Kumbaya
Chris Stedman is excited about inter-faith thingies again – interfaith cooperation, interfaith training, interfaith leadership, interfaith youth, interfaith activism, the interfaith movement, the interfaith table, interfaith work, interfaith events, interfaith understanding, interfaith coffee, interfaith ice cream, interfaith bicycles…the list goes on.
Anyway, the thing that’s so particularly exciting this time is that even atheists can do it. You would think that wouldn’t make any sense, since if there’s one thing atheists can be counted on not to be interested in, it’s faith – but it turns out that you would be wrong to think that. Atheists are all over it.
Speaking before a group of policy and philanthropic professionals, I explained that there are many atheists, agnostics, humanists and other nonreligious individuals like Anderson, Chituc, Link, Garner, Liddell and others at the institutes who wish to seek understanding, respect and collaboration with their religious neighbors.
Why does that statement give me the creeps? Why does it make me want to duck my head and slam the door and run quickly in the opposite direction?
I suppose because it sounds so damn intrusive and pious and missionary-like. I don’t want to seek anything with my neighbors, nor do I want them to seek anything with me. I don’t want to pester people that way. I don’t want to be always meddling with people, and I’m suspicious of people who do. I’m suspicious of Chris Stedman. I’m suspicious of all this teaming up and leadershipping and faith-based initiativing.
And I suspect that faithiness has something – perhaps a lot – to do with that habit of mind, and atheism has a lot to do with its absence. I think faithy people tend to think they have The Answer, and to want to force it (in the nicest possible way, of course) on everyone else. I think atheists tend not to think that. Yes we tend to think atheism is liberating, but we’re not so sure of it in every case that we feel like knocking on people’s doors to tell them so.
I don’t know – I just think all this reaching out can’t help being patronizing, and it creeps me out for that reason. There they all are, the fresh-faced youngsters, planning how things are going to be for the rest of us. I don’t want them planning things for me. I want to do my own planning. I want to be grumpy if I feel like it. Maybe I’ll start wearing a big red G for Grumpy.
Of course it’s creepy. If atheists join in “interfaith” events/relationships/activities/dialogue (etc. etc. ad nauseam) it immediately gives faith the imprimatur. Faith, suddenly, becomes what it is all about, and atheism is somehow subsumed under that heading. It is not acceptable. I not only want to be able to be grumpy when I like. I damn well am grumpy about this kind of unprincipled idiocy. Steadman can go sell his religious bunk to the religious.
This is precisely why the gnu atheism is so important, because the old atheism is still quite prepared to be suborned in this way. G, by the way, can stand for “Gnu” as well!
As I said in a comment to Stedman’s piece at HuffPo, I have no objections to working cooperatively with “people of faith” in order to promote or achieve secular, humanistic, real-world goals. I do it regularly, because “people of faith” are everywhere.
What I object to is having my participation, my cooperation, labeled as “interfaith.” I’ll take and I’ll cherish human solidarity, empathy, courage, and even hope and confidence, but I don’t have “faith,” I don’t need it, and I don’t want it.
If each of us wears both a big red G and a big red A, who can say whether it stands for Grumpy Atheist or Gnu Atheist?
I am pleasantly astonished that Eric MacDonald and I had the same thought about “G” and “A” in this first pair of comments!
I was brought up in one of those faiths. I know what it’s about, I know their tricks and I don’t want any part of it or any other faith. I’ll stick to logic, reason and science…..I have no wish to make nice with the superstitious of whatever stripe. I have no faith in any of it; please leave me out of it and do not presume to speak for me Mr Stedman because you do not!
what gives me the creeps here is the fact that, as someone who does claim to have some kind of this silly, delusional faith, it seems that i am simply not allowed to talk to ‘Grumpy Atheists.’ i totally get the need to not assume that those of no-faith should be lumped into those with it, but isn’t the nasty feeling of exclusion the thing that pissed the nonreligious off in the first place?
talking to each other about our beliefs does not mean that either party has to be lobbying for “their side.” suppose i wanted your recipe for leek-and-potato soup–would you not talk to me because i don’t believe the same thing?
and yes, that’s an exaggeration. but this is the line of thinking you suggest when you say “I don’t want to seek anything with my neighbors, nor do I want them to seek anything with me.” i’m sorry, but that sounds like the breeding ground of hate and intolerance.
i may have some semblance of faith, but i don’t claim to have “The Answer” nor would i dream of telling anyone i do. recently, i’ve learned more about my faith from the nonreligious than i have from the religious. and i don’t mean it in the “well clearly they’re wrong, so i should do the opposite” way. for me, relating with people with different views expands my world, and deepens my own sense of humanity. it doesn’t negate it. it complicates and makes me question my beliefs daily. if i stuck to ‘my own camp’ then i would end up a fundamentalist introvert. and that’s the whole point of inter-whatever relations: it’s about learning how to be human from other people that are trying to do it in the best way they know how.
will you withhold your wisdom and experience simply because you think you’re right, and your detractors are wrong? if so, that’s sad. i regret not having the opportunity to learn from you.
