Atheism For Dummies (For Dummies (Religion & Spirituality)) (36 page)

So when Kurtz sat down with Edwin Wilson to craft a new manifesto, they began by acknowledging that a little more realism was needed. In addition to broad statements against weapons of mass destruction and racism and in support of universal human rights,
Humanist Manifesto II
got quite specific, saying for example that divorce, birth control, and abortion should be universally available, and that an international court should be established to try those accused of war crimes and other crimes against humanity.

But one of the main differences in Manifesto II was a much more secular attitude. The Manifesto was to be “a design for a secular society on a planetary scale,” and the signers were identified as nontheists who “find insufficient evidence for belief in the supernatural.” Hard to get much clearer than that.

Manifesto II also made a not-too-subtle slap at earlier attempts to reclaim religious language, rituals, and ideas: “Some humanists believe we should reinterpret traditional religions and reinvest them with meanings appropriate to the current situation.”
(We’re looking at you, Dewey!)
“Such redefinitions, however, often perpetuate old dependencies and escapisms; they easily become obscurantist, impeding the free use of the intellect. We need, instead, radically new human purposes and goals . . . Humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”

Throughout his career, Kurtz revived and promoted the term “secular humanism,” making the separation from religious humanism clear and complete. In the 1980s, Jerry Falwell, leader of a fundamentalist Christian political revival called the Moral Majority, seized on the term “secular humanism,” painting a picture of a dark, powerful cultural force threatening morality and faith in the United States. In doing so, he exaggerated what was actually a small philosophical movement at the time. “Do we want secular humanism to take over the hearts, minds, souls, and spirits of our children and grandchildren?” he asked. “Or, are we willing to fight the good fight for their sakes?”

The American Humanist Association at the time — the main US national organization of secular humanists at the time — had only about 4,000 members.

Kurtz later established several important national humanist organizations, including the Center for Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, Prometheus Books, and the Institute for Science and Human Values.

Building a philosophy of humanism: Corliss Lamont

The horrors of the Second World War knocked the heady confidence in humanity’s future out of many humanists. A clear exception was American philosopher Corliss Lamont, a thinker who took the shining football of
A Humanist Manifesto
and ran with it for the rest of his long and productive life.

Lamont’s brilliant career as a professor at Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell would have been enough accomplishment for most people. But his biggest contributions were as a defender of individual rights, challenging the US government in several legal battles over civil liberties and the right to privacy. (If you’re a US citizen, Lamont is one of the reasons the US government can’t intercept your mail, even if they think it includes “communist propaganda.”) But he also found time to become one of the most eloquent and thoughtful advocates of humanism in the late 20th century.

His direct influence on humanism came mostly in the form of a single book —
The Philosophy of Humanism.
Based on a course he taught at Columbia, the book captured humanism for the first time not just as a way of thinking about enormous questions about religion or death or meaning, but as a complete philosophy of life without supernatural beliefs. (For more on this terrific little book, flip to
Chapter 11
.)

Disagreeing with Gandhi

Gandhi was one of those saintly few whose character and judgment transcended culture and point of view. How can somebody disagree with a guy who taught a nation how to overthrow 300 years of colonial rule without firing a shot?

These sections introduce two people who liked and respected Gandhi enormously but disagreed strongly with him on some key issues, including the place of religion in Indian life. Both knew him personally, and both were atheists. One fought for social equality in India, whereas the other rose to lead the new nation, handling national power intelligently and ethically.

Leading a religious nation: The atheist Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) spent a lot of his time in prison while fighting for the freedom of his people. He eventually rose to lead his nation, establishing a new order in place of British colonial rule.

Nehru was a great admirer of Gandhi, especially his focus on nonviolent action. At the same time, Nehru, who was an atheist, criticized Gandhi’s use of religion to define India as it moved toward independence, worrying that it made people passive, and worst of all, that it stopped them from thinking. “Religion, in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror,” he wrote in his autobiography, “and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it.”

He wrote his autobiography in 1936, including those clear renunciations of religion, and
still
became Prime Minister of India in 1947, which is pretty much unthinkable in most countries. But India is unique in ways that make this possible. A long history of multiple religions living cheek-and-jowl with each other, including atheistic religions like Jainism, made tolerance fairly high. And even though Nehru had strong criticisms for religion, he recognized the need to live peacefully together. “The only alternative to coexistence,” he said, “is codestruction.”

Nehru helped draft India’s first independent constitution, and his influence was clear. Many of the values he laid out during the independence movement are stamped into the document, including guarantees of freedom of religion and association, equality for all regardless of caste or color, and the establishment of India as a “secular democratic republic.” It’s right in the first sentence of the Preamble.

It often comes as a shock when people who know India as a very religious country find out that it’s officially secular. But that makes it very much the same as the United States. Our founders also knew that the only way to protect religious freedom for all is to take government itself out of the religion game entirely.

