Nothing starts a controversy like claiming atheism is a religion-- at least in my world. But in my opinion it is one just like any of the major 8 and the minor hundreds. And the debate always comes up between friends (we are East Coast living, libral arts graduates after all!) and I always insist that atheism surly is a religion because it really depends on how you define "religion" (See the intro post to this blog about the word "religion" and the word "dharma"). Its the same argument Brent S. Plate makes in his criticism of Bill Maher's Religulous (glad to know someone out there felt similarly about this movie): you can't have an old school definition for a new school understanding. Meaning just this: religion is more than "belief" and "God". Those are not the only things that constitute a religion. Those terms may be included in a definition of a specific religion but it inacurrate to say that is what defines religion. And the search for the proper definition of what is and isn't a religion can go on and on for as many hours as it takes to teach 1000000 Theory of Religion seminars (and how many hours during those classes I have to pinch myself to remain awake! haha). But meaning is everything and as long as the definition is black and white, there are atheists and believers and never shall the two meet.
However, its more complex than that, especially in America. There are the culturally religious, the agnostically spiritual, the organized atheists, the Unitarian Universalists of a varying degrees, the right wings of all sorts, the left wings of all sorts, the New Agers, the Old Time Religions (as many Pagans sometimes call themselves) , and the list goes on. Religion is more than belief and non-belief (but those American Protestant origins tend to give us all a little bias in this black and white)-- there are rituals, expression, community, communitas, and multifaceted brakets of religion go on and on.
Before I go on and on any further about the importance of "religious studies" in society (justifying myself in a bad economy, right? haha)--let me return to the topic at hand using what I have just mentioned: Is Atheism a religion? Yes. Yes it is. And to go futher, it sometimes even goes as far to be exactly what it claims to despise: ideological and sometimes radical.They call them the New Atheism , and they are just as much a "religion" as the rest in the American Dharma spectrum. Bill Maher's documentary is a great example of this. In the movie Religulous, Maher only focuses on the negatives of "religion" (Western only, might I add) and he emplors the viewer to "convert" to his side (for the sake of science!). Its the same sort of mind set that sparked the Tibetan exile by the Chinese ("saving" the Tibetan Buddhists from the "terrible theocrasy" in which they lived; freeing them from the bonds of religion. They saw themselves as liberators the same way that the American government saw themselves as the liberators in Iraq). There is right and there is wrong, black and white, believers and atheists, and the dichotomies continue. But the point is, its not like that at all. And that is how atheism is a religion.
Well, you could say, God must be in a religion! Wrong. What about Theravada Buddhism? Well it must have a faith community, books, centers, ect. And Atheists have all this and then some. They have their poets and prophets, their leaders, and beliefs. They have their own hardliners and even their own (anti-)religious violence (Polpot, anyone?). About the only thing they don't have yet is their own tax break. But their belief in the separation of church and state means they're morally opposed to that of course! ;).
You can disagree with me all you want but there is as much a case for the religiousity of atheism (which as far as I'm concerned is just that- no god, not no religion) as there is for the Jedi-ism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. May you be touched by his noodly appendage!
Read More:
Purpose Driven Atheism by Frank Schaeffer
The New Atheism and Something More- Peter Steinfels
Don't Stop Unbelieving- Scott McLemee
What Would Jesus See: Fireproof or Religulous? - Richard Corliss
The Variaties of Non-Religious Experience- This one is a little old, but still useful
(ed: In keeping with my new idea of Sanskrit names for some segments, I've named this segment vicaaraNa (विचारण), which means "discussion", "reflection", "inquiry", "examination", and, as often with religious discussion, also means "agitation" )
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Ramen.
ReplyDeleteAN interesting article!
ReplyDeleteThe 'status' of atheists as believers or non-believers is obviously a matter of perspective. While I understand the urge to identify the sometimes-dogmatic refusal of belief with a form of belief itself, I have spent much of my life in the so-called 'Bible Belt'. I have had my own religious and spiritual questioning and discovery essentially wrenched away & handed back to me ,re-cast in terms that hard-shell Christians "like better" but which destroyed the distinctions I was trying so hard to understand.
As a result, I accept the self-positioning of atheists; I think that the right of self-definition is crucial...even for atheists.
That said, you remind me that I have had a piece bubbling on the back burner for some years now - on how 'Science-ism' is a de-facto competing religion (having the characteristic of an affirmative belief in Science as omnipotent Scatterer of Darkness & One True Road To Enlightenment, Inc.
Mmm but perhaps putting into the believers/non-believers dichotomy is the problem in itself. Its no one's fault at all, its the blanket cast by the Protestant origins of this country and its mind set. Most "religion" gets cast in the Protestant light (as you describe). For example: the perception of the so called "Dharmic" religions (Eastern as opposed to the Abrahamic Western) really can't be truly defined in this light, however the uniqueness of American Hinduism and Buddhism (and I'm sure Sikkhism and Jainism as well) is the fact that when their adherants come to this country they attempt (whether they know or not) to be counted as a "religion" and accepted, even if that means unknowingly "Americanizing" their religion to make it more palatable to this Protestant mind set you describe.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand what you are saying, but perhaps it is easier to see Atheism as a "religion" or perhaps even better word a "Dharma" if we go beyond the Judeo-Christian dichotomy and understanding of the very definition of "religion" itself.
Thank you for your comment! :)
As I understand it, the core meaning of religion is " to bind together again" - and, wisely, IMO, does not touch on who gets bound to what.
ReplyDeleteUsing this core definition, we can make sense of Western and Eastern, spirituality and canonical belief, and nativist/aboriginal traditions. Even here, though, 'atheism' is problematic: I do not see what atheism binds one to (to say nothing of "again"). By the Hodge-Podge rule, the more atheists oppose and struggle against theism, the more they come to take on the fire, the conviction, the -*ahem*- zeal we associate with Western zero-sum religious attitudes.
I go into this in such depth only because I wish to make it clear that I do not choose between categories where atheists or atheism are concerned; thinking differently may make it easier to see atheism as a religion, but I'm not sure it's a good thing that it can be so.
More to the point (if you don't mind) I completely recognize that things in opposition come to resemble each other (the unlamented Cold War displayed that clear enough); therefore, opposing a zealous religious view like Christianity tends to create an unflattering portrait of religious zeal in atheist: monomania, close-mindedness, appeal to authority, condescension, brittleness; yet atheism has no affirmative aspect that attempts to guide how we live. It neither provides, nor seeks to provide, the means with which to be bound together again, nor does it postulate any purpose for such re-linking.
In the sense however that atheism represents a path certain individuals feel compelled or called to walk, it may well be more heart-process than thought-process - and hence very Dharma-like (as I understand it).
Thank you for the thoughtful response!