Us vs. Them?

“Why would you want to be part of an atheist group? To just sit around and bitch about religious people all the time? Doesn't that make you just as bad as the religious people you complain about; the ones who run down atheists?”

This was the question posed to me by my husband when he first learned about an online atheist parenting forum I was posting to.  He is one of those "I-know-what-I-believe-so-why-do-I-want-to-bother-talking-about-it" variety of atheist (or apatheist).  His question seemed ridiculous to me at first, because of course that wasn't the point of the forum. It did, however, make me think more about the nature of organized atheist groups.

I've mentioned in the past that the “Us vs. Them” mentality I've encountered in churches was one of the things I really disliked about organized religion. The attitude I've seen in every church I've attended (either as a member or as a guest) is that they are right and others who don't think and believe as they do (even other Christians) are wrong or misguided or unenlightened. I've listened to a Catholic deacon laugh about “the Protestants we get in here sometimes who just don't know WHAT they're doing” and I've listened to a Lutheran pastor talk about how wrong Catholics are because they take Jesus' saving grace out of the equation when it comes to how we get into heaven. I've seen Lutherans deny other Lutherans privileges of church service (like receiving communion) because they were the wrong type of Lutheran (ELCA instead of Missouri Synod). And of course all the mainstream Christians laugh at the ridiculousness of Mormon doctrine, telling of the wonders of “magic underwear” and a prophet reading magic plates in a hat (as if these things appear any more absurd to an outsider than their own religious dogma).  In the last election, I received e-mail forwards from a Catholic friend that had links to a church leader who suggested only Catholics should be allowed to vote, because only Catholics were really following the true wishes of God.  I could go on and on and on....

My point is that the underlying current in organized religions in general (and Christianity specifically) is that its adherents are following the One True Path. Whether it's stated explicitly or just implied, it's always there. It was part of why I gave up on the idea of organized religion quite a while before I completely gave up the last vestiges of belief in a supernatural creator. So my husband's question really made me think...in joining an organized group of atheists and agnostics, was I walking into yet another organization that was going to perpetuate that “Us vs. Them” mentality?

A big part of my participation in these groups (from online forums to groups like the local CFI chapter, and taking my oldest son to a freethinking, secular Sunday School) has to do with comaraderie. In a society that is dominated by religiosity; where non-believers are either vilified or labeled as the “unsaved” (and then subjected to endless proselytizing); where “the Christian thing to do” is synonymous with “the right thing to do”; where “God and Country” are inseparable, and people believe you can't be a “true American” if you don't believe in God...it is nice to find like-minded people. People who truly get it. People with whom I can discuss my problems and not have to worry about being fed a well-intentioned but meaningless, "God doesn't give you more than He knows you can handle."  People with whom I can discuss science literacy and education, and not have debates about teaching creationism in school. To just be surrounded by people who are like me. To be fair, I do occasionally bitch about religious people...but only if they've been in my face about something. Like my neighbors who send their kids over to read to me from the Bible while I'm raking leaves in the front yard. But that is not what being part of the group is all about.

On the other hand, in surrounding myself with like-minded people, do I run the risk of becoming (as Dale McGowan so appropriately coined) siloed?  Perhaps there is an inevitable “Us vs. Them” current that runs through a community; particularly a community of people who feel like they have been treated unfairly; who feel like a singled-out minority.  Maybe it does make the differences more obvious.

So what do you think? Do organized atheist/agnostic/freethought groups foster an “Us vs. Them” view of the world in the same way that churches and other religious organizations do?

Oh, that's right...I have a blog!

Usually I talk about dusting off my blog when it's been awhile since my last post. Well...from the look of things around here, I'm going to have to do more than dusting. This calls for some major spring cleaning, and a fresh start! It seems I've been a bit preoccupied for the past few months...

I was reminded of my poor, neglected blog recently when freelance writer and fellow skeptic, Melanie Mallon, requested to do a piece about my work in Antarctica for Teen Skepchick. We talked about what I did there, as well as my thoughts on science education and my experiences as a skeptic. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to share my experiences and voice my opinions on topics I'm really passionate about: scientific literacy and skepticism. I'm also grateful because it brought me back here...the place that's been gathering dust for far too long.

