What to do when nice [religious] people disagree with you

A few days ago I wrote a post about religious justification for spousal abuse, linking to Michael Cogdill’s excellent post about his horrific experience as a child in an abusive family.

Cogdill linked to the post from his Facebook page and offered some commentary of his own on the post itself. He was very complimentary about my post, saying “I love this passage from Carolina Atheist for what it says about the failures of hyper-religious fit throwing.” But he also said some things that I disagree strongly with, like “Atheism, I believe, is a way of seeking, of thinking critically into the wilderness [of] questions about mortality.” I don’t think atheism has much to say at all about mortality, except perhaps to point out the failure of theism to offer sound reasoning on mortality.

But Cogdill’s post — and indeed, his entire life — does demonstrate that a person can live in a very ethical and rational manner but still believe in God. People can even be convinced that this belief somehow causes or facilitates ethical and rational behavior, and many of these people really do subsequently behave ethically and rationally. So is right for me to dwell on the one point of difference between myself and Cogdill? Is Cogdill really doing any harm? Shouldn’t I join forces with the likes of Cogdill and set my sights on the people who truly abuse religious power?

To a certain extent, that’s what I am doing. After all, I quoted Cogdill quite sympathetically in my initial post. There are lots of people in the world who are doing wonderful things but happen to have beliefs that I disagree with. For example, former president George Bush (senior) recently shaved his head in support of a 2-year-old with leukemia. That’s awesome! But it doesn’t mean I don’t disagree with him on a whole lot of other issues.

But I also want to make it clear that, just as I don’t think praying for the child with leukemia will make any difference in his prognosis, I don’t think the Christian religions offer very sound advice about when a divorce is acceptable. Cogdill doesn’t really offer much in the way of biblical support for his position that it’s okay to divorce an abusive spouse. Cogdill arrives at his position through reasoning, not faith — and it’s reasoning I agree with.

I think it’s sweet that the folks in the comment thread on my spousal abuse post offer to invoke God on my behalf, but I also think they are misguided. It’s not that I don’t believe they get comfort and support from their religious community; they most certainly do! But I think there are other sources of comfort and support that are much more philosophically consistent and rational.

As the atheist community grows, we need to identify the institutions that will fill the ever-present need for social support and comfort that most Americans turn to religion for. I’m not suggesting that overtly atheist groups would fill this need, although they could be a part of it. The point is not that every institution actively support disbelief, it’s that they don’t support false belief, which is a different proposition entirely. In an ideal world, no one would need to self-identify as an “atheist” because there would be no theists to oppose. Instead, folks might identify by a particular approach to reasoning, like “reductionist” or “relativist.” Support communities might build off of other interests, like cycling or music or politics, and maybe these interest groups would have counseling wings, just like churchgoers today can attend counseling sessions or support groups when they have problems.

In the interim, and especially in the Bible belt, encounters with folks like Cogdill are going to be the rule rather than the exception. For now I prefer to keep face-to-face confrontations on ideology to a minimum. But I’ve carved this pseudonymous online space specifically to confront the areas of difference between atheists and theists, so that’s what I’m going to do here. While I appreciate Cogdill’s words of support, in this space I must also point out where we differ.

Religious justification for spousal abuse? Really?

Here’s what it means to be a three-year-old in an abusive household:

My dad sprang from the couch, straddled and pinned my mother to the floor, and beat her so hard with his open hand her head thundered off the hardwood. She fought him, hard. Screamed for him to stop. I joined her. My cries fused with hers from where I stood, no more than six feet away, in some flannel pajamas. I remember the noise of his hand against her face. I remember the snap of her head. The blood. I don’t remember wounds, but I remember a spray of blood.

It is brutal, horrifying, and indefensible. No child should ever be raised in an environment such as this. I encourage you to read all of Michael Cogdill’s stirring account of his experiences growing up in a home where his father beat his mother. Cogdill says his mother never left his father because “she feared what the Bible said about divorce.”

Many of us learned for the first time what the Bible says about divorce during the debate about gay marriage. The Bible says much less about homosexuality than it does about divorce, the argument goes, and yet regular churchgoing folk (at least in the Protestant tradition) seem to have no problem with divorce. They like it so much, they do it over and over and over again. If they’re so worried about gays “destroying the sanctity of marriage,” then why aren’t Christians more outraged about the much-more-widespread phenomenon of divorce?

Personally I don’t have a problem with divorce in cases like Cogdill’s. Wouldn’t Cogdill have had a much happier childhood if his mother had believed that divorce was a real option to her? Wouldn’t millions of women and children be better off if they felt they were justified in leaving their abusive spouses?

Yet even Cogdill seems to be willing to give organized religion a break here, claiming that his father was ultimately able to reform through religion, and citing a preacher’s claim that “there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that justifies violence in the home.” While this may be technically true, there’s not much that overtly bans it. Typically Ephesians 5:22 is mentioned as possibly “justifying” wife abuse with the command “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” Religious apologists like Quentin Kinnison argue that this statement is taken out of context, and that the true meaning of the passage is that husbands and wives should each submit to the other as they do to Christ.

