Sunday, September 28, 2014

Why Atheists Are Jerks

The chapter on atheism is revealing.
Atheists aren’t really jerks, but we sure can come across as jerks sometimes. I know I’ve been guilty of that. On the Internet in particular, we have a habit of being insulting, snarky, and offensive. You can review the #atheism hashtag on Twitter or Google+ for examples. Around Christmas, the American Atheists organization likes to put up mean-spirited billboards. New Atheist authors sell millions of one-sided, negative books denouncing religion. As a result of all this negativity, lots of people who don’t believe in God refuse to label themselves atheists. I’ve advised my college-age daughter to consider telling people she’s agnostic just so people don’t lump her in with the most vocal and negative atheists. Honestly, this harsh side of the community is something I’d like to see mellow out. It would be good for us in a lot of ways. This negative, combative side of atheism seems to arise from three sources. First, people are mean to us, and we often respond in kind. Second, humans are tribal, and atheists are no exception. Third, the community expresses a certain testosterone-friendly combativeness. Male atheists are the worst offenders, and the whole community is weighted toward males in its demographics and its personality.  Can we achieve a less male-dominated, less tribal, more likable secular community? Let’s hope so.

Mistrust: The US populace holds a low opinion of us atheists, and online we like to swap links to the latest poll or psychological study that shows how despised we are. We’re mistrusted more than just about anyone else, infamously on par with rapists according to one study. Here in my social circle in Seattle, where politically correct tolerance for every other kind of diversity is mandatory (hurray), someone occasionally says something derogatory about us atheists. Even Oprah doesn’t like us. One famous D&D fantasy world singled out atheists for supreme punishment in its imaginary afterlife. It’s no surprise that some atheists are angry. Occasionally, an atheist comes “out of the closet” in a hail of angry Facebook posts, horrifying their extended family. The anger, of course, feeds into the mistrust in a vicious cycle. It’s the angry atheists that stand out.

Tribal Conflict: The mistrust and the revenge hate are both sustained by primeval tribal instincts. To the believers, we atheists have rejected God and in doing so we have rejected the decent society that reveres Him. Since we don’t fear divine judgment, many believers suppose we’re free to be immoral. To atheists, the atheist community is their new tribe. Like any normal in-group, we unfairly smear the opposition, considering religious people to be more homogeneous and less praiseworthy than they actually are. A subtype of atheist, the anti-theist, goes after religion with zeal that feels a bit religious itself. Again, this minority of anti-theists makes the most noise, puts up mean billboards at Christmas, and makes us atheists look like haters. So we’re back to people not liking us.

Verbal Combat: As if mistrust and tribalism weren’t enough, the jerk factor gets kicked up a notch because atheists are more analytical and less empathic than average (see Big Gods by Ara Norenzayan). The less empathic one is, that is the less one intuits the mental states of others, the less likely one is to intuit a personality running the universe. The more analytical one is, the more one sees impersonal forces at work in the world. Since men, for various reasons, tend to be more analytical and less empathic than woman, atheism is more attractive, on average, to men. But really atheism is more attractive to the sort of person who doesn’t notice when their spouse is upset, and most of those people happen to be men. This personality profile also fits people on the autism spectrum, a predominantly male population that is over-represented among atheists. Of course, all these correlations are statistical averages over large populations, not definitive in any particular case. Whatever gender they may be, people who are more analytical and less empathic are the sorts of people who say mean things on the Internet more often than average. In fact, the Internet is perfect for just these people, the ones who want to operate in the realm of abstract ideas (text) rather than the world of living, feeling people. Worse, without live human interaction to moderate Internet debates, they easily spin out into escalating insults and flame wars. On atheist forums, you can even see atheists insulting each other over hot-button issues such a drone strikes or circumcision. As sociologist Deborah Tannen has documented, women tend to use conversation to form connections more than men, and men speak to compete for status. On the Internet, it’s easy to hear virtual antlers locking in combat as anonymous “bucks” clash over ideas. Sam Harris says that the combative, testosterone-friendly vibe in the atheist community drives away more women than men (link), and I think he’s right (regardless of why this difference exists). And the more men there are in a community, the higher the chance that a woman will run into a sexist pig, a harasser, or some other hazard. The male majority sustains itself by creating an atmosphere that’s less inviting to women than to men. 