I don’t know. Everybody seems worried that atheist participation in interfaith endeavors will somehow confer legitimacy on belief. Hello? They’ve already got legitimacy. That’s why they’re in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, Stedman has ecumenical leaders conceding, in effect, that it’s quite alright for students to be atheists. They’re with us, doncha know.
I suppose the religious here imagine that they’re going to intellectually seduce the student atheists (“Hey, did you ever hear of Paul Tillich?”), but I think they’re underestimating how invigorating letting go of God can be. We’ll see how it goes but I suspect that, especially in the academic context, every time you let a few atheists in, you’re letting quite a few social “believers” out.
Depends on how much freedom of expression the atheists have. So far as I know, SSA is not an alliance of the meek. (I could be wrong.)
No, I won’t withhold my wisdom, my experience, or my elbow grease, if there is something concrete and specific on which I can work with others, and without wondering or bothering about who has “faith” and what kind, and who has none. William Blake wrote, “He who would do Good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.” Let’s just attend to the Minute Particulars of human welfare, and leave the superstitious baggage out of it. No need to put a big banner over the enterprise, or draw a frame around it, and label it “Interfaith” or “Faith-Based,” when at least some of the participants are not acting out of faith.
If I, as a humanist and naturalist, am being invited to participate in some charitable enterprise or “training workshop” that is labeled in advance as ‘Interfaith” or “Faith-Based,” I am going to run the opposite direction, because my participation would perpetuate a lie, or at least a misleading impression. And perpetuating the misleading impression is, kinda, the point, isn’t it? So that “people of faith” can co-opt and re-characterize every civic-minded or humanistic project as support for the false notion that “we are all people of faith [or children of God] in our own ways.”
What exactly are they doing?
An interfaith mission to help the poor or something like that, sure, invite the atheist groups along. But why call it interfaith then, why not just call it an initiative to help the poor or whatever?
Once you start bringing faith into it then it seems like here, let’s all get along, who cares whether sombody is Catholic or atheist. Well I care. It has real world consequences, this crap people believe.
Chris Stedman believes atheism is a religion and he is an atheist priest or humanist chaplain (I think is his title). The man has religion envy and has it bad. The last thing I want to do is join a faith-based anything – well really I am not a joiner at all. I volunteer all over, but on my own terms and without credal commitments. And don’t get me started on uniforms – gack, I remember boy scouts and then trying to modify sports team uniforms….
Jeff is right – this is all about trying to make faith look good – covering up all of its nasty bits with a little makeup – and making nonbelievers complicit. There is a difference between working with individuals and working with groups.
Every try going to an “interfaith dialogue” event and talk about the lack of evidence for religious claims?
Hilarity Ensues
Hahaha!
I’m an atheist but I have faith! I am an atheist but I am a quisling atheist.
No thanks. I don’t need to sit around with a bunch of hippies prancing around singing and clapping about just how tolerant and nice they all are and how evil and intolerant those people who don’t join the inter-faith groups are. Stuff your little fascist organization subsuming the individual.
Humanism is looking more and more like a monotheistic religion, embracing Man rather than God.
I’m so flattered.
Feel like doing a little spamming and offering autographed pictures.
sleeper, no, of course you’re allowed to talk to Grumpy Atheists; please do. It’s this business of actively seeking that gets up my nose, especially when combined with “interfaith.” I’ve said many times that atheism does not, repeat does not, prevent people from teaming up with non-atheists to do various things – to be friends, to campaign for goals, to work on projects, you name it. But what does that have to do with “Interfaith Leadership”?
When I say I don’t want to seek anything with my neighbors, the emphasis is on “seek.” And if the seeking in question were for a lost dog or cat, I would join in on that. It’s this grandiose undefined let’s-all-meld seeking that I want no part of.
Heehee Grumpy. Can I have your autograph?