Yet finding any direct statement in the Bible commanding husbands not to abuse their wives is difficult. And there is little in the Bible to suggest that even a physically-abused spouse is justified in seeking divorce. Kinnison points to Ephesians 5:28, which tells husbands to love their wives as they would love their own bodies. That’s hardly a clear directive, though: I could easily see an abusive husband reading that as “I’d love to have penis-numbing sex six nights a week, so that’s how I’ll treat my wife, whether she likes it or not. After all, she is supposed to submit to me as to the Lord!”

And take a look at this conclusion from a CBN directive on when divorce is justified:

However, I do think physical brutality and abuse, and mental abuse of a nature that endangers the person’s mind or body, are clearly grounds for divorce. The Pauline privilege, which I mentioned earlier, (1 Corinthians 7:15) permits divorce on the grounds of desertion by an unbelieving spouse. For mental cruelty to be grounds for divorce, it must involve conduct which makes it impossible to live with the spouse without endangering oneself.

The sort of cruelty I have in mind would not spring from a criticism of a souffle or a brother-in-law. Minor irritations need loving attention, but should not be allowed to rupture a holy relationship.

Obviously, a couple composed of two born-again Christians does not fall under the Pauline privilege. Divorce and remarriage for any reason are truly unthinkable for two people who sincerely love God and are trying to serve Him.

See what he did there? The uncredited author of this column concludes that while abuse is grounds for divorce, “Divorce and remarriage for any reason are truly unthinkable” for true believers. So if you get divorced, you must therefore not be a true believer. Since true believers would never acknowledge any shred of doubt in their belief, and with directives like this coming from church leaders, there’s little choice but to stay in destructive marriages like the one Michael Cogdill endured for 17 years.

The Pauline Privilege is a bit of a kludge anyways. It’s really specifically directed towards non-believers, as the CBN translation of the passage attests:

(But if the husband or wife who isn’t a believer insists on leaving, let them go. In such cases the Christian husband or wife is no longer bound to the other, for God has called you to live in peace.)

Somehow, the author argues, an abused spouse who leaves her abuser is a “nonbeliever,” even if she claims to still believe. Or something.

Clearly that’s not where the heart of the CBN author lies. He wants abusive couples to stick together, because as “people who sincerely love God” they would never, ever abuse their spouses. It would be unthinkable.

Except for this:

It was found that religion had little, if any, relationship to spousal abuse.

Spousal abuse happens all too often, regardless of the professed beliefs of the abusers or the abused. The main distinction between religious and non-religious attitudes towards spousal abuse is that in many cases, the religious approach seems to be to ignore the problem or act like it wouldn’t happen to “true believers.” Sadly, as both science and the anecdotal examples of cases like Cogdill’s and millions of others just like them attest, we know this just isn’t the case.

Do people actually understand what atheists believe?

I saw this image float by in my social media feed today:

This sort of ignorant rant isn’t the main reason I’m fairly restrained about publicly proclaiming my atheism, but it does show that some folks really don’t have a clue what it means to be an atheist. Statements like “atheists are the reason crime is rampant” show ignorance both about atheism and crime statistics (crime has been going down in the US for the past couple decades).

But seeing this rant made me wonder if the author genuinely understood the definition of “atheist” or if she simply thought she knew that “atheists,” whatever they were, were “bad” people. And if she doesn’t understand what atheists really are, maybe part of the problem with negative perception of atheists in America is due to a similar misconception in the general public. Fortunately, there has been a little bit of research on this topic, most notably a 2012 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Secularism and Nonreligion.

Lawton Swan and Martin Heesacker  asked 618 Americans their subjective opinions about a fictitious person, “Jordan,” who was either identified as an atheist, with no belief in God, religious, or unmarried. The “unmarried” condition was used as a control. The respondents were then asked to rate Jordan on a scale of 1 to 7 across several dimensions of personality, like bad / good, or foolish / wise.

This entire group was divided into two groups, one of which was given a brief biography of Jordan to go along with his identifying information. After controlling for demographics, the results were as follows:

I’ve included rough confidence intervals (about 95%). These intervals can overlap by a bit and still represent significant differences, but as you can see, whether or not Jordan was given a bio, the respondents rated “Atheist” and no belief in God profiles significantly lower. When no personalization was made, it appears that “Atheist” was rated lowest of all, but the researchers say that the difference between Atheist and no belief was not statistically significant. I’d say it’s a bit of a trend, but it’s interesting to see that the trend disappears when Jordan is presented with a biography.

