could try to create a comparable secular group. The challenges to creating such a group, however, are quite significant. I wouldn’t have the traditions, materials, state/national events among other handicaps. Furthermore there are existing Boy Scout troops, I would be drawing from the same pool of potential members. Eventually I suspect that the religious requirements/language of Boy Scouts will be dropped. In the meantime, it does present a minor dilemma.
Fortunately this isn’t an issue for Girl Scouts.
It isn’t only the social functions that have been intertwined with the church. The ethnic/cultural aspects can also be hard to separate. The studies on intermarriage can be somewhat illuminating in this respect.
“If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?”
Well it would definitely go to his children. Whoever they are indeed!
RC’s believe that God lived ‘yesterday’, lives ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’. He is eternal! So, naturally that leaves them out of the “house” inheritance equation.
“It seems to me that some of the songs of the labor movement would count as secular hymns.”
Yeah, and civil rights songs, too. That’s why I didn’t write off ‘ritual’ completely: I am highly susceptible to that particular kind of hymn. I blush to admit it but Springsteen and the Sessions Band Live in Dublin – which turns a lot of old labor and civil rights songs into rock-folk-cajun-whorehouse roof-rattlers – works on me that way. I could attend that kind of ‘church’ I suppose…
I can perhaps understand the point of having groups that go to the pub (or wherever) and discuss stuff, or organise lectures (insert the word sermons if it makes you happy), or do think tank type stuff, so that people can share ideas and campaigning information or whatever. The social aspect of it would probably be good as well, particularly given what Jeff and Andy have said. In fact, that kind of thing sounds like a positively good idea. Presumably there are organisations like that already (the atheist society at my university is pretty popular and they do stuff like that, although I don’t really attend).
But why all the rest of the stuff? Why model it so closely on religion? Particularly I don’t see how creeds or hierarchies would be anything other than alienating.
I have a similar attitude to ‘leaders’. I don’t want politicians to be leaders, I want them to be represntatives. Every time I hear someone gesture approvingly to a religious or political ‘leader’ I inwardly cringe. Have they no thoughts of their own? Do they want to be led?
“Yeah, and civil rights songs, too. That’s why I didn’t write off ‘ritual’ completely: I am highly susceptible to that particular kind of hymn. I blush to admit it but Springsteen and the Sessions Band Live in Dublin – which turns a lot of old labor and civil rights songs into rock-folk-cajun-whorehouse roof-rattlers – works on me that way. I could attend that kind of ‘church’ I suppose…”
Tss, tss, Ophelia, only blushing? Next you’ll find yourself defending it and, before you know it, singing along. No, spare us that idea! You just happen to like bad music, nothing near a church, just de gustibus et …
The Boss your boss? No, no, definitely no, don’t let me get into the week-end with that awful thought.
I’m not sure I’m interested in Ophelia’s secular hymns. In fact, she should be doing more than blushing.
But I recalled having bought a book a couple years, maybe three or four years ago, that was relevant to this discussion. Of course, you can’t have an orthodoxy, when what most people who escape church want is not to live their lives on the defensive all the time. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t seek some kind of wholeness.
That’s where this book comes in, only parts of which I have read. It’s title is “Secular Wholeness: A skeptic’s paths to a richer life.” Now, maybe this doesn’t have the answers to the kinds of losses that religious people feel when they cut the apron strings and try to walk on their won, but it may point in that direction. Just a suggestion.
Oh cut it out. I don’t even know from the Boss – I don’t know his other music. I just like this one particular performance. It’s a lot of other musicians as well as Springsteen. I like some folk music, some Cajun, some jazz, some whorehouse, some rock – so sue me!
Never understood this ‘absence’ argument about atheism or rejecting religion.
If you found a cure for cancer who, apart from aromatherapists and hospice chaplains, would feel their lives were emptier?
Generalities:
Dogma, in and of itself, regardless of whether it happens to assert something currently true or generally useful or not, is generally a bad thing. Insofar as it is antithetical to the exercise of critical faculties, and this alone poses danger. And this is the one (somewhat) dogmatic statement I will make.