In a way, Nehru’s atheism was the perfect qualification for the first prime minister of a country with deep and varied religious roots. Starting with a Hindu leader would most likely have infuriated Muslims and other religious minorities, and a Muslim president would have frosted the Hindus no end. An atheist with a strong commitment to religious freedom was much less likely to play favorites.

Nehru guided the new country through its challenging early years before dying in office in 1964 and leaving behind a single clear request: “I wish to declare with all earnestness that I do not want any religious ceremonies performed for me after my death. I do not believe in such ceremonies, and to submit to them, even as a matter of form, would be hypocrisy and an attempt to delude ourselves and others.”

So of course Nehru was cremated in accordance with Hindu rites on the banks of the Yamuna River.

Pressing Gandhi on social issues: Gora

Goparaju Ramachandra Rao, better known as Gora, was an atheist activist and social reformer active in India in the middle of the 20th century, just as Gandhi was making headlines with his first nonviolent campaigns.

Gora wanted nothing more than to have a conversation with Gandhi — about religion, about atheism, and about the social change they both wanted so desperately. But penetrating Gandhi’s inner circle wasn’t easy. Gora decided on a time-tested technique — making a complete nuisance of himself.

He peppered Gandhi with short letters requesting an interview. When that didn’t work, he joined Gandhi’s
ashram
(spiritual retreat), working and meditating and just generally trotting around on the margins of Gandhi’s view like a puppy. Finally Gandhi relented, granting Gora a series of interviews.

Gandhi told Gora he had heard of his work in the villages and asked him to tell him about it.

Gora described an innovative program of monthly “cosmopolitan dinners” in which people of all castes came together in an attempt to break down the barriers throughout Indian society. Some members of the program refused to attend public functions or wedding celebrations unless they included cosmopolitan dinners. He also described adult literacy classes held for the general public, especially the Harijan. (Gora had done his homework, so he knew Gandhi preferred “Harijan,” or “Child of God,” to the term “untouchables.”)

Gandhi noted that Gora could do those things just as easily without atheism.

“True,” said Gora, explaining that his method was atheism, just as Gandhi’s was Hinduism. Both were systems that could be used as the means to an end — the improvement of life for the downtrodden. Gora described the advantages of atheism for breaking down barriers between people, because barriers of caste and religion have no significance to an atheist. All are human beings, he said, adding that atheism also put man on his own legs, because no divine will or fate controls his actions. Breaking down these barriers released free will in the Harijan, he said, releasing them from the inferiority into which they had been pressed for all the centuries they were made to believe that they were “fated” to be untouchables. Religion silences questioning about how and why, he said. Atheism restores the ability to question one’s place.

This didn’t sit well with Gandhi, who said he would consider fasting because atheism was spreading.

Gora responded immediately: He would fast against Gandhi’s fast.

“You will fast?” Gandhi asked, incredulously.

Yes, Gora replied, and then asked Gandhi
why
he would fast. Tell me how atheism is wrong, he said, and I will change.

Gandhi paused for a while, and then told Gora that he could see how deep was his conviction in atheism. But then Gandhi suddenly stiffened. It’s the present behavior of the people that’s allowing atheism to spread, he said.

See what happened there? It’s something just about every atheist has seen. I can tell someone directly that I have devoted my life to feeding the hungry and working for human rights, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in the process, but if I say that atheism has motivated me to do so, all the good seems to fall away, and it’s a spreading cancer to be stopped.

But Gora persisted through a series of interviews, chipping away at Gandhi’s resistance. And with each one, Gandhi seemed to open up to the idea that two people can work toward the same ends from entirely different starting points.

Gandhi ended the last talk by showing an encouraging change of heart. He said he saw that high ideals were just as present in atheism as in theism, and that he recognized they were both seekers of truth, both hard workers, and both willing to change when they were wrong. He said he would support Gora in his work with the Harijan, even though their beliefs differed.

Now there was a breakthrough, and it was all Gora had been seeking. He spent the rest of his life working to improve the conditions of the Harijan and for the advancement of the atheist perspective in India. That’s a life very well spent.

Meeting the “Most Hated”

Journalists and cultural commentators have often conferred the title of “Most Hated Woman (or Man) in America” on controversial figures. Some of the recipients of this moniker have been criminals, but just as often the designation has gone to someone who held strong opinions outside of accepted norms.

The following sections introduce four people who bore the “Most Hated” label for their atheist beliefs.

The “Most Hated Man in Kentucky”: Charles Chilton Moore

After a short career as a minister in Kentucky, Charles Chilton Moore (1837–1906) gradually grew disgusted with Christian endorsements of slavery in the Bible and in pulpits around the US South. He stepped down from his post and eventually came to doubt the Bible even more. He started calling himself a Deist (see
Chapter 2
), then an agnostic, and finally an atheist.