I object to the use of the term interfaith because the word “faith” means something that non-theists don’t have.
However, I strongly believe that we should co-opt or steal any and every thing that works in religion, as long as it has no bearing on adopting false beliefs.
Don’t atheists get married? Have children? Celebrate some holidays? Die and have funerals?
The idea of a humanistic chaplain is excellent. Did any of you who oppose these kinds of ideas ever think that much of religion’s success stems from the fact that it works DESPITE not being true? Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we offered an alternative that works and IS true?
Secular Humanistic Judaism and the HUUnitarians are working on this. We who do not put our faith in gods or the supernatural are still in need of spiritual growth, as long as what we are doing is nurturing the HUMAN spirit, not the invisible and fictional spirits.
http://www.TheAtheistRabbi.com
This is an interesting discussion, because there seems to be such an enormous gulf between the principles and attitudes of people like Stedman, and those of most of the people responding here. I’m pretty sure that this is not the case: that Stedman and Benson, were they to lay their principles on the table, would agree with each other the vast majority of the time. So the question becomes “Why does this small difference – a difference in preference about how to engage the religious – come to seem so extremely significant?”
My suspicion is that it is the perceived “preachiness” of the interfaith endeavour which bothers people here. Benson writes that she can’t see this sort of work being anything other than patronising, and calls it “intrusive and pious and missionary-like”.
I can only offer my own experience, but interfaith discussion and gatherings have not seemed to me either pious or intrusive, but rather real opportunities to try to come to understand other people better, even when those people strongly disagree with you and hold views you consider to be ridiculous or dangerous. I have found my appreciation for other human beings broadened and deepened by my participation in interfaith events, and I think that’s something that Humanists should seek to cultivate in themselves.
I, like Jeff D, have concerns about the initiative being labelled “interfaith” – as a person without a faith I recognize that this can seem exclusive, or an effort to co-opt atheism. But I have never attended an interfaith event which has not explicitly recognized the challenges of that term. All of the ones I’ve been to so far make the explicit effort to recognise the presence of people with no-faith, and to bemoan the lack of a suitable linguistic alternative.
It seems to me that if we let these sorts of points, which are ultimately small, stop us from getting involved in such discussions, then we lose out. We lose out on a personal opportunity to broaden our appreciation for other members of the human species, and we forego the opportunity to bring a naturalistic voice into the discussion. These events will go on without us if we choose not to participate. I think having a strong, principled atheist voice participating is better than running in the opposite direction.
Jeff, yes, I have had that thought; I have in fact dwelt on it. I wrote a piece for Comment is Free saying that, awhile ago. I do think atheists should work on replacements, and yet…many of the replacements on offer just do make my toes curl. That’s most unfair, but there it is.
Still – I think it’s possible to have replacements that aren’t toe-curling. We already do, some – bookshops, coffee shops, other third places of that kind. It would be nice to have more meeting-y ones that were meeting-y without being toe-curling. It’s tricky.
I think this point about the “toe-curling” nature of some of our replacements for religious rituals is very interesting – it’s a common response, in my experience, but almost entirely a US phenomenon. I don’t encounter any of the same concerns in the UK. My feeling is that because so many US atheists have had terrible experiences with religion, and live in a society which is still deeply religious, they react very strongly against anything that even hints of religious practice. But this is not a universal concern – there are many people who attend the Humanist Chaplaincy who do so specifically to get more ritualistic practices back into their lives. So it’s extremely difficult for a Humanist organization to navigate. Do you have any suggestions about alternatives, Ophelia? The problem with the “third places” you mention, in my view, is that they don’t explicitly offer a space for consideration of “existential” questions, which is one of the things religion does very well and which naturalistic people still tend to have an interest in.
James –
Well, you know, you may be right. It may be that if I went to such things I would find the people wonderful – all William Sloane Coffins. But the interfaith word – well that’s not just a minor technicality, it’s the whole thing. If it were another kind of gathering, maybe I would want to go, and find out, but as it’s an interfaith gathering…it is not my kind of thing. (I absent-mindedly went to a megachurch once, to accompany a somewhat, er, troubled friend…it was horrible.)
Now, if it were a secular gathering, that would be a different story. The people could still be faithy types, but they wouldn’t thrust their faithiness at me, if they were decent people. (Nor would I thrust my atheism at them.) But interfaith? Sorry, that’s a word that means something, and what it means is what I don’t want. That’s not just a whim.
James, I was answering your first comment there, not your second.