Rituals are powerful things. They can have an addictive quality. This is not to say no one should have them. This is just to say you’ve really got to keep your eye on them. If your ritual is getting up in the morning for a jog, that’s probably one worth keeping ’round–most of the time. But hell, even that one, keep your eye on it. Knees can wear out. Neighbourhoods can get dangerous. So on. What was a good habit yesterday can become a bad one next.
Every social organization contains within it the seeds of tyranny and an incestuous tendency to garner power for power’s own sake. That’s not to say we shouldn’t have organizations. We’re a social species; those are much of what make us successful. But you need to keep your eye on those, too…
All of which is to say: I sure as hell don’t want to see an atheist church. I think people who have realized religious and other dogmas have done and continue to do great harm should organize around that, where necessary, to oppose specific harms. But they also need to keep all of the above in mind, all the time. That’s the only thing, really, that will keep them meaningfully and usefully different from the dogmas and superstitions and institutions promulgating them whose harm they oppose.
The thing is, though, I understand the appeal (I think). It’s quite weak for me but that’s because I’m a nerdy hostile uncuddly person, and not everyone is like that. I think people are probably right who say it’s a need and that it’s a weakness of atheism that it has no good substitute. I don’t know what to do about that (because the possible substitutes are so repellent and/or risky in the way AJ indicates) but I do think it’s a problem.
It would be nice if there were more civic ways of gathering regularly. But then, as soon as I say that, I notice how little I want to attend a civic gathering. Sigh.
OB,
As for songs of the labour movement, are you familiar with Utah Phillips? His work with Anni di Franco is a delight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Phillips
See ya in court, OB.
I notice how little I want to attend a civic gathering. Sigh.
Yeah. Me too. There’s a humanist association ’round here, and a sorta ‘freethinkers’ book club’ thing, too, and I get their mailings regularly, and it seems all well-intentioned enough, but I’ve just managed to get out to one of each of their meetings over the course of many, many years. And even doing that was sorta a guilt/obligation thing. As in: I should show up, right… just be counted? Seems good in principle.
But it just wasn’t my thing. I’ve no real interest in that stuff. I’m sociable enough, as long as the socialization is properly disorganized (pub w/ drinks, coffeeshop w/ coffee, play ot concert w/ either, this is all good). Just not a joiner.
Funny, my husband and I were discussing just this the other day. We live in north Texas and wish there was some way to meet other religion-less people for socializing. In our corner of the world, the vast majority of people you meet day-to-day are religious, and thus not people I feel I can speak freely with on every and any subject. And thus not people I view as serious friendship material. My husband pointed out just what you did, Ophelia, that an atheist church is a silly idea and we are escapees from doctrine, so why would we go and seek it out? And I do agree. But still, I feel like atheists in our area need some kind of secret sign by which to recognize each other in public! (BTW, I think Gorski did start his organization here, but I think it’s defunct now.)
That’s the thing, isn’t it – atheists don’t feel they (we) can speak freely with religious people. It’s very inhibiting.
I know I feel inhibited but I also know that, with some effort, I overcome that inhibition (if at least there is chance of real listening behaviour).
I’m not doing the effort because they’re religious but because they seem worthwhile to discuss with.
No, it’s not that easy, because the inhibition I mean is the one about hurting people’s feelings etc. I think it’s quite impossible to overcome that inhibition, and not even desirable to – but that does mean there is a gulf between atheists and most theists. Most theists simply don’t take kindly to completely frank discussion of theism.
It’s interesting that the inhibition doesn’t run the other way at all.
Ophelia, I didn’t say easy. It is by no means easy. I don’t know about ‘most’ & over here I guess it is fortunately far from ‘most’. Honestly, I did not see we are limiting it to ‘frankly discussing theism’ here. That will indeed be quite difficult but isn’t such discussion not mostly the result of preliminaries, iso a starting point? I know I would not be very obliging if somebody came up first & foremost to discuss my agnosticism.
Then again, I wouldn’t be interested to discuss these things at all with a large majority of people I meet.