The Atheist Plan
July 4, 2007 by Darque
Atheists have, so far in world history, been a minority, relegated to a statistical afterthought and a favored bogeyman of theists around the world. The problem is, we’re not “joiners.” The term atheist itself doesn’t do any more than connect us on one basic level, and other than that level, many of us don’t even have much in common. That has, so far, kept us in that third-class status. Let’s fix that.
There are as many different kinds of atheists as there are atheists. It’s our own fault, really, because we have absolutely no standards for atheists. It’s a catch-all category, for secular humanists, agnostics, anti-theists, people who just don’t care enough to have an opinion - pretty much anything goes for us. As Richard Dawkins (one of my own favorite atheists) says, trying to organize atheists is like herding cats.
And yet, there are benefits to organized religion. A sense of community, fellowship, and brotherhood. A way to find other like-minded people. Political protection, even legal status. For some, counseling and guidance. For some, leadership. For some, hope that there is more to this world than suffering. But these are not benefits that are tied to religion - any group of people could do the same. That’s why they have gangs. So why can’t atheists get these same benefits, without the pomp and circumstance, the guilt, the expense, the child molesters in big hats, and the holier-than-thou attitude? Why should atheists be denied all these things that have nothing to do with god, just because we don’t believe in god?
Well, we can, if we want. We just have to do it.
Chances are, right in your neighborhood, there are thousands of atheists. And there are probably plenty of places to meet, too. Put the two together, and you have yourself an Atheist Church. Yes, in capitals, and yes, a church - because our belief, even according to the Supreme Court, is the equal of any religion, and we deserve it. (US v Seeger, 380 US 163 (1965) is just one example.) I, for one, would love to start taking advantage of it.
“You mean sit there uncomfortably and get lectured by some buffoon who thinks he has all the answers?” No, not even remotely. I was thinking more along the lines of the early Lutheran church, where any building could be used as a church, and anyone could contribute. You could, without all the Amens and Hallelujahs, stand up and tell the congregation about having to recite prayer with your football team. You could, without all the pageantry, talk about the frustration of seeing your local school board pass rules that put creationism alongside evolution in science classes. Your church might then even be able to do something about it, too.
Do you know the phrase, “never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups?” That’s how the church got to where it is: organized religion has put millions of followers together to form a union, a political faction, a voting bloc, a social movement, and, at times, armies that made the earth shake. They didn’t have that power because of god - I think we can all reject that - they had it because they had numbers, charismatic leaders, and a powerful social institution. Well, that’s the power of stupid people in large groups. Now imagine the power of smart, enlightened, and motivated people in large groups.
Imagine finally having a counter to the “Religious Right” and the “Moral Majority,” which have successfully convinced people that they have a monopoly on morality and righteousness. Imagine having an antidote to the proselytizing that your kids face every day. Imagine being able to get people together and, instead of just singing old songs and patting each other on the back, actually do some good in the community. Imagine having someone reliable to talk to about things that you might not feel entirely comfortable talking about with your parents, spouses, or anyone else - someone who is bound to confidentiality like a priest, but isn’t going to pretend that a thousand Hail Marys fixes your problem. Imagine how much fun it would be to be able to go to “church” and not have anyone care if you’re hung over. Imagine how good it would feel to finally belong.
Others have tried, with some success, to form atheist churches. But can you actually name one? Do you have one in your area? Very likely not. But here’s the thing, folks: this is no longer just an option. It’s a necessity. Have you guys seen the news lately? There are serious presidential candidates who have religious problems with evolution. There is a strong movement to ban gay marriage, based largely on religious opposition. There are movements, very powerful and very well-connected, which seek further expansion and permanence to a theocracy in this nation. There are people, probably in your very own town, who have sought to disenfranchise and marginalize you just because you are an atheist and because you do not have the protection of others like you.
So don’t dismiss this as just a pipe dream. Don’t dismiss it as unworkable, or unfeasible. We must work together to make it happen, because our coach seat on this plane is about to get ejected, and if we don’t form an alliance to counter the machinations of the organized religions, then we will all pay the price, as nonbelievers in a church-controlled state.