New New Atheism?: Can there be a friendlier, gentler atheism? I hope so. First, we need to acknowledge our own biases. We’re tribal like anyone else. When we feel the urge to defend our tribe’s honor with insults, we should think twice. Lots of us are extra-analytical and under-empathic. When we feel the urge to use our smarts to try to make others look stupid, we should think twice. When we feel the urge to lock horns over our differences, we should question that urge. If we want to develop into a well-rounded, more likable community, then we need to intentionally work against our biases. With any luck, we’ll create a feedback loop in which friendlier atheism attracts friendlier atheists, creating an even friendlier community, and so on. A couple prominent atheists are already leading the way, including Alain de Botton (author of Religion for Atheists), Chris Stedman (author of Faitheist), and Hemant Mehta (“The Friendly Atheist”). They don’t make as much noise as the combative atheists, but I trust they’re making a difference. 

Notes

“Empathy”: In Big Gods, Norenzayan uses the term “mentalizing” for what I’ve been calling empathy. It’s also called theory of mind or the intentional stance. The spouse who doesn’t notice when you’re angry is under-mentalizing. The spouse who is always reading something into your innocuous remarks is over-mentalizing. 

Gender differences: One can use the idea of gender differences to resist change (“nothing we can do”) or we can use the idea of gender differences to help men in a male-dominated field question their own assumptions of how people in the field should relate to each other. I favor the latter approach. 

Anti-theists: You can read about this particularly dogmatic and angry type of atheist, and five other types, in this article. According to this formula. I'm an RAA.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Is Christianity for Losers?

Saint Francis worked to restore
Jesus’ identity as a poor man.
Around AD 177, the philosopher Celsus wrote True Word, the earliest recorded major treatise against Christianity. Among other criticisms, he mocked Christianity for being popular among workers, slaves, peasants and women. It would we better, he said, if these foolish people would obey their masters. Christianity, Celsus seemed to be saying, was for losers. And he was right, all the way back to Jesus, a fatherless laborer from the sticks. What Celsus didn’t know was that Roman culture would one day absorb Christianity, turning it into a religion for bishops, emperors, and other winners. Even so, Christianity has had a lot to offer the downtrodden down through the centuries and still does today. 

Jesus was something of a loser himself, a hillbilly with an accent marking him as from the hinterlands of Galilee. He was evidently illiterate and possibly a bastard. His ministry appealed especially to the sick, to the poor, to the crazy, to women, and to children. The gospel stories feature common people, not just the kings and heroes that were standard characters in other literature of the day. Early Christianity, as Celsus noted, appealed to people of lowly status. Especially in Paul’s churches, women could be prophetesses and apostles. The communities he founded were havens of egalitarianism. Only later would editors amend Paul’s letters to tell women to be silent in church and to make other concessions to mainstream culture. In the Christian sect, slaves and women could achieve heroic status by facing lions in the arena. These spectacles demonstrated their devotion and led to the faster spread of Christianity. Christian numbers also grew because they valued some of the least valuable people in the Roman Empire: newborn girls. Among gentiles, girls were commonly exposed at birth rather than raised, but Christians let their girls live. Christians also tended to the sick through plagues, establishing an enduring Christian tradition of care for the ill and injured.

