Why Should New Atheists Engage in Interfaith Service?

Are “atheist” and “humanist” being used interchangeably?

Just because a person is an atheist doesn’t mean they are moral either nor does it mean they give a damn about the homeless.

Of course, many atheists are humanists. But why isn’t this a humanist driven exercise.

This article presupposes there are atheist groups organized enough to be invited…

I think this subject is important enough to ignore the supremely annoying term “new atheists” for.

For me inter-faith service is a pretty simple matter of cost-benefit analysis, where the promotion of religion is considered a “cost” and the helping of others a “benefit”. Ordinarily I choose to maximize this equation by giving to exclusively secular groups like MSF, but for given actions I would not neccesarily have a problem with collaboration with religious groups. Different questions have to be asked:

1. How urgent is the need? If the group tries to spread the faith to the people it helps when, say, refurbishing an inner-city playground, I might find that unacceptable. On the other hand, if it’s attempting to feed and give shelter to refugees from a sudden natural disaster or war, this need is urgent enough for me to loosen what I’m willing to put up with.

2. What exactly do you mean by “religious”? Reform Jews or Unitarians are a completely different animal from Pentacostals. Not all inter-faith collaborations are created equal and not all collaborations are equally acceptable or nonacceptable.

3. How much will faith figure in the actions proposed and what resources will be used to that end? If you’re going into Haiti to install water purifiers with your church t-shirts and an odd “God bless you” I’ll slip into a Humanist t-shirt and go along. If you’re using half the money for purifiers and the other half to build a church, I want no part in that.

4. Are there suitable and equally effective secular alternatives? If there is an option for helping in the same degree without religious entanglement I’ll take it. If the best service is provided by the religious organization I’ll look at questions 1 and 2 and decide how much of a hit on the service I’m willing to take to go to a secular service.

Ultimately I think service should be first and foremost about helping others, and that the political benefits for the nontheist community should be more secondary. I’m not too keen about complaining about “inter-faith services” either, at least not where we are just one out of a number of different groups. If a secular group teams up with a religious group half and half, it seems fine to say “inter-philosophy”, otherwise, I’d leave it alone.

First Humanist does not equal Atheist. I for one am not a humanist and I do not feel that I should be ashamed to say so.

I have and continue to do great service to the community I live in and even the world without any help from any imaginary sky monster. My membership and involvement in environmental organizations as well as my actual profession contribute to the betterment of my community and the world. (Profession = IT for College geared towards low income students)

None of my activities take me anywhere near to any religious service. If I were to associate my service with them then I would be assisting them in perpetuating their myth beliefs.

As for the “spread the word of Atheism” argument. I don’t prostilatize. You are either smart enough to not believe in fairytale or you are not. Nothing I do or say is likely to fix you.

I’m all for inter-community cooperation. In fact, I was part of a CFI crew helping to put together rehydration packets for Save the Children at an event organized by a Jewish temple? synagogue? on Sunday. However, I do wonder why the need for the interfaith label. Why couldn’t it be “The President’s Community Service Campus Challenge”? Is it because the faith groups won’t participate unless they get some sort of privileged publicity out of it that makes them feel like they are better than everybody else?

What’s wrong with the term “interfaith?” Atheists don’t have faith? Tell that to Colette and Sophia, Orange Co. Teenagers, Sisters…Atheists featured on the FFRF billboard in the below post…

I’m a bit confused why religion is implied to hold a stronger public service position in society in many of these essays, like it’s the norm. There are plenty of organizations helping the community where faith just wouldn’t even come up because you’re too busy helping people. Are you seriously picturing a group of atheists that are doing some good over here, and a group of faithers over there helping people, and thinking “wow… if we could just put these two groups in the same location I bet we could help that many more people”?

Interfaith work isn’t for improving the community, it’s for trying to reduce the clickyness of groups.

If I want to participate in community service, I will do so via a secular group (secular here used to mean “religiously neutral” rather than atheistic). Putting our service under the interfaith title does not help fix the notion that religion and service are intertwined, rather, it reinforces it.

1. Service can and should be done through non-religiously purposed groups. I have done community service and volunteered without becoming involved in “interfaith” groups. That is how service should be accomplished, in a way that demonstrates the value of it for its own sake, rather than for religious posturing.

2. Yes and no. It perpetuates the silly notion of “atheism as another religion” which is a bad idea. Also, do not pretend like agressive “new atheists” do not inform people about atheism. In fact, they tend to reach the widest audiences.

3. No it does not, because the service is still being attached to a faith label. Interfaith carries an assumption of religiousity and reinforces the stereotype you discuss here.

4. This can be accomplished by other means and, again, hiding atheist service under a nominally faith based group erases a lot of this for outsiders.

5. Hah. “Interfaith” groups have a strong tendancy to hate such discussions and play the wooey “why can’t we all just get along” line rather than actually accept criticism of theism. Debate and discussion in other areas is a much better way to accomplish this purpose. Besides (and this relates to 4 as well), it is not the fault of atheists that theist have bullshit stereotypes, any more than it is the fault of black people that white racists hold racist stereotypes. Do not blame the bigotry of the powerful majority on the much less powerful minority. In addition, no atheist I know of actually lives in an “atheist cloister” and merely not joining interfaith groups will not make such a thing the case. Perhaps an atheist in Sweden could live without having to interact with theists, but in the US, this idea is laughable.

