One of the most difficult conversations I recall ever having with my parents was my confession that I wasn’t quite sure that I believed in God.
My family has always been staunchly Catholic (in fact, one of my great aunts is a nun somewhere in St. Louis), and they had certainly hoped to impart those beliefs upon me. I went through the motions of the initiation process into the Catholic faith like receiving my first Eucharist as a child, going to confession, and attending Catholic high school, but after a few long years of contemplation and reflection I came to the conclusion that I just don’t believe in any higher power and organized religion doesn’t suit me.
Luckily my parents are very loving and supportive and have grown to accept my difference in beliefs. However, I couldn’t help but feel that they would have had a much easier time understanding my qualms if I hadn’t said that I rejected the idea of God outright. The idea of believing in nothing was simply anathema to them, and I know that their mindset isn’t atypical. A 2007 Newsweek poll found that 62 percent of respondents would not vote for an openly atheist candidate for president. A 2003 Pew Research poll found that 52 percent of Americans expressed a “mostly unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” view of atheists.
Why do so many Americans take this viewpoint of atheists? I think that much of the problem stems from misconceptions about us. The atheists that get in the news most often are people like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. Of course these men are very intelligent, but they pull no punches in their criticism of organized religion, and I can’t say that I agree with their antagonizing of people of faith. Though I may have a few fundamental disagreements with most religions, I prefer cooperation over conflict, and I know my outlook is not uncommon.
Moreover, I think there’s a commonly perceived moral deficiency among atheists. This is the point that I take issue with the most. Not all atheists are nihilists or hedonists; in fact, a lot of nonreligious people classify themselves as “secular humanists,” and we have many of the same goals of promoting social justice and the public good that other prominent world religions espouse. Some people think that it’s impossible to live a moral life without belief in God, but this is also a claim I strongly reject. Greg M. Epstein, the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, explores this question in his recent book, “Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe,” and I recommend his work to faithful and nonreligious people alike.
There’s no shame in not believing in God, and I really hope that others can start to recognize this. Why is it that we have countless faith-based organizations on campus but no club for secular humanists? The nonreligious are certainly not some disadvantaged minority; it’s estimated there’s over 1.1 billion of us in the world. Why not make our presence more known? We may not personally support organized religion, but that doesn’t mean we want to destroy it, and that’s something I hope that people can learn to recognize.
Brandon Bub is a first year English major. He can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].