Yes, you could be right, it could be US-specific.
No real suggestions, no – I think it’s very difficult. Not least, churches just already have the buildings, and we don’t. Book groups can do the existential thing. I once ran a very demanding book group, and it was immense fun. That might be one suggestion.
I’m not sure I would want to say I find the people “wonderful” – some of the people I’ve met I would describe as “profoundly disturbed” (although this is no different from the AHA conference or many other atheist conferences, to be frank). But I would say that I have had to stretch to try to treat other people with respect even if I detested their views, and I think that’s a positive thing. The first time I had to shake hands with a Mormon after Proposition 8, for example, was not easy, but it was probably worth it. I wanted them to see me, to come to know gay atheist, and to, perhaps, rethink some of their beliefs. If I had stayed at home, that slim possibility of change would not have arisen. Indeed, I would have chosen not to allow it to have arisen by choosing to stay away.
I didn’t think interfaith gatherings were “my kind of thing” either – I still don’t really think they are (I much prefer a good debate, with two clear sides and a winner) – but I still found them valuable once I got over my initial distaste for the word. For me it comes down to the choice of whether I allow the religious to discuss amongst themselves without naturalistic voices, or whether I think it’s worth crashing the party now and again. For my part, I like to crash parties ;).
Oh, I see what you’re saying. Sure. But then we’re just talking division of labor. That’s not a job I would want to take on, but if you’re willing, well, godspeed. :- )
The interfaith label sets alarms off in my thinking. If it is secularism, then call it secularism.
Ophelia @ 20
I am hanging light fixtures in the building that the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix is getting set to open in December. It will house our bi-weekly Sunday morning gatherings, our book club, and other activities that have heretofore been scattered around the valley. We are looking at adding programs (tai-chi class, what is humanism? for example) for our members and others. Its a big step. And a focal point for the non-theist community.
I find this post (and the earlier one in which you attack Mr. Stedman) absolutely gob-smacking. Chris Stedman doesn’t agree with your views (nor, clearly, the views of some of your commenters) on the essential nature of atheism and the way that atheists should act, and so you feel the need to publicly mock his heresy. Will there be a stake at the trial, or a will he be floated as a possible witch?
On a purely pragmatic basis (an issue that Mr. Stedman has addressed on more than one occasion) it simply makes sense for atheists of good-will to cooperate on shared values and goals with religious people of good-will — because atheists remain wildly outnumbered. Perhaps that will someday change, but that is surely not the case now. In the meantime, efforts to maintain and enforce ideological purity are likely to lead to ideological losses.
Consider this: When atheists join “interfaith” efforts, there is an automatic subversion of the very notion of inter-“faith,” one that leads many to consider for the first time the parameters of their own religious understandings. I can see that it’s not ideal for an atheist to be labeled an “interfaith” activist — and possibly even offensive — but at the same time, it’s likely to be useful.
It has been my experience that speaking ill of people (people of faith and/or atheists with whom one happens to disagree on tactics) is not generally the best way to win either their respect, or their support. I think that in the end, Mr. Stedman’s willingness to be respectful of those who have a different life experience to him is to be admired, not mocked. It’s certainly more likely to lead to real solutions to our all too real shared problems.
In my experience, use of the word “interfaith” means to mark off a space for postmodern epistemology where no ideas have to be grounded. Plus then people start playing music.
Honestly I have found it simpler to advance the goals I share with the religious and to think about existential questions by playing with civic symphonies and volunteering for secular charities and talking to philosophers on a daily basis. We’re all working together on a *defined project* that way, and the point isn’t immediately to highlight our areas of disagreement.
Oh huff huff, Emily. Dial it down. I mock the way Stedman writes about this stuff; I think it’s manipulative and sentimental. I dislike faith and I’m not crazy about people who valorize it the way he does.
I know it makes sense to co-operate on shared goals; I’ve said that several thousand times by now; it’s the theists and the atheist-haters who keep claiming that somehow it’s impossible for atheists to co-operate with anyone else on shared goals. But that’s not what this article was about; this article was just about reaching out to people for the sake of reaching out to people. There were no specific goals or campaigns mentioned, apart from the reaching out itself.
“Interfaith” has always had to do with trying to harmonize different religions or else figuring out how to paper over the differences, but atheists aren’t invested in religious doctrines, so they have nothing to offer to or get from interfaith jamborees – apart from the kind of thing James was talking about.
Dr Dave – sounds good! Is there enough interest to have more than one book club? I recommend the challenging kind, if there are enough people interested.
