"It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price ... One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying." Morris West, The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1963.
This week’s events in Jerusalem, horrific and sickening as they are, signal an even darker reality that I think we really need to confront, urgently, before it is too late. The rapturous pronouncements of right wing media figures, the ubiquitousness of Christian Dominionists both inside the government and waiting in the shadows, and the determination of corrupt world leaders to use the support of religious believers to carry out their malicious agendas all point to an emergency situation. The religious verbiage and scriptural quoting is not accidental. These are dog whistles from the religious elites influencing the administration to their MAGAchurch voters which they can read as signs of the coming fulfillment of their end times theology.
In my view, what we need to do — and quickly — is face up to the fact that our complacency about the growing influence of religiously-fueled power structures in our society has brought us to this sorry pass. There are extremists among us, in positions of enormous power, who believe in an apocalyptic eschatology and are determined to do everything in their power to bring it about in their own lifetimes.
Searching for articles and news stories about this topic has been frustrating and chilling. There is very little being written, and hardly anything at all in media with wide circulation or viewership. Ex-evangelicals have been sounding the alarm for some time, but the power of social censure largely marginalizes them. Dominionist extremism is a clear and present danger that is threatening not only the survival of American democracy, but the world, but discussion of the topic of Christian extremism seems to be taboo. It isn’t hyperbole to say that we are facing the threat of another — possibly nuclear — world war, because the current administration is full of extreme right wing idealogues who are actively hoping for, and working toward that very thing. Pence, Pruitt, Pompeo, Huckabee Sanders, Conway, DeVos, Prince, Sessions, Bannon, Brownburg, the Mercers — the list goes on, including many (R) members of Congress.
What stops people from speaking out about this? What prevents progressive people, journalists, congress people and peace-loving, social justice warriors from recognizing and calling it out? What keeps so many people in denial?
Millions of people the world over are privately concerned about the power that organized religion wields. Many are even closeted atheist/agnostic; only a tiny fraction of these people publicly identify as such for a variety of reasons. Because of the harm that they see being caused by the power that religious dogma is given in society, some open atheists become frustrated and discouraged about the number of closeted atheists, agnostics or silent religious “moderates” in our midst, and sometimes that frustration spills out in accusations of hypocrisy.
I am an atheist who sometimes reaches that boiling point of mingled frustration, irritation and discouragement. Like most atheists, I was raised in, and practiced, a religion for many years. I know only too well how hard it can be to let go of the security of a belief system inculcated from childhood - and which for many of us is intimately entwined with our identities, our families and our entire community support networks. There is a high social cost to speaking out against the dangers of allowing religious groups to wield legislative, judicial, medical and social power in a society. Social ostracism, threats to safety and even to their lives give most people serious pause. Reluctance to rock the boat is understandable.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw
So, how do people deal with the cognitive dissonance between the need to belong to a community yet not actually fully sharing the belief system which seems to be a requirement for inclusion? Most cling stubbornly to the assumption that religion is what it tells us it is — a force for good and love in the world — and therefore it is OK to enjoy the perks of belonging while ignoring the occasional nagging uneasiness about some church pronouncements. But is this comforting belief merely willful blindness? If it were true that religion was a benign force in the world, as many of the silent moderate majority clearly must still believe it to be, there would never be any reason to speak out. And, conveniently, no reason to upset our comfortable lives.
But, religion is not a benign force in the world. Religion wreaks havoc on efforts to promote world peace. Religion mandates that women be treated as less than fully human, enshrining in its "holy books" the misogyny that permeates human culture and providing a "divine" justification for the oppression of half of humankind. Religion fosters - even insists upon - religious and racial bigotry. Religion suppresses and tries to destroy sources of human knowledge which threaten its power. It is accorded a level of obsequious respect and awarded a degree of power and influence that would be unthinkable for any other unelected, nontransparent entity in a modern, democratic society.
The deference that is paid to religion has real consequences for humanity. In addition to the sectarian violence that rages all over the world, religious groups seek to stop scientific research which could yield outstanding new medical treatments that would greatly alleviate human suffering. Religion demands the "right" to decide for all of society what is moral and what ought to be legal, even when there is no consensus even among religionists on what is actually moral and what actually ought to be legal. It is inimical to individual freedom. Religion schemes and strategizes to persuade - through fear, bigotry and misinformation - just enough people to vote in favor of their agenda, thus turning a democratic Republic into a putative theocracy where a simple majority of religiously-influenced voters can take away human rights from women and minorities by anonymously pulling a lever in a ballot box.