Have to agree with cat. Jonathan is simply wishing away the fundamental problems with participating in the promotion of “faith” as a means of social organization.

Faith needs to be discredited, not collaborated with. Atheists contributing their time, resources, and energy to overtly “faith”-based efforts are promoting the marginalization and disempowerment of all of us.

And then this:

If your Interfaith group isn’t respectful of your criticism and doesn’t make some effort to include you (perhaps, by saying ”Interfaith and Inter-Philosophy Service,” or ”Inter-World-View Service”), you can complain loudly and publicly that your so-called ”Interfaith Service Group” isn’t standing up for all participants, faithful and faithless. You can even threaten to back out of the group (call a press conference, write an op-ed) and eloquently call attention to their hypocrisy.

If you seriously think there’s a snowball’s chance in Hell that that tactic could possibly work, I’ve got some beachfront property in Wyoming to sell you.

If the Interfaith movement really does want to include Atheists and respect our perspective, they have to put their money where their mouth is and respect criticism from Atheists just as they would respect any other group’s criticism….

Well, that’s an easy one: the interfaith movement does not actually want to include atheists or respect our perspectives—at least insofar as we and our perspectives are contrary to non-negotiables like crediting and promoting “faith.”

You can ignore the suffocating religious privilege that “interfaith” organizing both perpetuates and is suffused with, but that doesn’t make it go away. Organizing around “faith,” by definition, marginalizes atheists. There’s no way out of that, and no real-life religious group is going to drop that organizational principle just because a group of people insist on defying certain matters of majority privilege that said groups swallow hook, line, and sinker.

“Interfaith” activities unavoidably (and intentionally) promote religion and religious privilege. Those happen to be bad things. We shouldn’t promote them.

Jonathan, What did the White House say when you asked why the initiative wasn’t called “The President’s Community Service Campus Challenge”? Or didn’t you even ask to be treated as an equal? And if not, why not?

Jonathan—c’mon, you’re smarter than this.

And why would they invite Chris Stedman, Greg Epstein, Lyz Lydell, myself, and other atheists to the White House to discuss Interfaith Service if they really didn’t want to involve Atheists?

Who said “they really didn’t want to involve [a]theists”? Clearly they did. It just so happens that what they are doing—and are all to happy to have atheists collaborating in—contributes directly to the marginalization and dehumanization of atheists.

What you’re so excited to have experienced is called tokenism. Please look it up before you allow yourself to be used as a justification for undisguised promotion of religion and religious privilege… yet again.

I understand being skeptical of Interfaith Service, but you ought to give it a try if for no other reason to test out if your preconceived notions against it hold true.

What “preconceived notions”? Interfaith initiatives put their purpose and inevitable consequences right out front: they reinforce the power of religions and religious privilege, and that inevitably leads to the marginalization and diminution of nonbelievers.

Surely our energy would be better spent on efforts—including charitable and humanitarian ones—that do not strengthen religion’s grip on humanity?

President Obama has gone out of his way to make clear that this initiative must be fully open to and inclusive [of] atheists, and agnostics, and Humanists.

Well, just for one thing, it can’t be. An Interfaith Challenge offered by an Interfaith Office can’t be fully open to and inclusive of atheists. It rejects atheists in the very language it uses. We shouldn’t be pretending it doesn’t. We shouldn’t be pretending there is nothing exclusive or particularist or antisecular about faith-based offices and faith-based challenges in and from a branch of government. I don’t feel included in Obama’s challenge. On the contrary; I feel very pointedly and explicitly not included. That’s one reason I (and many other people) think presidents shouldn’t have offices and challenges of that kind. It was Bush’s innovation, and Obama should have ditched it.

[....]

“We” are allowed to tag along with the much larger group of normal people. That’s called tokenism, and it’s insulting. Epstein seems to have internalized so much of the routine atheist-phobia of the US that he all but bursts into tears just because he gets a name-check from a crowd of godbotherers. He’s way too easily pleased.

– Ophelia Benson, responding to Greg Epstein’s triumphant description of his trip to the White House

I’m just saying that engagement, even if that takes the form of confrontation, is preferable to burying our heads in the sand and ignoring the problem.

I’m an atheist, not an Atheist. This may seem like an unimportant distinction, but throughout your post atheism is treated as just another small religion like Judaism that Christians would play nice with if only they knew more about its people. I am extremely uncomfortable participating in an inter-anything because individuals in such a group are not participating as individuals but as a member of a religion flying that religion’s flag. I don’t want to fly an atheism flag, I don’t even want there to be an atheism flag. If the purpose of volunteer work is to help, not to show off your non-religion’s colors, you should be volunteering as an individual, not as an atheist.

Your post makes volunteering about the person/the group of the person who is doing volunteering, not the task being completed. The way you describe it, it is a consumption good that will make atheists feel good about themselves by demonstrating to others that they are good people. It reminded me of the following quote:

“Charity is no substitute for justice. If we never challenge a social order that allows some to accumulate wealth – even if they decide to help the less fortunate – while others are short-changed, then even acts of kindness end up supporting unjust arrangements. We must never ignore the injustices that make charity necessary, or the inequalities that make it possible.” -Michael Eric Dyson

Ultimately, I don’t want to say that I volunteered in a soup kitchen. I want to say that everyone is fed. We need a lot fewer Christians spending one weekend in a soup kitchen and a lot more people voting for politicians who recognize food as a basic human right and support expanding government food assistance programs. You talk about alternatives, ultimately there is always an alternative: that we come together and guarantee something as a society, not offer it as charity.