So...please excuse me while I pull out the central vac, the steam mop, and swiffer duster. I've got a lot to do around here. Oh, and while I'm working...please check out Melanie's piece at Teen Skepchick (and browse the site...it's great! I wish it had been around when I was a teen!) :

Teen Skepchick Interview

You Are Not Alone

The dust is settling on the ol' blog once again. I have several blog posts in the works, but haven't had the time to do them justice (I've been "single-parenting" again; these weeks with hubby out of town are always crazy). I'll get back to it, but in the meantime...

The Thinking Atheist has a lot of great videos (including this one, that strikes closer to home than you can possibly imagine), but I watched "You Are Not Alone" this morning and smiled. If you are an atheist, agnostic, or freethinker in the United States, it's easy to feel alienated. Most of us keep to ourselves; a silent minority. Many are still "in the closet" out of fear of repercussions if they come out. It's good to be reminded of those who are/were "out" and still successful and respected. Sometimes it helps just to know we are not alone.

God on Ice (Let's Start...part 4)

(photo by Tom Dempsey, photoseek.com)

In the last installment of the LSATVB series (I feel like I'm writing for a soap opera), I had just graduated from college. I was headed down to Arizona for graduate studies, and at that point in my life I was very conflicted about my spirituality. I considered myself an agnostic who really *wanted* to believe, if for no other reason than to fit in with society.

Once I left North Dakota, I entered a crazy and exciting time in my life. Any thoughts of religious belief were more-or-less put on the back burner, I suppose, because I don't remember even thinking about religion then. I was starting a challenging PhD program, moving across the country (thousands of miles from my family), and moving in with my boyfriend. To top it off, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime...to study in Antarctica. It remains one of the most exciting and transformative experiences of my life (next to becoming a parent).

In the beginning of November 1997, I traveled with two of my colleagues through Chile and Argentina. Flying over the Andes in a small twin otter was the first of many breathtaking moments. We boarded a ship that would take us almost 700 miles from the nearest civilization to Palmer Station...too small and remote to go by plane, and a 3-day voyage by sea in good weather. For all intents and purposes, we were isolated from the rest of the world.

This blog isn't the place for a full description of all we did there or what life was like, but the isolation was key. For almost three months, I lived on a small outcrop of rock at the edge of glacier-covered Anvers island just off the Antarctic Peninsula. At the peak of the season, there were 38 of us living there, and ships would come every few weeks to re-stock the station with "freshies" (fresh fruits and vegetables) and change out crew members. There were no TV or radio stations, no regular telephone, and a satellite Internet connection that only came online for 30 minutes, twice a day.

When you find yourself in a place of true silence...no man-made noises save the ones made by yourself and your 30+ colleagues (no traffic; no planes flying overhead; nothing)...it lends itself to a lot of introspection. The three members of my field research team spent our days studying plant growth on a tiny island about 2 miles from the station. We'd suit up, pack our lunches, load up our gear, and (weather permitting), head out in our Zodiac. My favorite time of day was the break we took after lunch. We'd sit in silence on the rocks facing Anvers Island...feeling the sunshine on our faces and watching the glacier calving off into the water. Occasionally a minke whale would pass by, or we'd be visited by a brown skua (we called one of them Yogi, since she was always trying to steal the remnants of our "picnic" lunch), or a curious elephant seal or a penguin or two. Sometimes the silence was broken by the cry of a giant petrel (huge birds related to the albatross) that nested on our small island.

There were close encounters with humpback whales and huge icebergs while we were on our way to and from the station, and I had the incredible experience of looking into the eye of a 40-foot humpback...and realizing it was looking at me, too. I can remember looking down into the icy water, and watching penguins zipping along below the surface...showing off their underwater "flying" and acrobatics skills. As much as they seemed like awkward little comedians on land, they were the most graceful creatures beneath the waves.

I can honestly say I have felt more connected to "all that there is" (what I think religious people call "God") while on the ice than I have ever felt before or since. My head was clear, and I made some monumental decisions while I was there. First, I realized that for every amazing thing I did and saw there, I wished I could share it with my boyfriend, C. It just wasn't complete without him there. I was on the ice when I realized I was ready to be married and share the rest of my life with one person. Second, I decided to leave the PhD program (a decision I was struggling with before heading down to Antarctica). I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in an office writing grant proposals and trying to survive in a "publish-or-perish" academic world.

