Overdue Reflections on a Conversation on Atheism
Today we totally and completely finish our conversation about atheism. Atheism is burdened by being an idea focused on negation — it doesn’t state what exists but rather what doesn’t. It is an unlikely foundation for community, ideology, or political activism to grow from, yet it seems to have become just that. While freethought has a deep tradition in philosophy, the direct connection between the personal rejection of the divine and social and political change are rarely investigated. Here we take a look back and connect the discussion to the current world.
Dr. Nathan Alexander received his Ph.D. in history from the University of St Andrews (UK) where his research focused on the intersection of freethought and the construction of race. His latest book is Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850–1914.
Previously we discussed our religious backgrounds and earlier experiences in the atheist community and the forces that shape a secular society. Below we continue by examining the changes becoming atheist brought to our personal outlooks and how we changed.
Todd: After having some time to think about things, is there anything you were struck by in our previous conversation?
Nathan: One thing I have been wondering about during the conversation is where on the hierarchy of current social/political priorities does “creating more atheists” fall? I think on the whole it would be better if there were more atheists — this might make other issues easier to solve, although not necessarily — but it seems to me like there are many more pressing issues in terms of climate change, economic inequality, etc.
Do you agree that compared to these issues, creating more atheists is relatively unimportant, or is this my own blinkered perspective, informed by living in mostly secular Canada and moving in mostly secular social groups?
Todd: That is a great point. It suddenly feels very unimportant. Currently in the US the pandemic has taken over 100,000 lives, the economic effects of the response have left forty million Americans without jobs, and police killings and inaction have led to protests and, not surprisingly, more police violence, riots and looting across the country. And of course, all of these are exacerbated by the massive economic and racial inequalities in the United States.
So, the most optimistic view from here is pretty split right now. On the one hand it looks a lot like societal collapse as confrontation escalates and cities burn while our incompetent, fake tough-guy president hides in his bunker in the dark. On the other hand, these protests are mostly peaceful, absolutely correct, completely necessary and when they have the support and engagement of political leaders they are not only peaceful but incredibly moving and powerful. Right now creating more atheists does not feel important at all.
What’s the view like from Canada today?
Nathan: I think we have the same sorts of problems in Canada as in the US, albeit perhaps on a less egregious scale so that the injustice does not seem quite so stark. Other problems, like climate change, affect us like the rest of the globe.
All of that said, I’ve also seen, for example, the sociologist Phil Zuckerman tweeting out some numbers that show atheists/agnostics/non-religious people appear to have better understandings of things like racial injustice. (See here for example.) So it’s possible if more people were atheists, etc., it might be easier to solve some of these issues. (Although I also don’t think atheists should be patting themselves on the back too quickly!)
Todd: That’s a great point! It suggests we should be trying to make more atheists right now!
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Nathan: One thing I have been wondering about during our conversation is where on the hierarchy of current social/political priorities does “creating more atheists” fall? I think on the whole it would be better if there were more atheists — this might make other issues easier to solve, although not necessarily — but it seems to me like there are many more pressing issues in terms of climate change, economic and racial inequality, etc. What do you think?
Todd: That is a great point. It suddenly feels very unimportant. Currently in the US the pandemic has taken over 100,000 lives, the economic effects of the response have left forty million Americans without jobs, and police killings and inaction have led to protests and, not surprisingly, more police violence, riots and looting across the country. And of course, all of these are exacerbated by the massive economic and racial inequalities in the United States.
So, the most optimistic view from here is pretty split right now. On the one hand it looks a lot like societal collapse as confrontation escalates and cities burn while our incompetent, fake tough-guy president hides in his bunker in the dark. On the other hand, these protests are mostly peaceful, absolutely correct, completely necessary and when they have the support and engagement of political leaders they are not only peaceful but incredibly moving and powerful. Right now creating more atheists does not feel important at all.
I have to confess that earlier today (June 1, 2020) I was thinking about how secular the discourse has been so far regarding the recent unrest in the US. The protests against racially motivated police killings have gone nationwide, have been persistent and have included spasms of property destruction and a lot of evidence of continuing police violence. Huge numbers of Americans are coming out to protest against police and the police have been fighting back with overwhelming force. It is a huge mess, and feels like it will either result in a massive improvement in social relations or complete societal collapse. One thing that has been a little surprising is that nothing about police brutality or racial inequality has been discussed in religious or moral terms. Religion has been absent from all of it.