Finally, the kind of Christians who do inter-faith work are not typically the kind of Christians who need help seeing atheists as moral individuals. They are typically the kind who have so intellectually watered down their religion that they they have a problem with neither atheists nor Jews nor Muslims. Interfaith work is in part based on this kind of “it doesn’t matter that we have fundamentally different beliefs because we’re all good people” hand waving. I’m sorry, but I don’t share this kind of hand waving. Believing in a sky god is on some level crazy. Religion is complete nonsense because it lacks empirical justification. If a particular religion were actually true, they’d have the evidence and would publish in the journal Nature. They don’t and so they rely on brainwashing their children. There is no easy hand wave around this set of facts. As such, I don’t feel comfortable participating in an inter-whatever that is ultimately about diminishing the differences between the groups that are present and ignoring the inherent conflict between atheism and religion and between different religions themselves. Charity is no substitute for justice, inter-faith work is no substitute for reality.

I have to agree with Rieux on this. I’ve been involved in a great deal of interfaith work (IFYC conference in DC, as well as two groups at my college the each meet once a week). I had an open mind at first but now I inevitably leave these meetings feeling philosophically dirty. While it is important to have atheists in the room at these things, getting too involved exposes us to the risk of losing our identity. We can’t succumb to the temptation to be placated by what Rieux correctly identifies as tokenism. I’m the only atheist on both the interfaith campus groups I’m part of, and every time I want to resign from them, I don’t because I feel guilty knowing that if I don’t suck it up and stick around, secularists will have no representation there whatsoever.
Ultimately, my approach to interfaith is this: sit at the table, but don’t drink the Kool Aid.

1. It accomplishes service. Who cares if we have to hijack someone’s religious delusions to compel them to help us build a park or feed the homeless? The point is, we get a park built and the homeless fed.

If engaging in charitable activity is the real goal what use does bringing faith into it serve? It is at best a distraction from what should be the real goal. You seem to have a very specific example in mind where the religious would come and join a wholly secular effort. Call me when Southern Baptists build a women’s health centre (actually operated on the basis of the best current medical knowledge).

2. Doing Interfaith Service lets people know about Atheism. A lot of people who might consider themselves Atheists don’t even know that we exist. This helps raise our profile. Furthermore, your group of New Atheists might even get media attention for their participation. Imagine how being featured on the local news, or in an article in the local paper might help you spread the word about your local group of heathens.

Accepting that engaging in charitable activities can raise the profile of atheists and atheist groups; you’ve provided no reason why we should join up with the faithful to do so.

3. It robs religious groups of yet another day to publicly proclaim that only faith can compel people to acts of public service. Now that they have to mention that we ”dirty Atheists” helped them build a park, maybe we can have a little less pretentious public piety.

Except the religious rarely proclaim that generic faith compels anyone, they claim either that Allah/Jesus/Bob did it directly, or that faith in Allah/Jesus/Bob did it (admittedly they do often use the shorthand of “faith” in the latter case, but they clearly don’t mean it in the non specific sense). They will likely continue to make that claim regardless as to who put in the actual sweat (well the Bobists might not, but the others likely will).

4. It helps disprove the (untrue) and offensive assertion that atheists are immoral. Religious believers can hardly accuse non-believers of immorality when they are side by side, building low-income housing, or taking a shift at a soup kitchen with them.

How does joining up with the religious in order to do good work dispel the notion that religion is a requirement for good works? If anything you’re giving them more evidence for their belief.

5. It gives us an opportunity to talk to believers about their faith and show them that they don’t have to believe in an invisible man in the sky to live ethical lives. How are people going to learn that you can be good without god and leave a happy and ethical life as a non-believer, if we happy and ethical non-believers cloister ourselves in our ivory tower of Atheism?

One of the reasons that I often despise what you call faith service is that is allows the religious to disguise some really quite offensive evangelising as charitable work. I realise you’re not exactly suggesting we do the same, but it’s not that far off. I’d also disagree that the only alternative to joining specifically interfaith groups is cloistering ourselves.

Frankly you seem to be blurring the line between engaging in charitable/community activities with people of whatever faith and engaging in interfaith charitable/community activities. It’s supporting the interfaith part that people are objecting to.

I don’t think people shouldn’t join interfaith groups if it appeals to them. It just seems bloody odd to me that you would want to.

Like I said in my piece, if you hate the name interfaith so much, why not approach your local group and suggest that they make their name more inclusive and open?

Because I recognize that that’s ludicrously pointless. Being “interfaith”—promoting faith across ecumenical lines—is the purpose of those organizations. You might as well “approach” the Democratic National Committee “and suggest” that they stop endorsing Democratic candidates. It’s absurd.

I also don’t think we’re so easily marginalized.

