My cover is blown
I get some doozies in my inbox, but yesterday brought something genuinely new — a message from a secular humanist who is concerned that I am too, uh…too…well heck, I’ll let you figure it out:
HELLO DALE AND ASSOCIATES, 14 OF APRIL IN 2009!
AFTER READING A BUNCH IN YOUR WEBSITE [PARENTINGBEYONDBELIEF.COM], I CONCLUDED THAT YOU HAVE NOT MOVED BEYOND “RELIGION” AT ALL OR NOT FAR.
“BEYOND BELIEF” I FOUND UNTRUE…..TRUE?I FOUND SEVERAL DECLARATIONS OF HOW YOUR “REALITY” IS.
YA’LL EVEN BORROW A FEW IDEAS FROM THE WORLD OF CONVENTIONAL “CHRISTIAN RELIGIOSITY”, I BELIEVE.
ARE YOU LOCKED IN THESE IDEAS – “GOOD” AND “BAD [EVIL]” , THE IDEA THAT “DEATH” IS REAL, ETC?
THE TAINT OF “RELIGION” IS SO PERVADING IN OUR WORLD THAT ITS SMELL OR IDEAS SNEAK IN ALMOST EVERYWHERE, I FIND.DO YOU REALLY TAKE PEOPLE IN YOUR SEMINAR TO A PLACE OF “AUTHENTIC FREEDOM”, I BELIEVE, THAT HAS A HUMAN BEING BE ABLE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING AS “TRUTH” AND TEST EVERYTHING FREELY AND INDIVIDUALLY?
THEN, I BELIEVE, THAT THE “HIGH TRUTHFULNESS AND USEFULNESS” OF WHAT I CALL “HIGH TRUTHS” WILL BE PROVEN IN THE OUTCOMES OF OUR HOLDING THAT “HIGH TRUTH” AS A “FACT” IN THE FLOW OF LIFE THAT’S TRULY “LIFE-GIVING!”.
THERE ARE A LOT OF “LOW TRUTHS” THAT TEAR DOWN LIFE, BIND MINDS, DESTROY THE HUMAN COMMUNITY OF ONENESS, CREATE WAR, ETC.
THESE ARE USEFUL IN ONLY TEACHING WHAT’S NOT TO BE HELD, I BELIEVE, AS “TRUTH” FOR THE POOR RESULTS THESE “TRUTHS” PRODUCE.
ONE OF THE LOWEST TRUTHS IS THE IDEA HELD BY SOME THAT “I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG”.
IS THAT THOUGHT IN YOUR MIND, WORK AND BOOK, DALE?ARE YOU A “CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS INFILTRATOR”?
OR, HAVE YA’LL CREATED YOUR OWN “RELIGION” WE MUST NOW BELIEVE AND FROM WHICH WE MUST OPERATE IN LIFE?
OR, WHAT’S UP…….?DO YA’LL GIVE A REFUND FOR YOUR SEMINAR IF A CLIENT DOES NOT FIND IT ULTIMATELY USEFUL OR A NEW THOUGHT?
Finally, enjoy an excerpt of a recent talk by Joss Whedon:
The final passage gives Joss away as another member of my secret team infiltrating humanism with some perspective and empathy regarding religion. Put a blood pressure cuff on and check the dial as he gets to the final sentences:
The enemy of humanism is not faith. The enemy of humanism is hate, is fear, is ignorance, is the darker part of man that is in every humanist, every person in the world. That is the thing we have to fight. Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God is believing, absolutely, in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.
I pledge-a yada yada
- April 11, 2009
- By Dale McGowan
- In humor, schools
- 14
Just back from a family week in D.C. We imposed on the hospitality of very good friends, both of them deeply impressive and humane people employed by admirable non-profits influencing public policy and making a difference in the world. The kind of people who make me feel (through no fault of their own) like I’m not doing nearly enough with my own limited time as a sentient thing to make said difference in the aforementioned world.