Are you a closeted atheist or agnostic or an uneasy liberal Christian who is trying to keep your head down? It is important for all of us to figure this out. While it is true that religion's greatest source of energy comes via true believers, religious leaders know that the number of zealots is too small to secure real power in a culture, so they rely on the large moderate majority to protect and enable them to achieve their goals. To that end, the strategic tools of childhood indoctrination and enormous social pressure to conform to "tradition", coupled with the more liberal mainline Christian ethics of the post WW2 western world, ensures that millions of people feel more comfortable continuing to identify as "believers" - even when they know, on at least some level, that they do not believe everything that their religion tells them is the literal, ultimate truth. Their religious identity is a huge part of who they are, how they observe and celebrate the seasons of the year and gives structure to all the passages of life, which they share with their co-religionists, including family. In many cases, professing belief in the religion which is shared by one’s community seems required for membership in one’s own culture. Something many do to quell the cognitive dissonance is to construct a kind of “own-religion” that is loosely based on the actual one, but which glosses over the uncomfortable parts with a blithe “MY God is a loving god. That uncomfortable part doesn’t apply to TRUE religion like mine.”
Cultural believers want to have it both ways. Those who believe that there are many pathways to God, and who sincerely believe that their religion is one of love or peace, tend to reject the actual religion found in holy scripture and embodied by the fundamentalists of their faith. They wish both to believe and disbelieve. They wish to align themselves with the best of the modern, liberal religious sensibility - which is secular humanism in a more socially acceptable form - while denying the reality of the message in the dominant faith traditions. They tell themselves that people who are intolerant of spiritual differences or who fight to deny others the freedom to develop and live by their own religious and moral values are not "true" Christians. They are uncomfortable with the way the religious right oppresses minority groups, but they stop short of taking effective action to push back against it. In the end, they support their extreme co-religionists because of their shared religious heritage - sometimes actively but more often passively through doing nothing, keeping their heads down and continuing to enjoy the benefits that belonging to their own church community gives them. These people unintentionally form the cultural bulwark of reasonable, moderate, kind and compassionate religion which provides cover for fundamentalists with their unreasonable, extreme, cruel and oppressive agendas.
Easier to understand are the millions of people who are atheist or agnostic but who are too afraid to come out of the closet. One does not have to look far or for very long to find evidence of the social, political and personal cost that open atheism can bring to an individual. The fear that many closeted atheists feel is genuine and completely rational. In many parts of the world, open atheism can get you persecuted, arrested and even executed. In the western world, atheists are openly vilified, compared to rapists, pedophiles and psychopaths and are discriminated against socially, politically and economically. Being openly atheist can cost you your friends, family and community. It will mean you will probably never be able to hold public office. It could cost you your job. It could cost you your safety and peace of mind.
And yet, by remaining silent, are we in the western world really safeguarding ourselves and our children?
Just fifty years ago, before the global resurgence of religious fundamentalism, most of the developed world and much of the developing world was moving slowly but surely toward modernity. Most of the world had explicit goals for educational and social progress, including countries like Iran and Afghanistan, but today are ruled by fundamentalist religious regimes. Universities, modern medicine, vital infrastructure and international trade were on the rise, and societies were proudly producing post-war generations eager to participate in the explosion of scientific and technological discovery that marked the second half of the twentieth century. But scientific achievement and progressive social and educational reform threatens religious elites and the rise of fundamentalism soon followed that brief, shining mid-century period of progress.
Many moderates in these countries did not imagine that the hard-won gains that had been so recently made could be rolled back. They did not think that the extremists among them could seize control of their countries and push them all back into a new dark age. But it happened. It happened with the unwitting help of the moderates who did not anticipate that while their more extreme co-religionists might only target vulnerable minorities at first, they would inevitably turn their attention to the insufficiently devout within the majority - the moderates themselves. By the time the moderates woke up to what was happening to their countries, it was too late.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela
Society's continued acceptance of religious hegemony is an urgent problem and it is the challenge now to take a stand for humanity. Insistence on the benignity of belief systems which wreak havoc on world peace, which mandate the oppression of women and which demean and discredit the highest achievements of humankind is irrational and destructive, even if the motive for doing so makes perfect sense to the moderate majority which is scrambling to protect its own cherished privileges and traditions.
The benefits that closeted atheists, agnostics and liberal believers receive from their church communities are outweighed by the harm that religion is doing; to those same communities and to the societies which they influence; to the earth via support for climate change denial through anti-science anti-intellectualism; and to the whole of humanity through hatred, bigotry and the implacable religious drive for theological supremacy. Our fear of ostracism today ought to be outweighed by our concern about the kind of world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. By coming out of the closet, we will encourage each other to see that we already have the numbers to support thriving human communities, based upon better ideas than fear and misogyny.
In a world that is as oppressively, and even violently, dominated by religion as ever in human history, it may take more courage than the average person can muster to come out as non-religious. Even in societies which claim to protect religious freedom (for now), it is understandable that people will hesitate to upset their social circles or risk censure (and worse) by voicing any criticism of the majority religion.
And yet, I hope people will do it.
Some recommended reading:
The cost of staying in the closet. MarieAlena Castle, Atheists For Human Rights,
Coming out of the closet, Eric Jeffries, exchristian.net
Religious Moderation Enables Religious Fundamentalism, Reason-Being.com
The Clergy Project, a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs. The Clergy Project launched on March 21st, 2011.
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris, 2004.
The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, 2006.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens, 2007.