Drdave: would you mind being interviewed for a book I’m writing on nonreligious communities in America? I’d love your input as it seems like you’re doing exciting things!
For the record – I should say that it’s obvious that Stedman’s intentions are excellent. I’m not claiming he’s a bad guy or anything; he’s obviously not. I’m just expressing some slightly hyperbolic exasperation. We get enough “faith” thrown at us by faithy people; it becomes both nauseating and irritating when even atheists get in on the act. But in the great scheme of things – he’s not An Enemy.
But honestly, I think that’s obvious enough. I don’t think my post looks much like a witch-hunt.
Ophelia @ 28 Yes, more than one book club, I should think. See the current schedule @ hsgp dot org.
James @ 29 I would be interested. HSGP’s incoming and outgoing board just worked through a mission statement, and started in on values and goals. We are going through a transition, which you might find interesting.
Ophelia,
You are the one who is getting nauseating, what with your constant need to put others down to buttress your own glaringly fragile self-esteem. But then again, we wouldn’t expect anything different from you by now.
I have not always agreed with Ophelia, goodness knows, but this last is too personal, I think, especially given Ophelia’s (mainly) gracious words in #30. Let’s keep it civil.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jim Nugent, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Kumbaya http://dlvr.it/8HG78 […]
Eh, I pretty much want to knock on everybody’s door and share the Truth with them.
I suppose if I didn’t pay such a terrible price for their continuing stupidity, I wouldn’t care so much; but I do and I do.
As for whether or not I actually have the Truth, that’s an even better reason to knock on every door. If somebody else has the real Truth, why haven’t they told me yet? So I am gonna knock, and present why I think I have the Truth, and I want somebody to prove me wrong.
And if they can’t, then I want them to stop pretending they have the Truth.
Emily @ 25
Why do they want to (need to) label “cooperation on shared values and goals” as “interfaith”?
Why can’t it be labeled as the value or goal?
Why ‘Interfaith council helping the poor’ and not just ‘council on helping the poor’ or even “everyone who wants to help the poor”?
One of the problems is that they always want credit for their faith whenever they do anything. Its an even bigger problem when they want credit for their faith when WE do anything together.
Exactly. The whole point of these exercises is for the religious to show off their religious-based moral character. Otherwise why talk about “faith” at all?
It would make little sense for non-stamp collectors to go to a “Inter-Philatelists Council on Child Welfare”, or non-musicians to participate in a “Multi-Orchestra Conference on the Needy”. This is no different.
@ an atheist:
Ophelia Benson can no doubt defend herself but if i may add my twopence worth, your characterisation of her is drivel. It seems you can’t distinguish between robust intellectual arguments expressed in a pithy manner with considerable wit ( I suspect the latter passes you by ) and putting people down to boost self esteem.
I find this blog refreshing in its honesty and OB’s point about intrusive faithyness is well made. What would you make of something that happened to me recently ? I was asked by a relative to pray for her very ill Grandmother ( my Aunt ) “even if you don’t believe “. I don’t really mind as I like her and I know she doesn’t mean anything aggressive by it but doesn’t it encapsulate exactly OB’s point about the rather intrusive way some religious people try to co-opt you to their side using sweet reasonableness ?
Thanks Thornavis.
I can defend myself but I’d look a bit self-important doing so against a random outburst like that of “atheist,” so it’s nice to have someone else do it. :- )
I came late to this, like Chris and James very much, and of course Ophelia is “paramount” to being my best friend on the web (snark). But, anomalously, I agree with Eric Mc, on this one–that atheism has no seat at this table, and if one were offered I would treat it with the same suspicion that I’d enter into the Pope’s new “dialogue” with atheists. http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/article/2011/03/24/id/390683 Is conversation good–sure; shared principles and values–absolutely. But I really prefer the adversarial style of, say Russell vs. Copleston to their crawling into bed together for pillow talk. (Note to the nost literal readers: that never happened.) There’s a lot to be said for adversarial motives/starting points. You can always meet for drinks later.
Well there you go.
I’ve gotten to like James and Chris very much too – virtually, since I haven’t met them, but they’re communicative.
[…] rights movement and address the meat of the argument: the fear that, in order to maintain the “kumbaya” status quo, atheists need to keep quiet about their beliefs about […]
[…] movement and address the meat of the argument: the fear that, in order to maintain the “kumbaya” status quo, atheists need to keep quiet about their beliefs about […]