They have twin daughters on the cusp of eight, both of them funny and adorable and whip-smart. One evening the girls shared, in identical sing-song, their school’s morning ritual, which is led as in most schools today by a talking head on closed-circuit TV. In the process, they illustrated the pure pointlessness of such things:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
indivisible with liberty and justice for all, as a Belmont student
I promise to do my school work to the best of my ability,
I will be kind courteous, considerate and respectful
to other students and teachers, today’s lunch choices are.
Powering down
I’m unplugging for seven days of family time. Back on April 11. While I’m gone:
Then, and only then…power down yourself. Go outside. Have a day.
Not that it’s a competition, but…
…we have a winner.
In the past seven years or so, I’ve seen quite a few humanistic organizations from the inside — freethought groups, Ethical Societies, Congregations for Humanistic Judaism, UUs, etc. Met a lot of wonderful people working hard to make their groups succeed. All of the groups have different strengths, and all are struggling with One Big Problem: creating a genuine sense of community.
I’ve written before about community and the difficulty freethought groups generally have creating it. Some get closer than others, but it always seems to fall a bit short of the sense of community that churches so often create. And I don’t think it has a thing to do with God.
The question I hear more and more from freethought groups is, “How can we bring people in the door and keep them coming back?” The answer is to make our groups more humanistic — something churches, ironically, often do better than we do.
Now I’ve met an organization founded on freethought principles that seems to get humanistic community precisely right. It’s the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (above), host of my seminar and talk last weekend, and the single most effective humanistic community I have ever seen.
So what do they have going for them? My top ten list:
10. A great space. Not every group can meet in a neo-Jacobean mansion with lions guarding the stairs, dark woodwork, high ceilings and art-glass windows—but too many groups meet in sterile, fluorescent-lit common rooms full of metal folding chairs and free of even a scrap of inspiration or warmth. Budgets are tight, but every group should do whatever it can to warm up the spaces in which they meet—curtains, wood, carpet, tablecloths, art, etc.
9. Music. When I walked into the Brooklyn Society, a member was playing showtunes on an old upright piano as people stood around chatting and laughing. Twenty minutes before the gathering began, they switched on a CD of jazz standards. Think of what music does for a dinner party, filling in gaps in conversation and casting a glow around the room. EVERY GROUP should have music playing 20 minutes before the meeting begins.
8. Food. Everybody loves to eat. All meetings should start with yummy food. Not a box of pink frosted cookies. Food, glorious food.
7. A call to action. Have a prominent display calling members to collective social action—a donation box, a chart tracking funds raised, a signup sheet for the next Habitat for Humanity day. Keep social action as prominent as any intellectual content. And make sure to include human-centered social action, like soup kitchens, food pantries, battered women’s shelters, etc. — not just trash pickup and book sales.
6. Ritual. (Uh oh, I lost half the audience.) Ritual doesn’t have to mean fuzzy-wuzzy woowoo. In the case of the BSEC, leader Greg Tewksbury started the gathering by yanking on a tubular wind chime that hung at the side of the lectern. He tugged it again at each dividing point in the gathering. Gives a nice sense of rhythm and structure.
5. Emotion. Freethought groups naturally like their intellectual content, but it frequently happens to the complete exclusion of emotional and inspirational elements. BSEC managed to include a constant feeling of emotional warmth without the slightest theistic feel. Since my talk was on parenting, Greg opened by asking those present to turn to the person next to them and share a time they nurtured someone or were nurtured by someone. Five minutes of discussion followed, centered not on debunking this or that but on human emotion.
4. Symbolism. Like the UU chalice, the two candles on the lectern were a clear reference to light, warmth, knowledge, and life. Adds a very nice touch.
3. Diversity. Most groups I’ve visited are 80 percent white male. They don’t want to be, but they don’t know what to do about it. It helps to live in a place like Brooklyn, which made for the most diverse crowd I’ve addressed in years. If you are elsewhere, do some outreach and networking to invite folks from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to a meeting.