The time is right - thanks to all these high-profile writers hitting the best-seller list, for once the word “atheist” isn’t a dirty word in public. If you’re interested, and if you see how important this is, now more than ever, then seize this opportunity - found an atheist church in your own town. Find others like you - search this site, put an ad in craigslist or your local paper, and seek out other people who might like to get together, but just thought it could never happen. Find a hall somewhere with little or no fees, and start organizing. Do some research to find out what protections your jurisdiction offers to churches, and fill out the paperwork so that you don’t have to pay taxes. If they don’t give you the form because you’re atheist, then find a lawyer, because they just paid for your first year of operation. Learn your rights and how to use them to your advantage, just as churches have done for centuries. And do it like an atheist - don’t tell your congregation how to run their lives, just give them some information and let them decide what to do, give them a forum to discuss their beliefs and what it means to be an atheist in today’s world. (But don’t touch the little boys, that’s a Catholic thing.)
I know some of you will hate me for this - atheists just aren’t joiners, after all. But that’s okay. Herding cats isn’t easy, but it’s worth it to try, because I don’t want to see the day that the White House has an Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the day that states can deny atheists the right to hold office or even serve as witnesses at trial, or the day that politicians peddle their influence to the church that delivers the most votes. Well, too late for those milestones… how much longer are we going to wait?
I think that the time and reasons are right. It’s not about political or “spiritual” power. It’s true understanding and not a mythos carried by man from the cave.
I for one am definitely not a joiner but, would consider having the same rights and privileges as the local baptist church a boon.
The side benefit is finding other persecuted, like-minded individuals to share our histories of the “religious right wingers”.
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Oh no, no way, absolutely not, not even for a second, no, no, no, no. This is a bad idea. A very, very, very bad idea.
First off, would we not be throwing away the current right over the religious in government? Separation of church and state is what I’m talking about. If we start a church, and it gets big and is recognized as such, the religious right now has a basis on which to defame us. “Why should their church get a say, they’re a religious organization! We should have an official stake in the Constitution, too!
The Founders really meant that government shall not enact laws favouring any one religious group. That means any, including atheism. And, as far as that’s concerned, atheism is about as much a religion as bald is a hair colour.
And, even if some atheists/agnostics got together and started a church, many (such as myself) would object, further dividing us. Plus, the Religious Right might try to apply the constitutional church argument to us despite some voluntarily not joining (you can be a Christian yet not go to church).
Overall, organizing atheists into a non-profit political organization is a great idea, and I fully support it. But, a church is about the worst possible thing we can do to advance the cause of reason.
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You know what, you’re right, Jason. Atheists don’t deserve a voice. It’s all about division - and as we’ve seen, atheists are more about dividing themselves than anyone else.
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I’m sorry but this is the kind of atheism I detest. You refer to people with religious beliefs as stupid!
You may not agree but insulting them isn’t going to change a thing. And by the way, isn’t one of the most common phrases used to insult atheists that they are “intellectual snobs” ? That they look down on religious peoples as uneducated and stupid? I hate agreeing with fundies but this time I have too.
And Dargue atheists have a voice in America. Everyone does. Forming a group or “Atheist Church” won’t make it any louder. And it completely discredits all non-theist atheists. I’m with Jason on this. Atheists should not have a church that’d be like (since we’re using the herding cats metaphor) building cats a doghouse.
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I can actually see both sides of the coin.
You are right, Hannah, everyone DOES have a voice. And for those fortunate to live in a country that embraces liberty, they are able to speak out. You are wrong, however, in assuming that forming a coalition would not amplify that voice. One only needs to look at the Christian Coalition or the Religious Right to see that, in politics especially, there is a great deal of power in numbers.
Personally, I think that part of the problem is one single word; complacency. I know way too many people in my age range that are simply not active in government. They have no idea what bills are being voted on or what impact they would have if passed into law. That needs to change, and fast.
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Let’s try this from a different angle. What if I said I wanted to be able to find other atheists in my area and meet up once in a while? Forget the word “church” for a minute, and think of it as a club. No rules - just the one classic atheist commandment of “Enjoy yourself.” And during those meetings, the only people that are nominally in charge are the ones responsible for bringing some coffee and maybe, you know, if anyone’s feeling particularly risque, some danishes. And during these meetings, people are allowed to talk to the group, for some given length of time, about issues that matter to them as atheists.