Well, some of us aren’t. You are happily advocating lending our names, positions, and credibility to “Interfaith Service.” That—the very thing you are arguing in favor of in this thread—is marginalization. So is raising the profile of “faith” and religion as such in society, which is what “interfaith” organizations exist to do.

I pushed an MDiv through Harvard Divinity School while being extremely stridently critical of religion (giving Greg Epstein a few grey hairs in the process).

That’s good. Why you want to throw all that away (and think we should too) by lending (y)our time and energy to the promotion of faith I can’t understand.

What I learned from the experience is that if you want to get your perspective across, you have to engage with your religious colleagues.

So engage! Thousands of us are doing so. Pharyngula, Butterflies & Wheels, and Friendly Atheists (to name three sites you mentioned) “engage” with religious people all the time. PZ, Ophelia, and Hemant have never declared their blogs (or, to my knowledge, themselves) part of an “interfaith” network. Nor could they, without violating the basic notions their blogs are founded on.

And really? You would prefer that a park NOT be built, than it be built by Atheists and religious folks working together?

Where in the world did anyone say that? I haven’t seen anyone argue that a park shouldn’t be built. The issue here is whether it makes sense for atheists to give their support to organizations that, by both definition and intention, increase the strength of religion and religious privilege in our society. You can’t seriously believe that there’s no way to build parks, or engage in any other particular kind of social work, without inevitably strengthening religion’s hand at the same time.

Like I said in my piece, if you hate the name interfaith so much, why not approach your local group and suggest that they make their name more inclusive and open?

Because that would be rude and presumptuous and intrusive and just plain absurd? You don’t approach existing groups and suggest that they change the name – it’s none of your (or my) business what people call their groups.

I don’t join with Conservative groups or Family Values groups or Pro-gun groups or Anti-feminist groups in order to do service or for any other reason. I don’t waste my time joining my opposites. It of course remains entirely possible that I could find myself working together with members of any or all of those groups on particular projects or campaigns that we all support. I can do that without endorsing ideas that I reject. “Faith” is one such idea.

@Stephen:

If it weren’t for interfaith, secular service just wouldn’t happen– at least not on the scale that it does currently. Those atheists that are content to complain about interfaith on the internet are more than welcome to their opinions, but those actually doing service and promoting secularism through interfaith ventures (Center For Inquiry, Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy, Interfaith Youth Core, etc) seem to be entitled to a more valid opinion. Thanks for the thoughtful guest post John!

What about all the secular charities (e.g. Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, American Cancer Society, Amnesty International) that hire and help people regardless of religious belief? Don’t both religious and nonreligious people work with and donate to these charities, even if they’re not necessarily in an “interfaith” group?

The Center for Inquiry is “doing service and promoting secularism through interfaith ventures”? Are you sure about that? It sounds wrong to me.

1. We can “accomplish service” without having to pay lip service to the spectre of faith.

2. Why do so many people seem to believe that we’re trying to win a popularity contest? The point of the Gnu Atheist movement is to assert our rights as citizens and combat the religious reactionaries who threaten to take them away. (One might also call THAT an “interfaith” campaign.)

3 & 4. We have nothing to prove to the religious groups, and we need neither their approval nor permission to be atheists.

5. Attempting to “convert” people in the guise of service is disingenuous.

I mention parks because our Harvard Humanist graduate group built a park last year as a service project. And I mentioned cooking food for the homeless because our undergrads made food for homeless victims of domestic violence. They did these as exclusively secular events (not interfaith). But both groups also do interfaith events as well. We deeply understand the value of service in the name of Humanism and/or Atheism. We just also believe in the value of Interfaith Service as well. It opens a dialogue and can actually change the minds of some religious folks.

I know that the culture of the Harvard Chaplains became a lot more secular after Greg and I came to Harvard, for example. One obvious example is that the chaplains don’t pray together before or after meetings. I’m just saying there are tangible impacts of Interfaith Service/dialogue.

Way to completely miss the point. As I’ve said to Ophelia Benson, not only do I not feel included in Obama’s interfaith challenge, but I also don’t want to be included ! Interfaith is just a buzzword for an artificially generated, pseudo-harmonious wankfest among different faith groups. As long as there is faith, and belief, any belief. But I don’t have belief or faith in any sky pixie, and I don’t see any value in just another accomodationist-type “be nice to each other” lovefest. I have a radically different understanding of truth, morality and the role of religion in society, and I am not one who sees any point in empty symbolic gestures, that only help maintain a status quo that I am fighting to demolish.

How is everyone here an expert on what Interfaith Service is if you’ve never done an Interfaith Service event? I’ve done the experiment and found out that my preconceptions (that it was a liberal religion wank-fest) were disproved. Maybe you would find the same thing, but you won’t find out unless you test the hypothesis instead of clinging to blind faith that Interfaith is bad…

If you have done Interfaith Service and had a bad experience with god-botherers harassing you or marginalizing your views, please blog about it! If Interfaith Service in your area isn’t tolerant of atheists, we need to spread the word that Interfaith Service is prejudiced against Atheists in your area.

Jonathan:

I guess some folks are less comfortable questioning religious people about their beliefs than I am.

What in the world are you talking about? Who here has expressed any discomfort with “questioning religious people about their beliefs”?