But then I got home this evening and saw that peaceful protestors were gassed and attacked with rubber bullets in Washington, D.C. so Trump could have a photo-op at a church. In the photo he is holding a Bible.
It’s a pretty shameless appeal to religious identity. Look at him as he co-opts the symbolism of religion (the building, a sign, a Bible) without invoking any of the meaning. I can’t speak for how a religious person would read this scene, but as an atheist it is immediately obvious that this is a cynical ploy. Trump is a master at manipulating the media, but I don’t see this working the way he imagines. It’s obvious BS. It is incredibly weak to have a twice divorced adulterer pose as the defender of the faith.
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Am I overly cynical about this because I am an atheist, or do you think religious people are more likely to side with him because of a PR stunt like this? Do these appeals to religion have any effect other than just making him look silly?
Nathan: I definitely agree that this is such a cynical appeal to his white, evangelical base. The funny thing is that I think atheists and other nonreligious people take Christianity and the Bible more seriously than Trump and his evangelical supporters. They merely use the symbol of the BIble as a cover for their own white supremacy and authoritarianism. In some ways, then, I almost feel like I wish Trump and his supporters took religion more seriously! We would still disagree about the truth of their religion, but at least it would be an honest disagreement.
So I actually don’t think it’s cynical for you or anyone else to think they are being cynical — they clearly are!
I think it plays well to his base, but (hopefully) wouldn’t convince religious people who weren’t already supporting him. It’s just so transparent that Trump’s religious commitment is paper-thin. But his supporters don’t care because he is an effective vehicle for their own white supremacist/authoritarian ideology.
If this is right, I feel like there is less of a reason to fight Trump and his supporters on the grounds of religion, since religion is not actually important to them! This seems to be a difference from the Bush years. It’s probably true that Bush also used religion cynically, but I felt like at this time, his religious commitments (and those of his supporters) were at least genuine, so critiquing them on religious grounds had some value.
I think, in addition to the 9/11 attacks, this was why we saw such a flurry of atheist works during the first decades of the 21st century. But it seems the landscape has changed now. Do you think this is right?
Todd: Wow, there is something very deep and heavy in that last section. Religion was definitely a serious issue after 9/11. One of the big changes at that times was a shift from a neoliberal / globalization-uber-alles worldview to the “Clash of Civilizations” worldview. I don’t know if you are familiar with that work at all, but it basically boils down to “Islam has bloody borders.” So 9/11 plus a worldview of religious based conflict would definitely make both religious identity and a concerted push for atheism important and relevant. I can see that.
I can also wrap my head around how that becomes weaker over time. Muslim extremism became less of a threat. Osama bin Laden was assassinated. People got bored with Middle East wars and Guantanamo Bay. And then we have Occupy and BLM and the narrative really changes. But people still have their religious identity, culture and the political positions that are drawn from it.
So, you get people who are now less important. The people Obama says turn to guns and god when things go bad, and now that things are bad they are increasingly marginalized. And they get scooped up by Trump, this political opportunist who is a big internet troll who has no religious agenda but needs the support of the religious right to implement a white-supremeicist order for him and his brood of wealthy cronies. And they form this alliance where Trump can do whatever stuff he wants as long as he tosses them a few bones. Trump gives them “school choice,” maybe some judges and a “religious liberty” task force and he gets carte blanche to cut his own taxes and have foreign governments investigate his political opponents. That’s what you are talking about, right?
That sort of grand alliance makes me think of two dramatic things. The first is that although the religious pandering doesn’t matter to the racist supporters, it has some dark implications to the religious supporters. These would be the people for whom getting those religious goals matter. They want the right to discriminate against gays or to get tax dollars for their private school because it allows them to extend their religious power. But Trump’s little photo-op also implicates them in his actions. He is one of them and doing this for them. He had to attack those peaceful protestors to save the church! There has to be a limit to what an alliance of convenience like this would be able to withstand.