2. Multiple generations. I know, chicken and egg. But I cannot begin to tell you what a fabulous sense of community the Brooklyn Society gets from 20 kids running in and out among the legs of the adult members in the half-hour beforehand. And with kids come parents—people in their 20s-40s, another demographic missing from many freethought groups. Attract families by building community. Build community by doing what’s on this list.
Especially the next one.
1. A warm welcome. This is #1 on the list for a reason. It’s no surprise that we rational freethinking types aren’t generally good at sticking our hands out to welcome strangers into a room. I’m terrible at it. But there is no less welcoming feeling than entering a new space full of strangers without anyone saying word one to you.
This happens to me alllll the time as I travel around. I show up, walk in, and am promptly ignored. Ten minutes of awkward pamphlet reading later, someone finally walks up and asks if I’m new to the group.
Not at the Brooklyn Society. No fewer than five warm and pleasant people welcomed me in the first five minutes and chatted me up BEFORE they even knew I was the speaker.
The difference this makes is enormous. Every freethought group should find the person most comfortable with greeting fellow mammals and assign him/her to watch the door and enthusiastically usher newcomers in, show them around, introduce them to others.
And it needs to go well beyond one greeter. EVERY MEMBER of EVERY GROUP should make it a point to chat up new folks—and each other, for that matter. And not just about the latest debunky book. Ask where he’s from, what she does for a living, whether he follows the Mets or the Yankees. You know, mammal talk. (Now now…I joke because I love!)
Can’t manage everything on the list? No problem. Start with #1, then add what you can when and how you can. Before you know it, you’ll have a thriving, warm, humanistic community where people visit and then return, bringing their spouses and children and friends and neighbors. If I lived in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture would get my sorry butt out of bed every single Sunday.
And that’s saying something.
pwned by the little sister
- March 30, 2009
- By Dale McGowan
- In humor, My kids
- 3
ERIN (11): What in the world is that?
DELANEY (7): What?
ERIN: Uh, the huge fancy book in your lap, hello.
DELANEY: Oh. It’s the bible.
ERIN: Why do you have the bible?
DELANEY: I’m reading it. It’s interesting.
ERIN: Yeah right, you’re reading the bible.
DELANEY: I’m not done yet. I just started today.
ERIN: Okay, then tell me what happpens first.
DELANEY: God makes light, then he splits apart the light and dark, then he splits apart the water from the land.
ERIN: I’m so sure. Lemme see that. (Flip flip flip. Flip. Flip.)
(Long pause.)
ERIN: Whatever. (Tosses bible back to beaming little sister. Fade to black.)
Of planets and pronouns
- March 25, 2009
- By Dale McGowan
- In My kids, Parenting, Science, wonder
- 21
I’ve spent a lot of virtual ink taking to task the College of St. Catherine (a Catholic college for women on whose faculty I spent many years) for the hypocrisy that eventually made me pull up stakes and go solo. But I don’t often enough mention the positive things St. Kate’s gave me.
St. Kate’s is where my interest in critical thinking turned from hobby to academic specialization to lifelong enthusiasm. It inspired the satirical novel that launched my little writing career. And it made me a genuine feminist.
Which is good, because now I find myself raising two girls, doing what I can to keep limiting assumptions from calcifying around them.
That takes some doing. Kids gather assumptions about the world by the bucket, taking tiny samples, believing most of what they hear or see, spinning huge generalizations, and moving on. You can bemoan or huzzah this all you want, but it’s both a fact and inevitable. I touched on this in Parenting Beyond Belief:
Children have the daunting task of changing from helpless newborns into fully functioning adults in just over six thousand days. Think of that. A certain degree of gullibility necessarily follows. Children are believing machines, and for good reason: when we are children, the tendency to believe it when we are told that fire is dangerous, two and two are four, cliffs are not to be dangled from, and so on, helps us, in the words of Richard Dawkins, “to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors” in order to accomplish the unthinkably complex feat of becoming adults. The immensity of the task requires children to be “suckers” for whatever it is adults tell them. It is our job as parents to be certain not to abuse this period of relative intellectual dependency and trust. (p. 181)
Kids soak up unintended messages as reliably as the intended ones, and they don’t always announce it when they’ve begun to form a pearl around the grain of a new assumption. Once in a while I become aware that something’s been ingested that I didn’t know about. Like gender roles.