We who disagree with you here have questioned the value of participating in “interfaith” activities. It does not follow from that critique that anyone is “uncomfortable questioning religious people about their beliefs.” You cannot seriously believe that activities that bill themselves as “interfaith” are the only forum available for “questioning religious people about their beliefs”!

You’re being seriously disingenuous—and it’s starting to get a little insulting. You can decide to defend your support of “interfaith” entities or not, but please stop casting wild, irrelevant aspersions on people who disagree.

I feel perfectly comfortable having these conversations with religious folks, especially while accomplishing something productive like building a park, or providing meals to the homeless.

Then do so. There is no need whatsoever to lend your support to anything “interfaith” in order to “have” any such “conversation.”

Stop trying to change the subject. We’re talking about “interfaith” activities as such, not “questioning religious people about their beliefs,” “having these conversations with religious folks,” or “accomplishing something productive like building a park, or providing meals to the homeless.” None of those activities requires the slightest acceptance of “interfaith” anything, so you can stop trying to put on airs about how much better suited you are to them than the rest of us are.

I’m not trying to be insulting, nor am I disingenuous.

But Rieux, how are you going to challenge people on their religious views if you don’t see them in person? By questioning them in internet forums?

I suggest a much better way of getting your point of view across is by participating side by side in Interfaith Service and simultaneously showing people that faith isn’t necessary for service, while questioning why they they believe faith is necessary for service.

Jonathan:

But Rieux, how are you going to challenge people on their religious views if you don’t see them in person?

Are you joking? Where in the world do you live? Where in the world do you think I could live and not “see” religious people “in person”?!?

I meet hundreds of religious people every day. (As, I’m sure, do you.) I work with them on all manner of projects—recreational, charitable, work-related, you name it. I’m also related to several religious people, as is pretty much every atheist.

I have a very difficult time envisioning how you could seriously believe that it’s only in “interfaith” activities that atheists can ever encounter religious believers. That’s, frankly, just crazy.

And if that’s not what you mean (and, really, it can’t be—you’re not an idiot), then I’m at a loss to understand what point you could actually be making. “Interfaith” activities provide no gain whatsoever over other activities in the ability to “challenge people on their religious views.” So WTF?

By questioning them in internet forums?

Why not? Thousands and thousands of people have lost their religion on the basis of skeptical critiques they’ve seen on the ’Net. What’s wrong, or useless, about that?

I suggest a much better way of getting your point of view across is by participating side by side in Interfaith Service and simultaneously showing people that faith isn’t necessary for service….

Um. Yeah. Then, I’ll chain-smoke six packs of cigarettes while lecturing everyone within earshot on the lethal dangers of tobacco.

Sorry, but I rather think technique you suggest involves preaching one thing and then doing the exact opposite. You’re not going to reduce religions’ power over all of our lives by lending your time, energy, and legitimacy to strengthening it.

In order to agree with you, I would have to assume the malevolent and mendacious motives of interfaith organizations, and I do believe they are there.

“and I don’t believe they are there.”

Jonathan, thank you for sticking around in the comments and continuing to advocate your position. There are a few points that I believe you have sidestepped, however, and would like you to address.

First, you write that:

If Interfaith Service in your area isn’t tolerant of atheists, we need to spread the word that Interfaith Service is prejudiced against Atheists in your area.

As many of us have pointed out, the word faith inherently excludes atheists. Faith is believing in things for which there is a lack of evidence, it is anathema to rational empiricism and the scientific approach in which it is quite simply a failed hypothesis. So interfaith means between ignorance, between sacred but failed hypotheses. You suggest that if we don’t like the name, we should change it, but this sidesteps what the initial meaning of the term is. So my question for you is why is this not the meaning of faith? Because if it is the meaning of faith, atheists joining an interfaith organization implies that atheism is just another faith. On a similar note, you consistently capitalize Atheism as if it were a religion. Why? Language is important and so I would ask you to answer these questions about the language and not about your experience in interfaith organizations.

As to your experience in interfaith organizations, say we get over our hang up about the term or the name is changed such that the promotion of ignorance is not in the title. Let’s just take your description of the experience at face value. By your own admission, aren’t you participating as an atheist, not as an individual? As I put it above:

I am extremely uncomfortable participating in an inter-anything because individuals in such a group are not participating as individuals but as a member of a religion flying that religion’s flag. I don’t want to fly an atheism flag, I don’t even want there to be an atheism flag. If the purpose of volunteer work is to help, not to show off your non-religion’s colors, you should be volunteering as an individual, not as an atheist.

Your post makes volunteering about the person/the group of the person who is doing volunteering, not the task being completed. The way you describe it, it is a consumption good that will make atheists feel good about themselves by demonstrating to others that they are good people.

If there is the choice between working at a secular charity where religion is not invoked in the completion of a task and working through an interfaith organization, which would you rather do? Do you see the distinction between diminishing differences between individuals (working on a common task in a secular setting) and diminishing the differences between groups (in an interfaith setting)? I ask this because you state that people who do interfaith work are not all liberals, but I think our point is more that by coming to an organization as a group not as an individual you are inherently working to narrow the gap between groups. I am happy to bridge gaps between individuals, working together and simply ignoring our views on religion, but I don’t want any part in something that equates atheism with a religion and says that atheism and Christianity are not all that different.

