Jewish Atheist

“[What] Francis Bacon called an ‘idol of the tribe’. . . is a truth based on insufficient evidence but maintained by constant affirmation by a tribe of believers. Idols do not fall easily or often. Tribes are capable of exerting will based on principles, but they are capable only with the greatest difficulty [at least he doesn’t say “impossible” – AMP] of willing the destruction of their own principles. It’s as if they feel that it is better to stagger from frustration to frustration, than to return honestly to the question, Does what we believe actually make sense?”

Curtis White, “The idols of environmentalism”

I have talked and written (sincerely, but doubtless to no purpose) about founding a movement. One email correspondent points out that there are already such things, but nothing happens.

She’s right. People have been critiquing religion for a very long time (I have a whole book of quotes called The Atheist’s Bible), but religion keeps making progress. People have been organizing around secular/rational world views for many, many years, but nothing happens.

Religion is completely entrenched. Even so charismatic an atheist/skeptic as the 19th century’s Robert Ingersoll, heard by more people than anyomne in his day — and this was before radio! — failed to create any kind of counter-movement to the relentless progress of superstition and darkness.

Religion had too big a head start for even as magnificent a persuader as Ingersoll.

Not only was religion long-entrenched…it had long been symbiotically intermingled with politics. The last chance we had for change in the real world was the Emperor Constantine. When Christianity became the state religion, in the 4th century CE, there began a vile interbreeding of religion and politics that has spawned countless crimes against humanity and continues to cause much suffering today. A previous Emperor, Justinian, tried unsuccessfully to meld secularism with the ancient gods. It didn’t work.

But it didn’t have to be that way. In my opinion Constantine and the Emperors around him stood at a key moment in history. What if Constantine or one of them had been some sort of enlightened, rational, secular-humanist-leaning Marcus Aurelius type, who saw that surviving death was a false promise and that Christianity should be treated as one more nutty Middle Eastern sect, nothing more, while humanity continued to pursue what the Greeks did so well: reason, philosophy, art, and science, and maybe even a little democracy?

Alas, the opposite has happened. My what-if is only the set-up for an alternate-history novel.

Why?

Proposing a movement is the kind of thing you do when you’re getting on in age, you see the world going downhill fast, you see a paper-thin wall between us and religiously motivated disaster (another 9/11, another war), and you figure WTF.

Yes, there’s a TON of humanistic activity, but way too much is cyber…and us talking to us (or believers and nonbelievers cyber-talking at or past each other). Also, some things seem to me to be missing.

If I have any new ideas to add, they would involve the combination of philosophy, pragmatism, and PR, as follows:

(1) Secular humanists must get rid of the word “atheist.” You don’t want to be on the negative side of an existence/non-existence debate.

(2) Similarly, there’s no reason why we can’t co-opt the believers’ vocabulary, at least at first, to show that we’re interested in the same spiritual goodies, though without the fairy tales.

That’s what I did in the title of this post. Truly, spreading the message that humanity need no longer be enslaved to ancient texts, beliefs, and ways of life – that’s evangelizing! Offering the light of reason (go, Brights!) to illuminate the darkness of religious superstition – that’s evangelizing.

Other examples:

Humanistic “revelation” – a huge step for believers, and we must treat it as such — is the understanding (an empowering, exhilarating enlightenment, really) that nobody’s there but us people (all the rest is in the imagination). But you can still live a wonderful life and even face death courageously without religious fantasies and obeisance. I’d be proud to lead a conversion ceremony.

Humanistic “salvation”: being saved from religious fantasies and from whatever earthly problems one wants to be saved from; salvation is accomplished through the efforts of oneself and one’s fellow human beings. Humanism is what Rabbi Sherwin Wine calls a “horizontal” religion, with salvation coming from within and around us, not “above.”

(3) Secular humanists must stress the downsides of religious belief, including magical thinking, oppression of women, persecution of other-believers, humiliating prayer behavior, and much else; we must not hesitate to judge religion harshly, which may take courage, even if you’re Christopher Hitchens. Yet we must provide something positive — see below.

(4) Secular humanists must use science to discredit the Bible and Quran as neither true nor infallible, as nothing more than ancient texts, susceptible to the same kinds of examination, interpretation and evaluation as other ancient texts, and in this way — and in every way other possible way! — we can perhaps vastly decrease the respect in which religion is held by politicians and the media (which probably won’t happen until we form a voting block, like the Christians).

But openly secularizing and demystifying the ancient texts is key.

This reduction in the importance of religion will help maximize the separation of church and state. The goal would be MANY openly secular government officials, even the President, and a strong Secular Coalition in Congress. Ideally, theistic religion could be eventually be socially marginalized, like palmistry or feng shui.

Secular leadership in America could be a force for positive change in the world, instead of what we have today.

Lost ground

At the very least, we need A LOT more prominence and respect for humanism and science. In 2007, Genesis is taught as AN ALTERNATIVE to Darwin. A Museum of Creationism is built ($27 million). Already we have lost WAY too much ground.

(5) Secular humanists must replace that which they take away (God, soul, heaven, etc.), with something else. In fact, they can do more: they can make common cause with all believers, because we prize most of the same virtues, without the fantasies.

We thus separate what is good about religion from what is bad. We are not just a-theists. We are good without God. Plus, we don’t have to believe fantasies or be intolerant of others. A TRIPLE-WIN!

(6) Secular humanists need TONS of cash and celebrity (including hot young women to get the attention of the male demo)…if we are to accomplish the above before religious Armageddon becomes a possibility, which may be soon, the way things are going.

Still, the humanist celebrities are out there. I just found an incredible site with tons of great information and much spirited comment: The Naked Journeyman

It turns out there are many humanist celebrities. I understand that coming out as a humanist is a dangerous career move. But we have a really big problem having to do with too many people believing too many dangerous religious myths.

Maybe some humanistic celebrities have the courage to invest their great fame and wealth in the pursuit of truth and peace through reason and science.

Celebrities tend to focus their efforts at the individual, personal level, because that’s where their stories and performances are. But how much of the suffering, including the child in your arms, is caused by religious superstition and conflict?

So yes, celebrities, lots of them. A “Goodbye God/Up with People” rock concert/tour…or maybe a really cool ad campaign…starring a bevy of humanistic celebrities might move the needle a bit. This idea is based on the commonsense observation that most people’s convictions are rooted not in rational thought but in what is believed and repeated by people they admire.

Having watched the relentless progress of religious superstition in my lifetime, I’m not optimistic about any of (1)-(6) happening (nor am I optimistic about there not being another 9/11), though I would join, support or lead any movement which espoused them.

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Alan M. Perlman is a secular humanist speaker and author — most recently, of An Atheist Reads the Torah: Secular Humanistic Perspectives on the Five Books of Moses. For information, go to www.trafford.com/06-0056. He is the founder of Positive Humanists International/PHI ©