The other thing it makes me think is that Trump doesn’t believe in God. He is not a regular church goer. I have never heard anything about his religious beliefs. He doesn’t wear a cross. It seems most people don’t know what to make of him either. What if this guy is an atheist?
Nathan: I definitely think it’s true that evangelicals support Trump because they get things they want like the appointment of judges who are opposed to abortion, gay rights, etc. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s a matter of the evangelicals merely holding their noses at his bigotry and his authoritarian tendencies in exchange for these other traditional religious goals; the authoritarianism and bigotry are a big part of what they like!! So, I will be cynical now and say that I am not holding out hope for some kind of moral reckoning in the evangelical community where they realized they’ve sacrificed their principles. These are their principles!
That said, I’m not an expert on this, but there is a really good podcast called Straight White Amerian Jesus, which is about white evangelicals and Trump, among other things. They’ve just begun a series on the history of the religious right in the US and I think it will be interesting.
The poll numbers you cite are really interesting. Trump’s faith is so clearly superficial and I remember one clip of some Christians interviewing him where they asked him a softball question about his favourite Bible verse, and he just kept saying, “well it’s very personal, it’s very personal,” even as they pressed him on it. I mean, it’s so obvious that he’s dodging the question because he hasn’t thought about this for even a few seconds.
But I will be cynical again and wonder if his evangelical supporters, who have the highest percentage of people who think Trump is religious, see him as a religious because their own faith is also superficial! In other words, their Christianity is merely a badge of cultural identity, with limited depth. I’m not sure. It’s difficult to start judging the genuineness of people’s faith, but I just say this as a speculation.
But I don’t think Trump is an atheist either. It’s difficult because I doubt he has put any time into thinking about the issue of whether God exists, or really any intellectual questions.
Todd: That last part is probably right. One of the pull quotes from the photo-op was when he was asked if it was his Bible that he had brought to the church, he answered “It’s a Bible.”
I agree that he doesn’t put any thought into it, but I think he lives in a world without God. And I am going to try to make some sense of this because I don’t want to get caught in a weird contradiction. I also find it very difficult to judge the genuineness of proclaimed faith and find that people project their own beliefs onto others a lot. When I say he lives in a world without God I mean that he lives in a rational, material world and that is the only thing that impacts his actions. When I look at Trump I don’t see someone trying to appease a god or achieve a spiritual goal or live a moral life. Trump’s actions are devoid of that; we really only see someone who is a completely self-serving living being in a physical world. Appropriating symbols and a cultural identity to gain favor (or, more insidiously, to redefine that identity) is a pretty shrewd and calculated power move.
After thinking about this for a while (this section was written on 6/3/2020) I notice this is very different from the way we, you and I specifically and I think most atheists generally, think about religious symbolism. Rather than appropriate that power for secular ends, we, as atheists, seek to diminish the power of it. We see such cynical appeals to religion as the way the powerful abuse the weak, how they legitimize truly abhorrent action, and valorize unethical behavior. As atheists we want to eliminate the motivation and the ability of arbitrary power to claim the moral high ground.
Does that sound about right? What would you add to it?
Nathan: Those are really interesting points. One distinction in the early modern period (c. 1500–1800) was between theoretical and practical atheists. The first kind didn’t believe in a God on an intellectual level, while the second kind lived as if God didn’t exist. In this case, I think Trump is a practical atheist. Like you say, he clearly doesn’t appear to be trying to appease God or to live a moral life, etc., and in that sense he is secular.
It’s funny that Trump is such a simplistic man, yet trying to figure out the whole Trump phenomenon is quite a complex endeavour! I think you’re definitely right that the atheist goal is to reduce the use of religious symbols/language, etc. to further political power, regardless of whether the use is cynical or not. So it can cause a bit of a paradox for atheists: do we want Trump to take his religion more or less seriously!?
I think we want to get religion out of politics, genuinely held or not. Probably the issue can be then how to do that, and here is a case where if the religion is genuinely held, then actually taking on the religion directly could be a valuable project. If it’s not genuine, then this might actually be a more difficult foe, because you need to attack whatever the religion acts a cover for, whatever the genuine views are behind the religion.