My favorite of these surfaced in the pediatrician’s office with Erin (now 11, then 8), waiting to see Dr. Melissa Vincent, her doctor since birth.
“I like Dr. Vincent,” Erin said.
“Me too.”
Long pause.
“But I was wondering something,” she continued. ” Can boys be doctors, too?”
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Erin’s desire for a career in or near medicine had a lot to do with the example of Dr. Vincent. Currently at the top of her list is cellular biologist, followed by family practice GP in a small but not too small town.
Her sister Delaney (7) wants to be a scientist but isn’t sure what kind. (I tell her the clock’s ticking. “You don’t wanna be one of those pathetic third graders still wandering through the curriculum trying to ‘find herself.'”)
One of Laney’s common openers is, “Do The Scientists know how/what/why…” I think this disembodied image of The Scientists is pretty close to my own early image of science. I decided to try to individualize it more for her as we engaged the questions:
“How did The Scientists figure out what’s in the middle of the Earth if nobody’s even been there?”
“I’ll bet it started with somebody wondering about it, then maybe asking about it, just like you do. Then he thought about the problem, and how you can learn about something you can’t see.”
(Dammit! Did you catch that? Shitshitshit.)
I had her close her eyes. “How can you learn about my face if you can’t see it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Sure you do.”
“I could peek,” she giggled.
“Cheaters rarely prosper. So you think maybe the scientist peeked at the earth’s core?”
“Dad, jeez. Oh wait, I have an idea!” She extended her hands and began exploring my face. “Pokey,” she said when she got to the beard. “You’re a porcupine!” said the blind man to the elephant.
(Or blind woman! Shitshitshit.)
Yesterday she asked if The Scientists have found any planets like Earth yet. Last summer I told her about the search and described the extremely cool inductive method used to find gas giants (Jupiter-plus sizes) by measuring tiny eccentric wobbles in their home stars — a method that has turned up 344 extrasolar planets in ten years.
Number of known planets outside our solar system 15 years ago: 0
At the time, Laney had signaled her agreement that this constituted one of the most paradigmatically significant discoveries in human history by declaring it “so awesome to think about” — but was sorry the method couldn’t locate smaller, rockier bits like Earth.
Now she was checking to see if we’re closer to finding fellow Earths. Thanks to a NOVA podcast I heard a few months ago, I knew we were.
I simplified it into a graspable narrative. “One of the scientists got a great idea. If a planet crosses in front of its star, that star would dim a tiny bit…you know, like a fly passing in front of a light bulb.”
She started to tremble with excitement, doing this weird hand-flapping thing that is endemic to our family. “Yeah? And??” Flap-flap-flap.
“But she realized we needed a much stronger telescope, one that…”
“SHE?” Laney interrupted. “The one who figured it out was a girl??” Flap-flap-flap!
“Uh…I think so, yeah!”
Now the fact is, there wasn’t any one person — there rarely is — and I have no idea whether those involved had knishes or putzes. But I knew she wouldn’t have blinked if I said “he,” which means I’d uncovered a potentially limiting assumption — hopefully before the pearl could form.
I went on to tell her about the Kepler telescope, launched earlier this month (to almost universal public disinterest) for the primary purpose of finding other Earths. She dubbed it “so awesome.” And maybe the Kepler, connected in Delaney’s mind to a woman of science, will become a useful grain of sand as she continues to form her own possibilities.
_______________________________
NOVA podcast “Finding Other Earths” (4:44)
Bringing in the sheaths
On March 17, while on the way to Africa, Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI) said that HIV/AIDS was “a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem.”
The first two clauses are sensible. The third was a dumb and ignorant thing to say. It contradicts very solid empirical evidence to the contrary. Worse yet, it is dangerously ignorant—and certain to cost lives, precisely because Mr. Ratzinger’s word—especially when spoken under his pseudonym—is held to be unquestionable. (Which is why I refer to him by his human name.)