Now is that some sort of great evil? Just having the opportunity to meet each other, face to face, and having a way to connect and support each other, would be a great leap forward for atheists. I imagine a family-friendly atmosphere - not exactly Disney, but not exactly snuff-film, either - where we could finally get to shake hands with some other atheists. The only real authority anyone would have, which could change on any rotating basis, would be to set the minutes like any business meeting, because people have lives and limited time. Forget the prayers, the invocations, the ritualized aspect of a church, and try to see it as just a community for atheists. There’s no Grand Poobah, doling out moldy old scripture, but rather a group of people to offer something a little more personal than simply meeting people online from half a world away.
Jason, the religious right doesn’t care whether or not they have any merit in their slander against us - it’s already been going on for centuries. Remember, we’re evil, baby-killing, mother-raping, godless atheists, right? Of course, if people knew that atheists got together on a regular basis without actually killing any babies, there might be a foundation for a defense against such accusations. So what if some atheists object? Objections are free, so they can go ahead and object their pretty little heads off all they want. But the people who are interested can still get together and enjoy each others’ company - with all the protections that a religious group is supposed to be able to enjoy in this country.
Hannah, if you think that everyone has the same voice in America, I think you ought to check out the news every once in a while. All that talk about how 95% of the country’s wealth is concentrated in just 5% of the population, and that 5% has the money to grease the wheels in government in order to get their favorite candidates into office - say, Bush and Cheney - who will be amenable to their own interests. Sure, I vote, and I encourage everyone else to, but let’s not drown realism with idealism: not everyone’s votes count the same. If they did, there might be a few less millionaires in Congress and a few more people who actually care about their constituencies beyond the big corporations that paid for their election campaigns.
Now, if a bunch of these atheist clubs from across the country manage to connect, and to make themselves known in both their local politics and national elections, we go from being a loud but fractious and raucous group of dissenters to being a potential force for real change. Wouldn’t it change perceptions about atheists if there were actually a national group of atheists that got into politics not to ingratiate their own beliefs into the government, but just to reinforce the First Amendment’s separation of church and state? Instead of each of us posting on internet sites in the middle of the night, we could actually have people representing us in nationally visible positions, from talk shows to election debates to water coolers across the country.
(And, as an aside, I never said that people with religious beliefs are stupid, nor have I ever meant it. I have, however, said and I very firmly believe that most of the top religious belief systems are stupid. Sounds nitpicky, but I think it’s a big difference. Christianity is stupid. Islam is stupid. Judaism is stupid. Christians, Muslims, and Jews, however, probably have a similar percentage of stupid people as the general population. I think stupid people tend to gravitate towards these major religions, because those major religions also tend to treat excess thinking as a sin. But on an individual basis, I’m more than willing to hear someone out before I call them stupid, although I have no problem pointing out when I think someone’s about as bright as midnight in a mineshaft. Does that make me an intellectual snob? Probably, because I put a lot of faith in intelligence, and intelligent people. So what? Does it make the idea of a community for atheists any less valid because I don’t fulfill your vision of the perfect atheist?)
TJM is right - groups of people are far louder, and far more successful, in both social and political settings than single individuals. As long as we’re a bunch of single individuals roaming about without any coordination or unity, we’re easy to ignore. There had to be a Supreme Court case to decide that atheists had a right to be conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War - and yet, thanks to their coordination, members of any recognized church automatically had that right. And what about serving in office? Did you know that there are still seven states where atheists can’t take public office, despite Article VI in the Constitution? The reason it’s so easy for politicians - who nearly invariably are pandering to one church or another - to marginalize and discriminate against atheists is because we don’t have a communal voice. A single person simply doesn’t register on the national level - it might be nice to say we all have a voice, but there hasn’t been a single law shot down because a single citizen didn’t like it. But groups - be they coalitions, churches, or organizations, from the Moral Majority to MADD - get heard, loud and clear.
Look at the GLBT movement. It might seem barbaric, but it was barely twenty years ago that the Supreme Court upheld Bowers v. Hardwick, which outlawed homosexuality. They considered it perfectly constitutional. Now, gays in many states enjoy various levels of “civil unions,” and right in my backyard, in Massachusetts, gays are actually allowed to get married with full benefits. Tell me, Hannah - was that dramatic turnaround because of a bunch of individuals? Or was it because a bunch of those individuals got fed up with being pushed around and decided to ban together to protect themselves? The same point goes for other religions, too, from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Mormons, both of which were virtually legislated to death at the beginning of the twentieth century, but now are accepted. Quakers were just as persecuted, but they formed communities and stood their ground.