Swan and Henner conclude that the American bias against atheists is not caused by the negative connotation of the word “atheist.” In fact, people appear to be biased specifically against non-belief. To confirm this, in the final question of the study, the researchers asked respondents to define “atheist”. Eighty-five percent of respondents gave a response such as “a person who doesn’t believe in God.” No one who saw the word “atheist” in Jordan’s profile and couldn’t define “atheist” was included in the analysis of the results, and still we see no significant difference in the rating of atheists and non-believers.

This isn’t to say that a few rants such as the one I reprint above might not still result from ignorance about the nature of atheism, but in general, it seems, the bias in America against people who don’t believe in God is related directly to their non-belief. It would be interesting to see this study redone with a bit more power — perhaps it’s true that, say, evangelical christians do make some kind of distinction between “atheist” and “non-believer.”

Swan L.K. & Heesacker M. (2012). Anti-atheist bias in the United States: Testing two critical assumptions, Secularism and Nonreligion, 1 32-42.

When religion and hobbies collide

I’m an avid cyclist, logging over 200 miles a week and attending numerous group rides and races. Most of my friends are cyclists too, and we have a well-connected network over Facebook and other social media. So naturally, I’ve “friended” lots of my riding friends, and I get to see many non-riding aspects of their lives — their kids, other friends, and so on.

Of course this means I’m also exposed to their religion. I’d say about half of my cyclist friends are highly religious. They don’t just go to church on Sundays, they “pray” for each other in FB posts and text messages. If they had a good race result, it’s because they were “blessed” with the strength to complete it. If a friend’s child or dog gets sick, they pray for its speedy recovery.

For the most part this stuff is easy to ignore. But sometimes it’s not. For example, suppose Ted has injured his knee. Someone makes a post on his FB page saying something like “Prayers for Ted’s speedy recovery from knee surgery.” Should I “like” the post? I certainly don’t believe the prayers will do any good, but I’d like to let Ted know my thoughts are with him. Often in cases like this I’ll just write my own separate post on his FB page letting him know I hope he gets well soon and asking if there’s anything I can do to help.

But what if the connection is more explicit? For example, a friend of mine recently entered an exceptionally challenging and prestigious endurance ride. I offered to help him with logistical support. Then it turned out he was riding for a religious charity, and he wanted his entire crew to wear t-shirts with the charity’s (obviously religious) name on it. Naturally there would be photos of the crew plastered all over Facebook. If I wear the shirt in the photos, am I endorsing the charity? I just wanted to help my friend complete a difficult ride.

I believe this charity is doing good work, but it would be even better if the charity could be separated from the baseless and wasteful religious element. I’m glad that it is helping people, but I’d be even happier if it could fully devote its resources to helping people instead of splitting them between the truly helpful and what is, at best, wishful thinking.

On the other hand, even secular charities can be wasteful. Consider the situation at many  colleges and universities, where vast “charitable” donations go to sports teams that are little more than farm teams for professional, for-profit sports leagues.

But there’s a difference between college sports teams and religious charities. If I choose not to support a team I’m not seen as selfish or unfaithful. If I make a stand against a charity, then it can easily be misconstrued by others as not wanting to support the ostensible beneficiaries of the charity: I must hate kids, or love disease, or whatever. Even worse, my rationale for not supporting the charity hits at the core beliefs of its supporters: I’m telling them their god doesn’t exist, and they don’t like to hear that!

In my friend’s case, I decided to wear the shirt for the photos. I didn’t say anything bad about his charity. But I won’t be wearing the shirt again. He ended up raising over $15,000 for his charity, which really is impressive. Some of that money really will help some people. But it makes me sad to realize how ingrained religion is in every aspect of people’s daily lives. Hobby and recreation aren’t separate from religion; they are an integral part of it.

Ultimately I think the world would be a better place if there were no religion at all. But separating religious activities from everything else is going to be a sticky business. If it’s this hard to take religion out of bike riding, just think how hard it will be in cases where the connection between religion and life is much stronger.

A place to discuss issues of belief / skepticism in the South

I’ve lived in the South for 19 years now, longer than I’ve lived in any other part of the country. Like it or not, I’m a part of this region, even though many aspects of it still seem foreign to me. The most foreign aspect is, to put it bluntly, the in-your-face religion espoused by most people around here.

I still have trouble comprehending why people expect others to pray for them when their pets die or their kids get in trouble at school. But I do realize that it’s something I’m going to have to live with — probably at least until I retire. This blog is going to be a place where I can discuss these issues frankly, and, hopefully, without my [religious] friends figuring out that I am doing it.

It’s not that I keep my atheism a secret — I don’t — it’s more that, given how much I dislike the in-your-faceness of religion around here, I want to see if I can discuss these issues in a different way. For now, I think that means it’s best to keep my extended discussions about religion and atheism anonymous (or technically, pseudonymous, as I’ve adopted the pseudonym “Carolina Atheist”).

So…here goes. I’m looking forward to seeing where this discussion leads!