Non-Belief, Pt. 2: Standing Up

In Part 1, I talked about my childhood disbelief, how I seemed different from everyone else I knew, but that it didn't seem to matter much. I didn't advertise my atheism, just because it didn't seem to be anyone else's business. I didn't hide it, but that was hardly necessary. Everyone pretty much assumed that I was a believer, and I didn't really care if they did.

I finally encountered other nonbelievers - and people of other faiths - when I went to college, but only casually. For the most part, the subject never came up. This was the late 1960's, and even in Nebraska, we were absorbed with more pressing issues (not to mention our personal lives). This was during the height of the Vietnam War, after all. It was the so-called Age of Aquarius - a time of riots in the inner cities (Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968), a time of feminism, a time of sex and drugs and rock & roll.

Heh, heh. No, I wasn't at Woodstock. And this was still Nebraska. Alcohol was still the drug of choice, and there wasn't nearly enough sex going around to suit me (then again, I was very shy). But ideas - big ideas - were in the air. We were going to change the world. We were going to eliminate racism, eliminate sexism, eliminate war. Very shortly, the environmental movement would take off, too. (I remember the debate about whether or not it was just a distraction from the anti-war movement.)

But "God" wasn't one of those big ideas. Religion was the past, a remnant of the Dark Ages. Remember the 1966 Time magazine cover, "Is God Dead?" It seemed like a reasonable question back then, at least to me (and apparently reasonable enough to Time magazine). Sure, the vast majority of Americans still believed in God, at least on Sundays. But even religion was searching for a way to become "relevant." Heck, even the Catholic Church was becoming more liberal (until the backlash from the far-right within the church).

(image from Wikipedia)

There seemed to be just a handful of evangelical Christians on the University of Nebraska campus. We called them the "God Squad." Kids our age who were seemingly obsessed with religion - and right-wing politics - they kept to themselves, little more than a casual joke to everyone else. If you'd have told me they'd be running the country in a few decades, I would never have believed you. It couldn't happen. We were going to change the world.

Of course, we were a minority even then. We were, after all, rebelling against the establishment. Richard Nixon was president (Bobby Kennedy had also been assassinated in 1968). But we were young and the future was ours, wasn't it?

But the right-wing backlash was building, and the seeds for that had been planted back in 1964. Since the Civil War, the South had been firmly Democratic. No part of the country was so solidly Democratic, not even close. But when the Democrats pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that landmark legislation outlawing segregation, it was the beginning of the end for Democrats in the South. The Democratic Party knew that would happen, but they did it anyway. How admirable is that? They did the right thing, even knowing that it would devastate them politically.

The Republicans were positively gleeful. Finally, they could take the South. It was the opportunity they'd dreamed of. All they had to do was suck up to white racists. Piece of cake! And so began the Republican Party's "Southern Strategy."

And it worked. Blacks stopped voting for Republicans, sure, but blacks are a minority even in the South. By taking the South from the Democrats, right-wing Republicans have dominated in national politics pretty much ever since (interrupted only briefly because of Nixon's Watergate scandal, and now by the disastrous George W. Bush years).

There's a lot I could say about that. But for this post, it's enough to note that the South is also the Bible Belt in America. Those southern white racists were also culturally conservative and solidly Christian. And as the Republican Party strove to attract such people, it lost what had traditionally been bipartisan: respect for our Constitution's separation of church and state. And as first liberals and then moderates began to leave the GOP, the remainder became even more fanatically right-wing - and even more determined to unite politics and their own personal brand of religion.

The future has certainly not turned out as I expected (in so many ways). I watched all this with increasing dismay. It was actually the first President Bush (then vice-president) who stated, "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." But it was his son who really convinced me that I had to start standing up as an atheist (and, really, as an American).

After 9/11, when religious extremists attacked my country, our leaders seemed to think that the solution was to become religious extremists ourselves. Bush spoke more about "God" than he did about our American traditions, and certainly more than he did about the rule of law. According to both parties (Democrats becoming completely spineless whenever anyone hints that they might not be sufficiently "patriotic"), this was a Christian nation.

OK, they'd reluctantly acknowledge Jews as honorary Christians, in many cases. But separation of church and state? Forget it! In effect, we were going to give up more than 200 years of our most sacred traditions because a handful of religious nuts scared us! During a previous dispute with a Muslim country, we'd produced the Treaty of Tripoli, clearly explaining that we were not a Christian nation, but rather a secular nation with some Christian citizens (along with others of different beliefs). Not this time. Not with fundamentalist Christians firmly in control of the Republican Party.

“Our country has been hijacked by a bunch of religious nuts. But how easy it was. That's a little scary.” — Investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize winning author Seymour Hersh, 2004

I was furious. I was not a second-class American! (I can just imagine how angry a Hispanic American must feel when he's asked for his papers.) I was at least as patriotic as anyone else! (Admittedly, I remained highly skeptical of the right-wing über-patriotism that seemed to infect the nation. I, at least, could still tell right from wrong. And patriotism doesn't mean that I can't criticize my country's actions - just the reverse, in fact. It is my duty as an American to criticize my leaders when they deserve it.) In America, your religious beliefs, or lack thereof, are your own business. They're certainly not any business of the government!

And to see the whole government celebrating the same kind of thinking that created the 9/11 attacks in the first place,... well, that was just too much. OK, this had been building for a long time - with creationists trying to get our schools to stop teaching science, with the automatic assumption (inexplicable to me) that religious leaders are somehow experts on moral issues, with increasing attempts to tie belief in a god - the Christian god specifically - to public policy. I'd really had enough!

I decided that I had to stand up as an atheist - to stand up for all of my beliefs, in fact. Now I would say what I thought. Now, if you mistook me for a believer, I would politely set you straight. I added "fortune cookie" signatures - with random quotes from scientists, atheists, and progressives - to my emails. I wore t-shirts with a skeptical message. I commented on religious articles posted online by my local newspaper. And now, finally, I've started this blog.

Oh, I'm not going to start picketing churches. Your belief is still your own business. I'm not going to pester my relatives or my neighbors with my disbelief (unless they ask, of course). That's just not polite. And I'm not going to go door to door as a missionary for atheism. But if you come to my door as a missionary, I'm going to tell you that I'm an atheist. No more will I respond with just "sorry, I'm not interested." I want to be counted as an atheist. (Yes, I consider myself to be an agnostic, too, but I seldom use the word. I don't want anyone to be mistaken. I am a proud atheist.)

There are more non-believers in America than Jews, Muslims, and Mormons combined. But, really, it shouldn't matter if I were the only atheist in the whole country. I'd still be just as much an American as you are. And I would still expect that religious beliefs remain strictly voluntary - and that my government stay out of it entirely.

We atheists look like everyone else. We blend in. In the past, that was the only way we could survive. And even today, many atheists have to keep quiet about their disbelief - at least if they want to keep their businesses out of bankruptcy or get voted into office. Some worry about losing their friends or even their families if they're honest about their disbelief. I won't criticize anyone who's still in the closet. But I think it's important to stand up for what we do - and don't - believe in.

(from the Out Campaign)

These days, in fact, I think it's critical to stand up. So here I am, an American atheist.

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Note: The rest of this series is here.