The problem is not that he said it. I’m a fierce advocate of the inalienable human right to say dumb and ignorant things. I like to claim that right myself once in a while, thank you very much. The best way to find out whether an idea of mine is dumb and ignorant is to let it get past my lips. My fellow humans aren’t shy about setting me straight. And that’s good.
The problem with Mr. Ratzinger’s statement is that no matter how self-evidently dumb, millions will not only refuse to set him straight, but try their best to prevent others from doing so.
This wasn’t the first time a member of the highest Catholic ranks has made a disastrously ignorant remark about condoms in Africa. In 2007, the Archbishop of Mozambique claimed that many condoms were intentionally infected with the AIDS virus by European manufacturers.
Forward two years and up one rank—now it’s the Pope.
For the most part, the reactions were predictable—outrage from non-Catholics and a closing of ranks among Catholics — including the claim that you simply may not criticize the Pope.
In response to an editorial cartoon in the Times of London related to Mr. Ratzinger’s comments, Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy O’Connor sounded the predictable note of outrage: “No newspaper should show such disrespect to a person who is held in high esteem by a large proportion of Christians in the world. To pillory the Pope in this way is totally unacceptable.”
So because he is held in high esteem by large numbers, his statements must be respected by the rest of us. I think not—in fact, I seem to recall a whole fallacy devoted to that idea.
The same hollow claim of immunity is captured in this editorial headline in a major Tanzanian daily: Politicians have no moral authority to question Pope’s stand on condoms. (Cue derisive laughter.)
Papal spokesman Federico Lombardi noted that Mr. Ratzinger was merely continuing the line taken by his predecessors, as if this is relevant. In 1990, Karol Józef Wojtyła (aka Pope John Paul II) unhelpfully opined that using condoms is a sin in any circumstance.
Before we even assess the sense or the consequences of that, enjoy a good snort at the idea that a statement is more legitimate only because someone else—anyone else—said it. (Secularists do this, too. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard some form of “Yuh huh, Richard Dawkins says so” offered in full defense of a position.)
The most encouraging part of this whole fece-fling is the voice of Catholic dissent. There are good folks living inside the belly of the beast who have the cojones to ignore repeated orders to switch off their frontal lobes until the Captain says it’s OK to use them again—those with the willingness to think about and openly criticize the statements of a religious leader on merit, regardless of the shape of his hat.
Jon O’Brien of Catholics for Choice said, “It took the church hierarchy 359 years to stop continuing the line taken by their predecessors on Galileo. We hope that this error does not take so long to change.”
The health ministry of Spain (81% Catholic) said, “Condoms have been demonstrated to be a necessary element in prevention policies and an efficient barrier against the virus.” The statement was issued in the course of announcing a shipment of 1 million condoms to Africa—on the same day as the Pope’s remarks.
Now that’s cojones from the country that invented the very word.
But the Academy Award for Outstanding Scrotal Fortitude has to go to Robert McElvaine, professor of Arts & Letters at Millsap College and self-identified Catholic, who wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog titled “Impeach the Pope” :
Benedict XVI opens a visit to Africa by telling the people of a continent decimated by AIDS that the distribution of condoms “increases the problem” of the spread of AIDS. I am a Catholic and the idea that such a man is God’s spokesperson on earth is absurd to me.
There are, of course, no provisions in the hierarchical institution set up, not by Jesus but by men who hijacked his name and in many cases perverted his teachings, for impeaching a pope and removing him from office. But there ought to be.
It didn’t take long for the holy knives of umbrage to come out for McElvaine. Edward Peters, author of Excommunication and the Catholic Church: Straight Answers to Tough Questions, said that “A canonical penal process should be undertaken against Robert McElvaine” for criticizing the Pope’s statement. And he’s not talking out of his hat—he points to the elements of canon law that support this position.
If there’s a clearer indictment of religion at its most ignorant and counterproductive than that sentence and the article in which it appears, I haven’t seen it.