I’m not saying that we need to adopt a bunch of silly rituals, prayers, and a whole church hierarchy devoted to accumulating money and power. Nor do we need to worship anything at all - I would absolutely detest such a thing myself. All I’m saying is that it would be beneficial to all of us to start forming a sense of community, for both the small-scale stuff (like getting to meet other atheists and having ourselves some picnics or bingo nights or whatever the hell suits our fancy) as well as the large-scale stuff (like political alliances where we can force candidates to think twice before promising to turn their offices into playgrounds for proselytizers). Me, I like the idea of using the word “church” to describe it, because it reminds people that we have religious freedom, too, and we have every right to claim the same protections and benefits as any other religion. Is atheism really a religion? Yes, no, doesn’t matter - it’s purely semantics, because in the eyes of the law, it is. That means that an atheist should be able to stand up in court and say that they can serve their sentence of community service through their church instead of through a parole program or police-supervised program. It means that an atheist should be able to make donations to their church for tax exemption. It means that atheists should be able to even have themselves a religious holiday or two, even if there aren’t two atheists that celebrate it the same way. (Me, I’d take my kid to the aquarium. Connecticut’s good for that.)
So before you object to the idea of an atheist church, ask yourself just what is it that you’re objecting to - atheists getting together and actually opening up to each other? Or are you objecting out of the idea that churches invariably lead to political abominations? Well, maybe so far, the big ones have, but not all, and I think atheists would have an absolutely unique place in the pantheon of churches for their ability to maintain the separation of church and state, rather than to attack it. Sure as hell no other religious organization that’s active in politics is willing to protect it, so why not us?
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I think maybe the word church is going a bit too far, and maybe the author didn’t quite mean it like that - more like putting it forward as an argument as it were.
In England, we don’t have so much of a problem, I’ve been amazed in the last couple of years to find out how anti-atheist America is! From Europe we look at this country as this beacon of freedom, the statue of liberty, the constitution, first amendment rights! It’s absolutely fascinating, and scary how the US has become so intolerant. I think the idea of a ‘big’ voice and rallying political support would be a good thing for atheists to do over there and maybe help other minorities while you’re at it. Restore your country to what it was supposed to be.
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Chris: You’re right, I suppose it’s my own attitude that wants it to be called a church. In essence, what I want isn’t the dogma and the staleness and the hierarchy and all of that; what I want is a sense of community, a way for us to meet each other face to face. The political power, the nationalized voice, all that can come later - the first part is to have a community.
Now, I like the idea of calling it a church because of two reasons: first, it lets people know that we have the same rights, ethically as well as legally, as any established religious organization. Second, it’s blatantly blasphemous, which I rather like. But that’s just a name - whether we call it a “club,” or an “organization,” or a “fellowship,” or, my other favorite, a “roving gang,” the name doesn’t matter nearly as much as the substantial personal benefits that we have a right to claim, and yet have remained untouched.
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You’ll find some opposition from the “I was Atheist before it was cool” crowd. I’ve seen more than one “old-school” atheist pissed off about “new atheism”
Slowly but surely, Atheism is becoming mainstream.
I think the term “church” carries with it a lot of unnecessary baggage. I disagree that the religious right would have a problem with an atheist church interfering in government due to its “religious” nature: They would be shooting themselves in the foot, and American Atheists would get exactly what they want: a bigger wall between Church and State.
But, calling Atheism a Church puts Science, Rationality, and Free Thought into the same realm as Blind Faith. We would be validating “lack-of-evidence”-based religion.
Don’t get me wrong: For rationality to prosper and flourish, Atheism needs to become organized, and I understand what you are saying about an atheist “church”…
I just think there are better, more accurate descriptions available. It’s enough that we have logic and science on our side. We don’t need to be vindictive in eliminating Religion, and certainly we need to remember it: Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. (Yes, that’s a meme, that’s dogmatic, but it has an element of truth to it as well)
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