By the end of the first century, the first bishops had appeared among Christian churches, replacing the informal leadership of elders. Within a hundred years, bishops had taken control over the whole church. They established a patriarchal hierarchy modeled after Roman rule, a hierarchy that grew in wealth and power through the classical period and into the Middle Ages. Even so, a distinctive counterculture survived within Christianity. Commoners and women could claim direct inspiration by the Holy Spirit for their visions and revelations. The labor-friendly traditions of the Jews, of Jesus and his followers, and of Paul the tent-maker lent a certain honor to honest labor, standing in contrast to the labor-despising culture of elites everywhere else. Charity has always been part of Christian practice, and a bishop’s income was traditionally equal to his territory’s charity. Bishops could take in more for themselves only if their churches also gave out more to the poor. Monasteries and convents provided security and organization for the people who joined them, especially after Benedict established work as the rule for monastic life rather than just contemplation. Saint Francis one-upped Jesus himself by calling for compassion to an overlooked population of vulnerable individuals: animals. Later, Franciscan monks opened to door for today’s modern credit economy when they broke the age-old taboo against lending at interest, deemed “usury”. In a campaign to provide working capital to the poor, they applied for and received a special dispensation to lend money at interest. That special dispensation spread until the old crime of usury became business as usual. Now common people can get loans, not just the rich.

Even as Europeans secularized, they put into practice the Christian concern for the most vulnerable. Nursing reforms, for example, created the modern, professional role of nurse, where previously “nurses” had been menial servant girls. Florence Nightingale spearheaded this effort, with Jesus as her inspiration. Nietzsche blamed Christianity for spreading democracy and egalitarianism. When the English utilitarians presumed that each person’s utility is equally valuable, Nietzsche identified Christianity as the source for this assumption. Quakers and other nonconformist Christians called for the abolition of slavery and eventually got their way. In the States, the black church served as incubator for community leaders. In the 20th century, this community gave rise to Martin Luther King, who called on other Christian ministers to join him in campaigning for the dignity of blacks and of the poor.

At the start of the 20th century, the hot new expression of Christianity was Pentecostalism. It’s probably the closest thing today to a 1st-century Christian church. It appeals to the poor and has been spreading especially in South America and Africa. They have no bishops. Believers speak in tongues as early Christians did, a miracle that’s too spontaneous and unpredictable for any standard church hierarchy to condone. As for mainline denominations, you might find them out there supporting today’s “losers”. They run various programs to help the homeless, refugees, illegal immigrants, prisoners, the elderly and other vulnerable populations. In North Carolina, Christians are suing the state, demanding the freedom to marry gay couples.  

Christianity began as a counterculture movement, but almost immediately editors and other serious men went to work to bring the movement into line with mainstream, patriarchal expectations. In some ways, Christianity developed into its opposite. Instead of being a sect that pious Jews voluntarily joined, it became the default religion of an empire of gentiles, complete with Roman-style monarchs ruling as bishops. But Christianity still reflects humble beginnings as a home-grown, rural movement for peasants and outsiders.

Spiritual Identity and Mental Disability: A post about a “loser” who's welcome at church.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

2014

Sunday Assembly in Seattle

In Seattle on September 28th, the Sunday Assembly is bringing together nonbelievers to sing, listen to a speaker, and presumably mingle. I’m going to be there to check it out, and if you’re in Seattle, you’re invited to come along. The Sunday Assembly has me curious because it’s the latest big news in efforts to redefine “church” for agnostics. It started as a single location in London, and now it’s spreading across the world. The 28th is the first session in Seattle. It’s common for atheists to assume that believers go to church and sing together because they think God wants them to. Since atheists don’t believe in God, most of us see no reason to gather and sing. But what if gathering and singing is something that originates not from doctrine but from our own primeval history? From the human spirit, one might say. What if there’s something to the experience that’s separate from any supernatural beliefs? That’s what I figure, and that’s why I’ve been following the Sunday Assembly. 

The Seattle chapter of the Sunday Assembly describes itself as “the best bits of church but with no religion and with awesome pop songs!” The Sunday Assembly’s motto seems to be “Live Better. Help Often. Wonder More.” It’s hard to argue with “live, help and wonder.” On the issue of supernatural belief, they finesse the issue. Probably they’ll never describe themselves as an atheist association, and that’s a prudent decision. And they don’t want you to stay away just because you believe in an afterlife. Their mission is to celebrate not “the one life we have,” which would exclude believers, but is instead to celebrate “the one life we know we have.”  