These are the kinds of decisions that I've heard my religious friends say they "pray about" to find answers. It seems to me that praying in this sense plays a similar role in the lives of people of faith as quiet introspection plays in the lives of non-theists. I think the biggest distinction is that when theists make a decision they believe that it comes from God, whereas we see the answers coming from within ourselves after giving ourselves time and space to relax and contemplate. They see these feelings of profound wonder and clarity as being divine in origin, whereas we see them as part of a completely natural, completely human experience. I think that this speaks more to our similarities than it does our differences...we feel primarily the same things, but where we hear the "voice" coming from within ourselves, they believe it's emanating from a supernatural entity.

In light of feeling a sense of spirituality, or "God," being in Antarctica is like nothing I'd experienced before or have experienced since. I've come close, though, while sitting on the rocks next to the ocean on the Oregon coast, or while hiking in a forest in the Cascades...or being in the clear air in the desert or mountains, looking up at a night sky that is filled with an unfathomable number of stars. Being secluded and close to nature reminds many of us, I think, of how we are truly a part of it all. We are tiny and insignificant (certainly not the center of "creation"), and still we are a part of something much greater than ourselves. What's more, we are cognizant of our place in it; we ponder the Universe and the meaning of our lives...and that is awe-inspiring. As Sagan said, "the Cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself."

Looking back on my experience on the ice, with nearly 13 more years of life experience under my belt, I can recognize how truly amazing it was. I realize now that having awe-inspiring moments in the natural world is my personal connection to my sense of spirituality. Those are feelings and sensations I've never experienced in a church, though I explored that thoroughly, too (more on my church experiences in a later LSATVB installment). It has nothing to do with a deity...and everything to do with just being human. And contemplating what it means to be human can be an amazing, awe-inspiring, intesely spiritual thing.

The Freedom that Comes from Dissent

I've done some thinking recently about the purpose of this blog. Sure, it gives me an outlet for my thoughts...and it feels good to let it all out sometimes. This freedom of expression, however, has had some unexpected fallout. I've lost some friends in my passionate rejection of certain points of view. To be fair, they were not close friends...if they were, our similarities certainly would have outweighed our differences, and the disagreement would have resulted in nothing more or less than a heated discussion. I've been called names and been accused of perpetrating some sort of "left-wing propaganda" in my blog (surprisingly, by someone who is EXTREMELY outspoken when it comes to her own opinions, regardless of whom she offends).

Why bother with the headache? Why risk ostracizing myself or alienating acquaintances? Why not just keep my mouth shut about what I believe in? I truly don't have any hidden agenda in my blog. It's just me, putting my ideas out there. I hope I provide some food for thought, whether you agree or disagree with me.

In the case of the "friends" I have lost, they both spend a lot of time spouting their beliefs, unchallenged by most of their friends. They both surround themselves primarily with people who see the world the way they do, but I know they have friends who disagree. Most of those who disagree keep their mouths shut for the sake of peace. The problem with "keeping the peace," however, is that silence is often interpreted as agreement. While I may have been the one voice of dissent, I honestly hope it made them stop for a minute and think. Think about other friends who also may not agree with what they have to say. Think, if even for a moment, about another point of view.

I talk a lot about the importance of "coming out" as an atheist or a skeptic, and openly talking about what we believe. I recently re-read Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. A passage from that book illustrates why it is so important NOT to be silent...and also why care must be taken:

Clearly there are limits to the uses of skepticism. There is some cost-benefit analysis which must be applied, and if the comfort, consolation and hope delivered by mysticism and superstition is high, and the dangers of belief comparatively low, should we not keep our misgivings to ourselves? But the issue is tricky. Imagine that you enter a big-city taxicab and the moment you get settled in, the driver begins a harangue about the supposed iniquities and inferiorities of another ethnic group. Is your best course to keep quiet, bearing in mind that silence conveys assent? Or is it your moral responsibility to argue with him, to express outrage, even to leave the cab--because you know that every silent assent will encourage him next time, and every vigorous dissent will cause him next time to think twice? Likewise, if we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition--even when it seems to be doing a little good--we abet a general climate in which skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent balance takes wisdom.

I certainly try every day to achieve that balance, and to acquire that wisdom. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail. But when I reach the end of the day, I feel a little better knowing I didn't just sit back and offer silent assent for something with which I completely disagree. Maybe I even made someone think about something they never considered before. And for me, that is truly liberating.

