Atheism For Dummies (For Dummies (Religion & Spirituality)) (38 page)

Separation issues are about religious freedom for everyone, not just atheists. When government endorses a religious view, it’s usually guaranteed to be the majority one, which in the United States means mainline Protestantism. That’s why minority religions are interested in securing that separation just as much as atheists are. In 1999, a lawsuit in Texas sought to end the reading of prayers at public school football games. The plaintiffs weren’t atheists, but a Mormon family and a Catholic family. The prayers didn’t reflect their beliefs either.

People have countless opportunities to express beliefs, to come together with others who share those beliefs, and to put their beliefs into practice in their lives and even in the shared culture. But when people of different beliefs are each other’s captive audiences, it makes sense to follow that lovely ethical idea found in all of traditions — treat others as you would like to be treated. Making sure one person isn’t forcing her rituals or beliefs on another is an important part of that principle.

Doing Religion with an Optional God: Unitarian Universalism

Unitarian Universalism is a fascinating religious denomination. It was formed in 1961 as the merger of two older concepts:

Unitarianism, the belief that God is one person, not three (leaving Jesus entirely human)

Universalism, the belief that everyone is saved, regardless of action or creed (leaving hell out of business)

Both of these ideas popped up early in Christian history — the fourth century — and the early church fathers slapped both of them down as heresies, executing or otherwise punishing many who professed those beliefs.

But you can’t keep a good idea down, and both reemerged in the late 18th and early 19th century as their own Christian denominations. They ran on parallel tracks for more than a century, agitating for the abolition of slavery, getting arrested on the same picket lines for women’s voting rights, protesting wars, and feeding the hungry — the kinds of things nondogmatic churches did really well. Both continued to get harsh treatment from mainstream Christianity. Finally, in 1961, they consummated the union and merged to become Unitarian Universalism (or UUism).

Since that time, UUs have developed an interesting and courageous experiment — a religious denomination built around something other than beliefs. Like Ethical Culture, UU is creedless. That doesn’t mean individuals sitting in the UU pews don’t have beliefs, just that their community is built around something else — shared values and principles like the worth and dignity of every person, justice and compassion, and a free search for truth and meaning.

So what does UUism have to do with atheism? The majority of Unitarian Universalists are humanists (both religious and secular), atheists, or agnostics. Most have left belief in God behind, but they still want to do many of those things religious communities do — creating communities of mutual support, coming together to do good, reflecting on values and ethics, marking life landmarks, and more.

Some atheists say UU feels too much like church, and some believers say it doesn’t feel enough like church. They both have other options. For everyone in the middle, UU is worth looking into.

Burying God, Keeping Jesus: The Death of God Theologians

For most of its history, the rainbow of disbelief left out the color black. Welcome to “Death of God” theology, a movement of radical theologians in the mid-1960s who declared that God is no longer relevant in the modern world, and therefore no longer exists. (Refer to
Chapter 2
for more about the rainbow of disbelief.) The small, esoteric movement even had its moment in the spotlight, capturing the cover of
TIME
magazine in April 1966 — a black cover with read letters asking “Is God Dead?”

When I first heard of this movement, several questions popped to mind: So you mean God was alive, but now is dead? Or he never existed, and now that’s been figured out? Or he existed, but only as a mental construct that no longer works?

Which is it? Depends on which Death-of-Godder you ask. Some felt that Christianity had simply outlived its usefulness as an explanation of the world, and that God, once believable, no longer was. One suggested that God was kept alive by faith, like Tinkerbell, and that a renewed sense of festivity and fantasy can bring him back to life. One of the most prominent, Thomas J.J. Altizer, made the startling suggestion that God was alive, then
fully
inhabited Christ, then literally died on the cross, at which point his spirit went out into the world.

Personally, I’ve never known quite what to make of the Death of God theologians, which so far hasn’t lost me any sleep. Though I share the opinion that God isn’t real, I can’t shake the idea that they were simply making up the rest of it as they went. Being theologians, I guess you’d say.

Although their theories on what God once was and what exactly happened to him were all over the map, they seemed to agree on one thing — it’s all about Jesus now. He’s no longer divine, they said, just a great teacher, but he can still serve as a helpful focal point for morality.

Skipping Yahweh: Humanistic Judaism

Imagine a clergy member informing the congregation that he or she no longer believes in God. That declaration has to be one of the most dramatic human moments imaginable. This person, the one who led many of them to faith or reinforced it when it was flagging, who quoted chapter and verse in times of need or loss, who may have even preached against unbelief — this person of all people is an
atheist.

Given the shock, anger, and betrayal many would naturally feel in this situation, you can easily see why the 18th century priest Jean Meslier waited until he was dead (see
Chapter 10
) and 20th century minister Dan Barker sent a letter. But in 1963, Rabbi Sherwin Wine actually walked to the front of his synagogue in Windsor, Ontario, faced a congregation expecting a typical Saturday service, and told them that he no longer believed in God — but that he still considered himself a Jew.

All of the major religions are about more than supernatural beliefs. Certain traditions, rituals, ethics, language, symbols, and ways of living are just as much a part of that religious identity. Judaism was always about more than God, and Wine wanted to keep all the rest.

As he stood in front of the murmuring crowd, he obviously knew people would be shocked. But I’m sure he also knew that he couldn’t possibly be the only one in the room who felt as he did. So after he announced that he’d be stepping down, he invited anyone else who happened to feel the same to come with him to create . . . well, whatever would be next. He didn’t really know.

Eight families came forward to help figure out “what’s next.” They ended up forming a whole new kind of Jewish congregation, a nontheistic one, right across the river in Detroit — the Birmingham Temple. Wine created a new humanistic liturgy that reflected Jewish culture, identity, and history and taught humanist ethics without reference to God.

Like Motown music and the Model-T Ford, this brilliant idea didn’t stay in Detroit for long. The idea spread first around the United States and then around the world as Humanistic Judaism. Today the movement has more than 40,000 members and is recognized as one of the five branches of Judaism itself.

Imagining the same thing happening in Christianity may be difficult at first — but why should it be? It would work just the same and satisfy the same need. In fact, I’ll bet you a dollar that within the next ten years, some priest somewhere is going to walk out of his collar, leaving God behind but bringing the rest of his Catholic identity and values with him to create Humanistic Catholicism. Now hold the book at arm’s length and move it up and down to shake on it. Okay, that’s a bet.