The Sunday Assembly has been in the news, but it’s not the first attempt to create a “church” without belief. Jerk Church has already spread from Oakland to other cities, including Seattle. Members, who call each other “jerks,” are mostly from the Burning Man community, and their “services” are casual, fun-loving potluck suppers, with plenty of booze, weed, and singing. They meet in homes without an authority figure running the show, sort of like first-century Christians. It’s an extremely personal version of church, a private event very different from the public church service that’s typical of mainline churches. The Unitarian Universalist Association provides a cradle-to-grave church community without a creed, and I’m happy to be in a congregation. The Atheist Alliance of America convention had a number of us Unitarians in attendance, but overall I think that UU is probably too churchy for most atheists. It was too churchy for me, at least until my late wife made me attend for several years. The Ethical Culture movement includes congregations with Sunday services, coming-of-age ceremonies, and other church-like elements. The movement started without the ritual elements, but they were added to the the repertoire by popular demand. Ethical Culture’s emphasis on rationality might appeal to atheists, but it doesn’t have a prominent public profile. The Sunday Assembly is expanding, which gives it an appealing story, positioning it as the most approachable “non-church” yet. 

It’s no accident that the Sunday Assembly, Jerk Church, and Unitarian Universalism all feature group singing. In Faith Instinct, Nicholas Wade makes the case that singing and dancing together is a primeval ritual for group bonding. Jonathan Haidt says it activates the “hive switch,” generating group spirit. Once you see a biological reason that singing and moving together helps you feel connected to other people, the song “Kum Bah Yah” makes a lot of sense. The hokey pokey makes sense, and so do the Macarena, Zumba, and country line dancing. In addition to dancing, people sometimes gather to sing songs. Before radio, singing around a piano with friends was a common pastime. Perhaps those were simpler, happier times. Singing, however, is a real watershed moment, where the participant can go one way or another. Singing in a group is so awkward that some people can’t stand it. My Unitarian church has a contemplative service as an alternative to the regular one, and presumably that’s better for people who don’t like singing in a group. For many other people, however, singing together is elevating. They seek it out in choirs, churches or other outlets. Sunday Assembly is banking on providing a powerful human experience that secular people aren’t getting enough of as it is. That’s smart. 

While I’m curious about the Sunday Assembly, I can’t  say that I actually endorse it. It’s a promising concept, but social engineering is tricky and full of ways to go wrong. I’ve heard some great things about the Sunday Assembly and some discouraging things. Time will tell, and I’m hoping for the best.

PS: Since this post, I've been to a few services, spoke at a couple, and gotten to know the local leadership. I'm cautiously optimistic. —JT, April 2015

PPS: The Seattle chapter has closed in 2017. —JT, 2017

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Spiritual Atheism

Sam Harris’s book deals with
meditation and more
At the Atheist Alliance of America convention, I met a woman who calls herself a “spiritual atheist,” so naturally I asked her all about that. She said that most people are flummoxed but the phrase, but it seemed to fit me, too. We talked about her outlook and about a profound spiritual experience she’d had several years ago. She means a natural experience, the same natural experience that religious people interpret religiously. The idea of spiritual atheism sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that’s about the change. Sam Harris, one of the New Atheists, has a new book, Waking Up, that’s about spirituality without religion. Being a spiritual atheist might be the next big thing. So here’s my take on spiritual atheism. The human spirit is not literally real but it sure is real metaphorically speaking. Spirituality is about tending to that spirit. Spirituality is about art, self-awareness, connection, identity, community, morality, justice and transcendence.