You talk about experiences with these kinds of organizations and challenge people to try it. In my albeit limited experience, the prayer said before the service project is ridiculously vague hippy dippy liberal, but a prayer is nevertheless imposed upon me. Why should I bother fighting this in what is admittedly an interfaith setting, when I can simply go to a secular organization and not have to deal with this kind of waste of time? In many of your comments you make it out as if atheists don’t join interfaith organizations important things won’t get done, but there is plenty of work that secular charities would love your help with and if something is truly essential it should not be charity, but guaranteed by society.

Finally, I was interested to learn that the Harvard chaplains have stopped saying a prayer together to be more inclusive of atheists. Isn’t that kind of ridiculous? What meaning does religion have if it is that accommodating of the non-religious? As many of said, I don’t want any part in this kind of thing, even if I am invited and included. You clearly do, but it seems rather odd to me for atheists to join interfaith organizations, a lot like an atheist getting a Master of Divinity. If you’re an atheist, doesn’t that mean that you’re mastered/study/research other people’s nonsense? This most likely comes off as glib and it is meant to be cheeky, but it is also a serious question and I’d be genuinely interested in your reasons for doing an M Div. Because in much the same way that I am not interested in interfaith organizations even if I’m invited, I would never think to do a Master of Divinity even if there were a program that accepted atheists.

@Non-atheist

This post was not written for a religious audience, but for a “New Atheist” audience.

I think I can have a conversation with people who I believe are deluded. I don’t believe that religious people are stupid, but instead, under the power of a collective delusion. If you believe that there is a god that controls the Universe, I think you believe in a fairy tale. I don’t assert this without evidence, but as my MDiv thesis topic (The God That Failed: A Rejection Of Theodicies Predicated On Classical Theism).

This article was an attempt to reach out to a community that is traditionally hostile to Interfaith Service and to offer them new reasons why they ought to consider pursuing it. I would write an article about why Humanists ought to do Service, but Greg Epstein and Chris Stedman have already done that ad infinitum.

I’m glad that it has inspired some more aggressive atheist types to consider putting their activism to good use in Interfaith Service settings. And for those who would prefer to not get involved and offer opposing arguments on the internet, that has an important role as well. I just hope that eventually you decide to put Interfaith Service to the test and find out that I’m right – that Interfaith groups do actively want Atheist participation. Check out http://www.IFYC.org for more info.

an atheist wrote:

[I]t seems rather odd to me for atheists to join interfaith organizations, a lot like an atheist getting a Master of Divinity. If you’re an atheist, doesn’t that mean that you’re mastered/study/research other people’s nonsense?

Yes, it does—and that’s an extremely important pursuit. As should be clear from this thread, I agree with you (and how) about “interfaith” organizations, but I think it’s a good thing that there are outspoken atheists who hold advanced degrees in religious studies and otherwise have extensive knowledge about religion. (That Jonathan’s degree includes the name “Divinity” is unfortunate and regrettable, but it doesn’t diminish the importance of the studies. At least it isn’t “Interdivinity”!) For my money, two of the most important people within the modern atheist community are Hector Avalos and Dan Barker, both of whom are ex-fundamentalists and, for that reason among others, are operating from a huge knowledge base when they criticize religion. Then, of course, many of us (both apostates and “atheists since day one”) have extensive knowledge about religion ourselves, even if we don’t have the academic credentials to prove it.

Atheists, or at least some of us, need to “master/study/research other people’s nonsense,” because that nonsense is so damned powerful in our world. It’s the “know thy enemy” principle; and anyway ignorance is never ennobling.

I would never think to do a Master of Divinity even if there were a program that accepted atheists.

I think you’ll find that a large proportion of M.Div. programs accept atheists. Indeed, at public universities it’s illegal to deny admission to a student on the grounds of religious (non)belief. And at private but secular institutions like Harvard (Jonathan’s alma mater) and the University of Chicago (mine), admission is certainly not conditioned on being a religious believer.

Studying religion in an academic setting can be a lot like studying cancer in an academic setting: studying it certainly doesn’t imply supporting it.

Rieux pretty much hit the nail on the head for why I went to Divinity School at Harvard.

… but I think it’s a good thing that there are outspoken atheists who hold advanced degrees in religious studies and otherwise have extensive knowledge about religion. (That Jonathan’s degree includes the name “Divinity” is unfortunate and regrettable, but it doesn’t diminish the importance of the studies. At least it isn’t “Interdivinity”!) For my money, two of the most important people within the modern atheist community are Hector Avalos and Dan Barker, both of whom are ex-fundamentalists and, for that reason among others, are operating from a huge knowledge base when they criticize religion. Then, of course, many of us (both apostates and “atheists since day one”) have extensive knowledge about religion ourselves, even if we don’t have the academic credentials to prove it.

Atheists, or at least some of us, need to “master/study/research other people’s nonsense,” because that nonsense is so damned powerful in our world. It’s the “know thy enemy” principle; and anyway ignorance is never ennobling.

Rieux:

What “motives”? Promoting religion and religious privilege? Do you seriously want to argue that “interfaith” organizations don’t exist to do that?

Yes I do. Can you say, in any substantial and practical terms, how interfaith organizations are detrimental to the nonreligious? You make claims without evidence, it’s curious you hold everyone else to a higher standard than yourself. You’re making claims too – mind substantiating them?