Many Catholics can and do think for themselves. Many, many more, though, will take Mr. Ratzinger’s opinion as gospel. Think of all the good the Vatican could do with its influence—and of the murderous damage it so often chooses to do instead.
_______________________________
(For a glimpse of what a Catholic hornet’s nest looks like when whacked with a dissenting thought, read the comments on the McElvaine piece.)
Words
Before I became a writer, I was a reader. Never fewer than three books going at once. Bought blank journals with hand-stitched bindings and filled them with notes and quotes to set this or that sentence in amber so I could safely set it on the shelf and forget it.
Them days is gone.
Becca went looking for me this morning and found me in the recliner in my second floor study, facing a huge window with a southeastern exposure, blasted in the light and heat of that fantastic rising yellow star, you know the one. My favorite morning place. The cup of coffee at my side didn’t surprise her. The book in my lap did.
“Omigosh, you’re reading.”
For the last two years, I’ve spent my whole waking day with words. Between my freelance work, books and book proposals, speeches, columns, and this blog, I write about 3,000 words a day.
The variety is delicious right now. On a typical day, I write about parenting, public education, nonviolent peacekeeping, and transforming everyday work into service. I’ve never had such an engaging professional life.
But in the process, I’ve apparently killed the reader in me. When I close the laptop at 5, the last thing I want to see is another damned parade of those 26 letters and 10 punctuation marks, no matter how new and clever their arrangements. As a result of my daily eight-hour word bath, I have (aside from actual research or books I’ve blurbed) finished maybe three books in two years. Maybe.
The Meming of Life is now averaging 45,000 visits a month, and I do my best to earn that. But recently, when I open my panel to see what’s on deck topic-wise, I find drafts that are gonna require a lot of, you know…words… before they are ready for prime time. The last four “best practices” for nonreligious parenting. Kids and alcohol. The music I want for my funeral. A courageous woman who recently went through much the same galling B.S. I did at the College of St. Catherine. The fantastic Genographic Project at National Geographic. A post titled “Vegehumilitarianism,” whatever the hell that was supposed to be about. And 23 more. Sometimes I’m just plain out of words for the day, and I close the panel again. Sometimes not.
I’ll get to them all eventually. In between times, while you’re waiting, here are some things for y’all to do:
or Barnes & Noble
Seattle (April 19), or Indianapolis (May 30)
Glass houses
I’ve had several parents ask how best to deal with arrogance — especially in pre-teens, it seems — toward religious folks, especially extended family. “How do I keep my 13-year-old from sneering at other people for their beliefs when I frankly think they’re pretty darn sneerable myself?” That sort of thing.
It’s become such a common question that I included a story of mine in Raising Freethinkers–presumptuously inserting it into Jan’s otherwise excellent chapter titled “Secular Family, Religious World.” (Editorship has its privileges.)
In addition to clarifying the two different levels of respect about which I’ve blogged before — that ideas themselves have to earn respect, but people are inherently deserving of it — the best way to approach this is (if you’ll excuse the phrase) by inviting him who is without sin to cast the first stone.
I watch the odd bit of televangelism now and then. My son Connor (then 11) caught a few minutes of one program in which some outrageous thing was being foisted on a nodding throng. My boy reacted not to the idea itself, but by sneering at the people: “I just don’t understand how those stupid people can believe stupid things that make no sense!”
“Hmm, yeah.” I thought for a minute, then said, “Hey Con, could you go get me a Coke from the basement?”
“What?”
“A Coke. From the basement.”
“I…but…” he stammered. “Why?”
“I’m thirsty. Please.”
“But…I can’t go into the basement by myself.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“I…I just can’t!”
“Oh,” I said gently. “And…does that make sense?”
I quickly admitted to several irrational quirks of my own, like my completely over-the-top aversion to dead things (unless grilled), and my steadfast belief that M&Ms melt in your mouth but not in your hands, despite constant evidence to the contrary. There are surely many more quirks and irrationalities I carry around, but being me, it’s hard to see them. Just ask Becca what they are — then cancel your appointments for the day.
