"Religion Needs Atheism"

[abelisle]

My good friend Samir Selmanovic wrote this for "The Huffington Post". We tend to think alike but he says it much better!

Samir Selmanovic.Author, Speaker, and Founder of FaithHouseManhattan.org

"The 2009 quintennial session of Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia represented 220 religions and featured 675 programs, 37 movie screenings, and 84 off-site events. For all this colorful diversity, the parliament did not have a meaningful presence of atheists in its program, neither as another religion (in the sense of a "system of meaning") nor as conversation partners. This coming weekend, the atheists of the world are having their own 2010 Global Atheist Convention entitled The Rise of Atheism in the very same convention center in Melbourne, and with a correspondingly apparent absence of anything religious. It is true that religious people and atheists are not historic partners or easy conversationalists and that they both need their identity-building convocations. Yet, this segregation is happening at the time when learning to live interdependently on our fragile planet has moved from being merely a virtue of neighborly love to a matter of survival. Interdependence is no longer a choice to consider; it is a necessity.

Atheists have their own challenges to finding a way to interact with humanity as it is, not as they wish it to be. Those of us who are religious have our own challenge: to involve atheists in our religious debates. In my recent book It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian, I have a chapter titled "The Blessing of Atheism." I recount my personal story of how atheism has supported me in becoming a better Christian and why I believe that atheists are a much needed voice in our religious conversations, service, and life. I believe that engagement with atheists is not only inevitable but will prove to be fruitful.

Rabbi Or Rose tells me that rabbis of old have long taught that the highest form of human discourse is Makhloket, or disagreement. First we recognize our own limits, and then we proceed to clarify our positions as best we can. When we sustain the tension between us, each pulling our own way, we create emptiness between us. In this emptiness, Rabbis say, God creates. As it was in the beginning, so it is today. In the presence of one another, in the moment when our positions of clarity are matched with humility, the possibility of a truly new idea emerges, a solution, a way forward. Creation continues, and we all gain.

In the last decade we have seen the resurgence of religious people who are willing to stand their ground with conviction but without the solemn realization of the limits of their knowledge, feelings, actions, and good intentions. They insist that life on earth is a zero-sum game and that to be right, others have to be wrong. They can hold to their formative stories as true only if other stories are proven to be lies. Instead of generating the empty space between, they endeavor to empty the space of all answers other than their own.

It does not have to be this way. In Makhloket, instead of disagreeing against one another, we learn to disagree for one another. There is no need to force others. When there is a sustained life-giving tension between people or communities, we all change, find our way to a place none of us has been before.

The maintenance of this pregnant space is the responsibility of all solution-oriented parties involved. All are welcome to this disagreement, including atheists. Especially atheists. They are not only welcome but desirable and necessary interlocutors in our human conversation about the meaning of our experience and the problems we face in our newly interdependent world. They are our brothers and sisters, partners and teachers, contributing members of our human household. Without those who doubt God, we would have religious people talking to each other in an echo chamber.

As with every other system of meaning, atheism has its history and moments, some constructive and life-giving, and some less so. Admittedly, there are fundamentalist atheists who have abandoned the practice of constructive disagreement and have resorted to mocking the other side, refusing to roll up their sleeves to help fix the world in synergy with others. But if we all were to abandon faith for reason and proclaim all mystery to be fantasy, one day we would all sit in straight chairs of scientism. Some atheists, instead of disagreeing, demand a new and clean public square where those who disagree with them will be no more. And they do it with apocalyptic urgency, without healthy self-doubt, with their zealous priesthood making money on human fear. Instead of promoting secularization, which fosters pluralism, such fundamentalist atheism promotes secularism, getting rid of the processes of exploration of what humans cannot understand, control, or subjugate. This is atheism at its worst, a mirror image of religion at its worst.

But there is such a thing as atheism at its best.

Seeds of such atheism were sown by towering figures of atheist prophets including Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, who called us out of our self-serving use of religion toward better faith and a better world. Arguably, they have done more to improve religion -- and with it, the world -- than some of our most admired religious leaders.