There’s nothing the slightest bit malevolent or mendacious about wanting to make one’s group diverse and inclusive—or, more precisely, wanting to feel in one’s own mind that one’s group is diverse and inclusive.

How you get from that “motive” to “malevolence and mendacity” I have no idea. You don’t seem very interested in addressing what I actually write.

By suggesting that interfaith groups merely want to recruit atheists in order to give the appearance of diversity, you’re characterizing their motive as deceitful. The ‘malevolent’ part referred to the motive of increasing / maintaining privilege. You point out that increasing / maintaining privilege does not require a conscious effort, so the claim of malevolence need not apply.

Your notion that “interfaith” groups might be convinced to stop calling themselves “interfaith” because some atheists show up and complain is based on no evidence at all. Zilch.

Which means—hey, look! You’re pushing a faith belief.

It is an untested hypothesis. Assuming it will not work is just as much a leap of faith.

I bet you’d have a tough time finding instances of African-American members of local branches of the KKK complaining about the group’s racism. I wonder why not….

This analogy has been brought up before, and I think that it is a false analogy. The KKK has motives that are contrary to the interests of black people. It would be absurd for a black person to join. However, some atheists believe that the motives of interfaith organizations/efforts are not contrary to the interests of atheists, but rather in alignment with them. If that is true, then it would not be absurd for atheists to participate in, and simultaneously be critical of something as trivial as the appellation ‘interfaith’.

You have bragged about all the great stuff you’ve done in interfaith organizations; how come you’ve achieved nothing at all toward getting rid of that awful name?

I did not brag. I love your consistent mis-characterization of me and the things I say. Besides, that comment of mine mentioned how an offshoot group formed named “Believers and Non-believers in Dialogue”. So… yeah there you go, non-believers nominally, equally, and legitimately recognized.

You sure haven’t wasted a single idle thought on the concern that you’ve devoted so much time and energy toward empowering religion and excluding and marginalizing irreligion. Thanks a lot.

I have not sought to empower religion and exclude and marginalize irreligion. Exaggerating, twisting, and mis-characterizing make for great PR for dishonest folks but should not have any place in an honest debate.

I think salience is a good thing for as long as those differences exist….

[Facepalm]

Okay, you don’t actually know what “salient” means. (Sigh.)

When those differences exist, they should not be suppressed and hidden, but expressed, and thus salient (especially noticeable or relevant).

if you really are that resolved to perpetuate the salience of religion, I’m not sure why you think any Gnu Atheist would ever want to take your claims seriously. That position renders you just about as directly opposed to Gnu Atheism as one could imagine.

When religious differences are salient, antagonism can arise. Interfaith efforts, while allowing religious differences to be salient, also promotes the saliency of our common humanity and abundance of shared values. That effect improves comity and reduces antagonism and mistrust. That is a good thing. I’m not trying to be recruited into Gnu camp so I’m not deathly scared of Gnus not agreeing with me.

your pretense that refusing to promote religion amounts to “ignoring those differences” or “suppression of conscience and expression” is insulting garbage. No one is trying to suppress anything, and I’ll thank you to stop lying about that.

I’m not saying that we ought to promote religion, I’m saying that religious people ought to be able to express their identity and convictions. When you said “[m]ore salience for religious identity means more power for religion to control all of our lives,” it appears we were using different definitions for salience. You chose the ‘qualities that are most important’ definition, I have been using the ‘features that are especially noticeable’ definition, the way it is used in psychology (and more broadly, I thought). So I took your comment to mean that allowing religious identity/convictions to be noticeable amounts to increasing religion’s power over our lives, a notion I disagree with. So we were misunderstanding each other, due to using different yet equally valid definitions.

Our comments have gotten absurdly large, Rieux. I can only hope that some people find our dialogue interesting / fruitful. I enjoy the back-and-forth because it allows us both to become more clear with our message. I do not enjoy reading the constant slights at my intelligence and character, however. You can make your points without them being barbed. I suspect people who are less patient than I would not bother to continue talking with you, which would be a shame because you are intelligent and have worthwhile things to say.

Look, Andrew, if you seriously are going to maintain that (1) “interfaith” as such doesn’t promote religion and religious privilege and (2) the use of that term in the title and public face of an organization is “trivial,” then I’m afraid that there’s little use discussing this with you. I don’t see how to overcome that level of divorce from reality; the level of apathy, if not spite, you demonstrate toward the interests of your fellow atheists is startling. “Trivial”? Sorry, but that’s simply the end of your credibility.

During our previous exchange, you raised the question of whether, as you claim, you “care deeply about non-theists.” I’m afraid this last comment of yours is the death knell for that assertion.

You have waded into a lengthy thread full of atheists expressing serious concern about the offense and damage it does when charitable organizations push “interfaith” privilege. You have denied it all, and indeed declared all of it—all of the statements of principled refusal to accept a “faith” label—to be “trivial.”

I guess you really do think you “care about non-theists.” Meanwhile, you’re willing to collaborate in blatant marginalization and dehumanization of atheists, occasionally authoring some of it yourself (“trivial”); and then you deny it exists. I’m sorry, but I don’t see how any but the most self-hating atheist could ever see that as “caring” about us or our interests. You simply don’t, and as a result I don’t see why any self-respecting atheist should be interested in what you have to say about us.