Art moves the human spirit, and art is real. As a young man, I thought of poetry as a sort of weird code, a clever way to say something when you could just be direct instead. Poetry, I thought, could be mapped to rationality. It didn’t have a reality of its own. Then I married an English professor, and I came to see poetry as expressing precisely what can’t be mapped to rationality. On one level, I know that everything in my favorite Wallace Stevens poem is contingent instead of eternal. On the other hand, that’s still plenty real for me. It’s no accident that drama developed out of ancient Greek religion and that theater developed out of the medieval Church. Religions have promoted arts of many kinds and occasionally promoted science.


Spiritual experiences that humans have are real. If you’re overcome by a sense of selfless union with the universe, you’re really having that sensation. Meditation is brain exercise, and it can really change the way your brain processes your experience. Praying together, especially with choreographed motions, really helps people feel united. Traditional explanations for these experiences are probably all wrong, but so what? If the practices provide some benefit, it pays to figure out how to get that benefit with secular alternatives. Harris’s new book, in particular, is about liberating meditation from religion and giving it a place of honor in atheist spirituality.

Spirituality is something you practice, not something you believe. Atheists tend to see religion as comprising false beliefs, as if it’s a failed science. Seen through this lens, religion seems preposterous. As society became more rational in the 1800s, freethinking people began leaving Christianity and Judaism, an exodus that continues today. Spiritual practice, however, isn’t like science. In public, it’s more like theater, an attempt to make sense of the human experience and to move an audience. In the 1800s, the ethical culture movement started offering a rational alternative to church. To their rational meetings, however, they soon added ceremonies for the milestones that religions traditionally mark: birth, maturity, marriage, parenthood, and death. People wanted not just ideas but drama. In private, spiritual practice is like a regimen, an ideal, or a connection to something greater. For me it’s mostly meditation and reverence for nature. Religion may include false beliefs, but it includes real events and real, human experiences. Over the centuries, religions have found practical ways of building intentional communities and supporting individuals through the cycle of life. These practices have value separate from the beliefs associated with them.

Spirituality connects us to other people. Superficially, connection can mean coffee hour, potluck suppers, softball teams and choirs. Actually, it’s not clear that such connections are “superficial” at all. Alain de Botton notes that church communities are unusual in that they bring the generations together like few other institutions. More profoundly, connections can be revolutionary. Florence Nightingale reformed nursing, turning it from a lowly job to a profession with high standards, and she did all that by consciously following Jesus’ example of caring for the sick and tending to the needy. We can also think of the Red Cross, the YMCA, Gandhi and King. Connections within a congregation are an important part of the experience, too. When my wife got really sick and passed away, I got a good sense for what a church community can provide to a family.

Is spirituality about faith? Maybe. You could say that I have faith in the human spirit. “Faith” gets a bad rap because people use it to mean “blind faith even in the face of contrary evidence.” The dictionary definition, however, is merely trust, and I trust that the human spirit is worth taking seriously. Ultimately, if someone demanded that I prove that my position is right by some objective means, I wouldn’t be able to do so. Can I prove that there’s really any ultimate justice in lending money to poor Muslim women who can’t otherwise get loans? No, I can’t prove it, but I take it on faith. Can I prove that a funeral is really worth the expense? How could I even put a dollar value on it? Issues of human value, such as justice and morality, are judgment calls, which implies at least a little faith. It’s not blind faith in something that’s been proven wrong, it’s faith in something unprovable.

Maybe “spirituality” and the “human spirit” are the wrong terms for all this activity. A lot of atheists say so. If there’s a better term for it, I’m all ears. I like the term because it affirms our commonality with other people. For some people, that’s probably a reason to dislike it.


Here’s a previous post about my family’s experience in the church as my wife passed away: http://jonathan-tweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/life-death-and-religion.html

Here’s a post about the welcome ceremony I invented for our Burning Man camp: http://jonathan-tweet.blogspot.com/2013/09/welcome-ceremony-at-burning-man.html

A post about what a “soul” means to an atheist: http://jonathan-tweet.blogspot.com/2011/08/our-real-souls.html

A post about the Temple in Burning Man, a post-modern sacred space: http://jonathan-tweet.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-burning-man-temple.html