The Blessings of Atheism

[rug]

Graphic by Anthony Burrill

By SUSAN JACOBY
Published: January 5, 2013

IN a recent conversation with a fellow journalist, I voiced my exasperation at the endless talk about faith in God as the only consolation for those devastated by the unfathomable murders in Newtown, Conn. Some of those grieving parents surely believe, as I do, that this is our one and only life. Atheists cannot find solace in the idea that dead children are now angels in heaven. “That only shows the limits of atheism,” my colleague replied. “It’s all about nonbelief and has nothing to offer when people are suffering.”

This widespread misapprehension that atheists believe in nothing positive is one of the main reasons secularly inclined Americans — roughly 20 percent of the population — do not wield public influence commensurate with their numbers. One major problem is the dearth of secular community institutions. But the most powerful force holding us back is our own reluctance to speak, particularly at moments of high national drama and emotion, with the combination of reason and passion needed to erase the image of the atheist as a bloodless intellectual robot.

The secular community is fearful of seeming to proselytize. When giving talks on college campuses, I used to avoid personal discussions of my atheism. But over the years, I have changed my mind because such diffidence contributes to the false image of the atheist as someone whose convictions are removed from ordinary experience. It is vital to show that there are indeed atheists in foxholes, and wherever else human beings suffer and die.

Now when students ask how I came to believe what I believe, I tell them that I trace my atheism to my first encounter, at age 7, with the scourge of polio. In 1952, a 9-year-old friend was stricken by the disease and clinging to life in an iron lung. After visiting him in the hospital, I asked my mother, “Why would God do that to a little boy?” She sighed in a way that telegraphed her lack of conviction and said: “I don’t know. The priest would say God must have his reasons, but I don’t know what they could be.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/the-blessings-of-atheism.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

A decent, if conventional, perspective. I don't know if the author or the editor wanted this graphic but my question is, why does anyone think that sentiment is in contrast to a nonsecular sentiment? We all have only one life to live as best we can regardless of whether there is or is not an afterlife.

[edhopper]

1. I guess that there aren't any religions

that teach that your suffering will be rewarded in the afterlife?

[rug]

2. Oh there are but I don't know any that teach the present is meaningless.

At least not since the Manicheans.

[longship]

3. R&K. Susan Jacoby! nt

[rug]

4. Her biography of Robert Ingersoll looks good.

During the Gilded Age, which saw the dawn of America’s enduring culture wars, Robert Green Ingersoll was known as “the Great Agnostic.” The nation’s most famous orator, he raised his voice on behalf of Enlightenment reason, secularism, and the separation of church and state with a vigor unmatched since America’s revolutionary generation. When he died in 1899, even his religious enemies acknowledged that he might have aspired to the U.S. presidency had he been willing to mask his opposition to religion. To the question that retains its controversial power today—was the United States founded as a Christian nation?—Ingersoll answered an emphatic no.

In this provocative biography, Susan Jacoby, the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, restores Ingersoll to his rightful place in an American intellectual tradition extending from Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine to the current generation of “new atheists.” Jacoby illuminates the ways in which America’s often-denigrated and forgotten secular history encompasses issues, ranging from women’s rights to evolution, as potent and divisive today as they were in Ingersoll’s time. Ingersoll emerges in this portrait as one of the indispensable public figures who keep an alternative version of history alive. He devoted his life to that greatest secular idea of all—liberty of conscience belonging to the religious and nonreligious alike.

Susan Jacoby is the author of ten books, including Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, The Age of American Unreason, and Alger Hiss and the Battle for History. She contributes to many newspapers and national magazines. She lives in New York City.

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300137255

The most valuable history is that which corrects the record.

[cbayer]

5. Well done and I agree with much of what he says.

I think we will see and hear more and more from self-identified non-believers in the next few years, and that that will be a good thing.

My hope is that secular and religious organizations will form more coalitions to reach mutual goals and push back against the religious right.