@ Jonathan

I commend you for sticking around in the comments, but I can’t commend your actual responses. You don’t respond to or acknowledge what your critics are saying. You don’t defend the argument of your post, you just say that you’re glad it convinced some people and glad other people argued about it. That’s great, but it treats your post as devoid of meaning. It would be nice if you actually responded to our critiques.

@ Rieux

Former fundamentalists are valuable to atheism as a movement because they can tell a more personal story to the currently religious. This is similar to the credibility of a recovered addict with a current addict. “If you’ve never done crack, what do know about it?” asks the crack addict. And in terms of persuasion, this is very important. Knowledge of a particular religion is similarly important for talking to said religion’s followers, if for no other reason than they expect non-believers to have an intricate knowledge of their delusions and are offended if you don’t. I am not sure how important it is, however, for the academy and the pursuit of knowledge in general.

Science and social science already study the physiological, psychological, social, political… etc. aspects of religion. To the extent that understanding a particular aspect of a particular religion is important for understanding these phenomenon, I agree that knowledge about a particular religion itself is important. But this endeavor takes place within a framework of positive social science in which the subject of interest is the empirical impact of the particular religious belief on society, not whether the religious beliefs themselves are empirically justifiable.

If, on the other hand, the focus of inquiry is on the religious beliefs themselves, then we both agree that there is a fairly obvious empirical result: there is a complete lack of credible evidence for any god(s). This conclusion can be reached with relatively little knowledge of the intricacies of any particular religion. For example, if a key claim of a particular variation of Christianity is that God acts upon the world to aid his followers, that we do not observe an otherwise unexplainable systematic pattern consistent with this belief is sufficient to dismiss it. I don’t need to know the particular intricacies of Jesus’ supposed resurrection or supposed details of Jesus’ life, no matter how important they are to Christians, to know that the broader claims about a deity are unjustifiable. Also note that the burden of proof rests with the believer, so if a religion actually had empirical evidence for the existence of their deity, I would of course be willing to look at it. If it held up to scientific scrutiny it would be published in Nature. It found be an extraordinary finding. Short of a religion presenting evidence in this manner, however, knowing the particular intricacies of a particular religious groups’ delusions may be important to an anthropologist studying that particular culture, but it is relatively unimportant to general knowledge. How people worshiped Zeus just doesn’t matter unless you are interested in a particular aspect of Greek society or more generalizable findings about how people worship across cultures.

The extent to which I find pursuing an M Div odd for an atheist is the extent to which the program does not recognize that it is studying people’s nonsense, focuses on studying particular details of particular religions, but does not pursue this specific knowledge to understand psychological, social, political phenomenon. More than anything, it is the prospect of having colleagues that take the claims of religions seriously that makes me bristle at the idea of pursuing an M Div or anything to do with religious studies. Of course, I have some colleagues in the social sciences who are religious, but this in no way applies to their research. Being Christian is a personal belief, not an academically held position. To what extent can you pursue knowledge of other people’s nonsense when you are surrounded by colleagues who think said nonsense is extremely important and should govern how we live our lives?

@ an atheist

As I point out, in my albeit limited experience, interfaith groups often say some sort of prayer during a service project. This is a concrete way in which they promote nonsense and exclude atheists.

Don’t atheists want to be excluded from prayer anyway? And if atheists wanted to do a moment of silence or begin the day with something secular and humanistic, then I do not see why they could not. Have any fellow atheists tried and been denied?

You are very eager to brush aside the importance of the term interfaith, but language does matter. How is my linguistic interpretation of the term wrong? Explain why it does not mean between beliefs for which there is a lack of evidence?

Your linguistic interpretation is most obviously correct! My view is that if atheists include themselves, then the term ‘interfaith’ becomes as meaningful and as powerful as when North Korea calls itself a ‘democratic people’s republic.’ The term does not become more powerful at atheists expense when they participate in ‘interfaith,’ instead it becomes less meaningful.

No one has offered a better alternative name that can include atheists and at the same time acknowledge people with different worldviews agreeing to work constructively together.

I think the term interfaith is a byproduct of religious privilege, not an agent of religious privilege. When atheists show up to interfaith activities because they agree with the general ethos of it, but abhor the name because it excludes them, then if the interfaith organizers are true to their values they’ll be compelled to find a more suitable term. No big deal. Atheists wanting to partake in the activities will demonstrate that religion cannot be taken for granted. Until recently, very few atheists have demonstrated an interest in helping build bridges. It’s understandable why there has been no push to come up with a more inclusive term, because for a while it probably seemed like all those who wanted to be included (the faithful) already were. It seems to me that many other atheists, if not most, are more interested in flipping off society from the island of ostracization where we find ourselves, rather than earnestly making the case that we ought not to be ostracized, and to be equally respected.

@ a non-atheist

I don’t go into people’s churches and complain that the sermons don’t have any relevance to me. So please don’t read an article that specifically says it is going to try to convince a specific audience, and then complain that your perspective isn’t being discussed the way you want it to be.

And as for religious folks, if they google search me and look at my writings, they’ll learn that I think their beliefs are delusional before long. I’m sorry if you don’t respond well to my blunt honesty, but I respect you enough not to pretend like we agree.