Connor and I then went after the idea in question as we always do, but he was able to do so from a less self-exalted and slightly more empathetic perch — one fallible human thinking hard and well about the errors to which we are all prone, not some glowing eminence smirking at the foibles of creatures in the mud beneath his feet.
We all have irrational beliefs and fears. Jumping at shadows and seeing faces in tortillas is a direct consequence of our deepest wiring — and all the new software in the world will never completely fix that mess. It’s a good and great thing to try, to pull yourself as far up out of the muck as you can, but it’s delusional to ever think you’ve completely escaped it, or to sneer too thoroughly at those silly fools you imagine you’ve left behind.
Now before I get a dozen furious emails, let me be absolutely clear. Reasoned critique is a great thing, and I encourage my kids to go after any and all ideas on their merits. But eye-rolling arrogance toward those who support a given idea is not reasoned critique — and religious discourse is filled with examples of people on all sides who allow dismissive arrogance to cloud their judgment. Start with arrogance, saying, “I can’t believe how stupid they are to believe xyz” and you have one foot on Ray Comfort’s banana peel. Start instead with a little humility, saying, “I may be wrong about this, but…” and you have a much better chance of actually getting things right.
We all live in glass houses, no matter how thoroughly we think we’ve attended to our own rationality. And that’s not entirely bad. It can keep us humble and, as a bonus, increases our chances of thinking well.
Closer and closer to No Big Deal
I start the parenting seminar with a slide intended to help us all relax about the place of secularism in the United States.
Most freethought blogs and periodicals give the impression that aggressive, fundamentalist evangelical Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds, threatening to capsize the frail craft of secular humanism any day now.
I suppose this keeps us manning the barricades instead of scratching ourselves and reaching for the remote. But the way I see myself in the culture affects the way I parent, so I need to know what’s really going on. If my worldview is being pushed to the margins, I might be forced to strike a dukes-up posture and teach my kids to do the same.
But if it isn’t true, I need to know that as well. It would allow me to be less fearful, more open, and more relaxed — and to encourage the same in my kids.
My opening slide shows the percentage of religious identification in the U.S. as determined by the gorgeously detailed American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). ARIS has taken the pulse of American religious identity three times: in 1990, in 2001, and in 2008, these latest results released just days ago.
The data in ARIS and other polls show a clear trend toward a much healthier pluralism in the U.S. Among the fascinating data: From 1990 to 2008…
Christian identification has shown a steady decline, from 89 to 75 percent of the US — including drops in 46 states; Evangelicals make up an ever-growing percentage of the water in the hold of the Protestant ship (if you get my metaphor); Nonreligious identification has increased from 8 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008, including growth in all 50 states; Non-Christian religions have grown from 3 to 9 percent, including growth in 44 states; The percentage of Americans who claim Jewish identity is stable, even as those who call themselves “religiously Jewish” has declined by 13 percent — meaning more are (like the congregation I addressed this past weekend) nontheistic but “culturally Jewish”; The percentage of respondents who, when asked about their religious identity, say “none of your damn business,” has increased in 49 states.
I don’t wanna take over the culture — it’s too much work. But I do want to live in a country where the self-identified nonreligious have a place at the cultural table and religious disbelief is No Big Deal.
And according to our best data, we’re well on our way.
Conservatively project ARIS forward to 2024 — the year my youngest graduates from college — and the US should be about two-thirds Christian and one-third something else. That’s a much healthier mix than the 90-10 split of 1990. And if we follow European trends, it’ll go a helluva lot faster than that. A Harris poll in 2006 put theistic belief in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France at 41, 35, and 27 percent respectively.
All of which means our kids are likely to be living in a culture that’s ever so much more balanced and diverse than we did. Fancy that.
(Click here for an almost unbearably cool interactive map at USAToday. Be sure to click on alllll the tabs: “View by change” and “View by year,” as well as all of the worldviews. Now tell me that’s not fun.)