The Value of Spirituality

I was prepared to write a blog post on spirituality...and how a person can be a "spiritual atheist" without belief in an actual spirit (or a spirit as defined by religion, at least). Instead, I stumbled upon a video by A. Hughman that expresses it in words more eloquent than I could come up with. Not to mention the beautiful imagery...and top it off with music from one of my all-time favorite movies. This video says precisely what I wanted to!

Please take five minutes to watch this, and understand how we atheists can truly, honestly be every bit as "spiritual" as any person of faith.

So Am I an Atheist...or Not? Why Does it Matter?

If you spend any time in the non-theistic blogosphere, you are probably aware of a "semantics war" that takes place in nearly every discussion of what it means to be an atheist. Are you an atheist? If so, are you a strong atheist or a weak atheist? Or maybe you are a New Atheist™? And just what is the difference between a weak atheist and an agnostic? Can you be both agnostic and atheist, or are the terms mutually exclusive? And shame on you if you think you should CAPITALIZE the word Atheist. Or maybe it's okay to capitalize it. And what about being a spiritual atheist? Naturalistic Pantheist? Secular Humanist? Apatheist? Nontheist? Anti-theist? I'm sure there are terms I'm forgetting...but you get the idea.

I find myself wondering why it matters. Most of us are the type of people who pride ourselves on being freethinkers and have spent our lives on the outside of conventional religio-social circles. Why the need to label ourselves now?

Growing up in a predominantly Christian society, labels helped others pinpoint what specific beliefs you held. I remember as a kid being asked, "What are you?" (referring to religious identity). If someone identified as a Lutheran, or a Catholic, or a Methodist...you had a pretty good idea of what that meant. But in a society where the term "atheist" is very poorly understood and seems to carry multiple meanings (sadly, mostly negative) depending upon who you ask...why would we want the label? As members of a non-theistic community, we can't even agree among ourselves what precisely an atheist is.

I can tell you from having been on the "other side," many people of faith define an atheist as someone who denies the existence of the one true God. For them, God (and a very specific God, at that) is a reality, and those of us who don't believe as they do are either lost or deluded (we just haven't found God yet), or angry (we know God exists, but make a conscious choice to deny Him). Many outspoken Christians say that atheists are arrogant and obnoxious and claim to know all there is to know about the Universe. With regard to the vast majority of the atheists I have ever met (in person or online), these statements are not only false, they are completely unfair and serve to perpetuate horrible misconceptions about an ever-growing segment of our country's citizens.

In reality, we DON'T KNOW, and we don't claim to know. In my opinion, it is extremely arrogant for anyone to say they know 100% that their religious or philosophical view is the correct interpretation of the Universe. In my experience, I have never heard/read an atheist make that claim (incidentally, I can't say the same about the Christians in my life). None of us knows. And so that makes us all agnostics (literally meaning "not knowing"). Some of us are agnostic atheists and some of us are agnostic theists.

As atheists, we simply say that there is no evidence to support the existence of gods. If you show us some convincing evidence, we will change our minds. As it stands (and yes, most of us have thought about this...possibly more thoroughly than most theists have), gods appear to be a creation of humans. Over the course of history, humans have invented at least 2,870 different gods/goddesses. So when you think about it, modern-day Christians are atheists, too...with respect to at least 2,869 deities. People who identify as atheists just take it one god farther. We don't claim to know all there is to know about the Universe. We don't claim to have all the answers. We simply don't subscribe to the idea that a gap in current scientific knowledge is evidence for the existence of a deity. So many of the things that were once attributed to gods/goddesses have now been explained in natural (rather than supernatural) terms and, for atheists at least, it's reasonable to believe that other unexplained phenomena ALSO have natural (rather than supernatural) causes.

If I have to choose a label, I suppose I am an agnostic atheist. I am also a secular humanist. When I start to describe the sense of wonder and awe I feel at the vastness of the Universe or the beauty of nature, a strong atheist would probably label me a naturalistic pantheist. Or when I talk about how I wonder if the Universe could have a consciousness of itself, I may be labeled by some as a deist. And that's okay.

My only hope is that, whatever we call ourselves, some day the word "atheist" will not be considered a negative thing by the majority of the people in this country. That some day atheists will no longer be hated or discriminated against simply because our spiritual beliefs don't align with the majority view. And so maybe that's why I'm okay with calling myself an atheist. If more of us are open and unapologetic about our non-theistic beliefs, maybe that "some day" will come sooner. Regardless of what we choose to label ourselves.