Atheism at its best participates. It refuses to stay isolated until billions of people cease to be religious. Instead of simply dismissing religion, it engages with it constructively so that the world is better for it. Atheism at its best is an expression of faith in humanity, even faith in religious humanity, for however misguided we religious people might be, we are human, too. Atheism at its best asks us to enjoy our faith life, but with the understanding that our religions are "God-management systems," an attempt -- however honorable and perhaps necessary -- to manage a reality that is larger and more complex than our own religions. Atheism at its best is a guardian of secularization, a process of creating a common and safe space where our worldviews -- including religious ones -- can share their treasures and expose themselves to the entire world as their ethical community. Atheism at its best insists that religious people learn to live on Earth. Religion that does not work on Earth, they argue, does not work at all. Good point. To us religious people, atheists are not only precious neighbors but also strangers who see what we cannot see and ask questions that we don't know how to ask -- all the while acknowledging the good that religion brings. Atheists are God's whistleblowers.

Atheism at its best offers ethics, a philosophy of life, and an enriching discussion about virtue. Does God have an ego that can be wounded by our disbelief in God's existence? Would God, if there were such a thing, prefer a world where humans love and care for each other and the planet, even at the expense of acknowledging God, or one where humans believe and worship God at the expense of caring for one another and the world? Their questions, pregnant with possibilities, go on.

Atheism does not have to be the end of the enchantment; it can be a new door towards a better religion. Religion does not have to be the opium of the people; it can be the poetry of the people. Both faith and doubt are the opposite of certainty and therefore part of the same whole. To end either of them would be to end the empty space between us, and with it, the possibility of truly new ideas, solutions, and ways into the future. U2, in their modern hymn "One," sum up these dynamics: "We are one. But we are not the same. We get to carry each other." If all sides can muster enough courage and grace to step out of their own boxes, we might find ourselves in a new open space of life-giving tension."

Alex (this also applies to agnostics)

[Tom Wetmore]

Well said, indeed!!!

[Gerr]

Ok, what system of ethics can atheism provide? Without a divinely mandated system of ethics, who is going to dictate it? Me? You? And if we disagree, who is going say which of us is right?

[abelisle]

Ok, what system of ethics can atheism provide? Without a divinely mandated system of ethics, who is going to dictate it? Me? You? And if we disagree, who is going say which of us is right?

Gerry,

I think you missed the gist of this article. It touches on ethics but is mainly about the necessity for having the conversation with the "other" side. It is an appeal for not only mutual intellectual honesty but a willingness to at least listen to what each side has to say.

Alex

[Bravus]

Excellent - shared!

[karl]

Ok, what system of ethics can atheism provide? Without a divinely mandated system of ethics, who is going to dictate it? Me? You? And if we disagree, who is going say which of us is right?

Thank God somebody spoke up.

How dare Christians to believe that religion is essentially different from and superior to atheism?

The author is convinced that Christians are interdependent with atheists (socialism at work) and therefore we must find commonalities in our belief systems. He seems to want atheism and religion on a par in our minds.

Yes, and then we can find that happy medium between the two and the devil will be delighted with any medium we want to consult.

[abelisle]

Selmanovic, radical evangelical

A new type of evangelical Christian is emerging in the US – of a kind that actively seeks dialogue with other faiths

Mark Vernon guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 March 2010 13.00 GMT

"Leaders in the emerging church movement are used to suspicion and attack. They question whether Jesus is the only way, truth and life. They conduct experiments in church-going that don't look like church-going at all. They insist on the incoherence of their movement and revel in postmodern theology. Such things cause alarm in their conservative evangelical counterparts.

It's a judgment that Samir Selmanovic turns to his advantage in a witty YouTube video, made to promote his new book, It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian. It features his daughters warning folk not to buy a publication that advises readers to talk with strangers from other faiths. What kind of Dad, Ena and Leta ask, would tell his children to talk to strangers? "Sabotage this book", they insist: "Buy it and then burn it without reading it."

Selmanovic is in the UK this month to take part in an event at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Belfast. Organised by Pete Rollins, the Re-emergence Conference will also feature author Phyllis Tickle and post-evangelical Dave Tomlinson. (One problem with incoherent movements is that you have to become au fait with lots of names to follow them.)

I met Selmanovic in a New York diner. It was an appropriate location: as we made our way to a free booth, I overheard snippets of conversation in as many languages as there were tables in the place. The multicultural, multi-faith nature of a city like New York is precisely what fires his religious imagination.Born in the former Yugoslavia, he was alert to the danger Muslims in Manhattan faced after 9/11. He organised public meetings to help defuse fears about the terrorist attacks. It's just one incident that raises what he believes is the most pressing question of our age: how to live with others? The close proximity of diverse neighbours, inherent in modern life, precipitates a fear of difference. Religious traditions in particular have typically viewed their relationship to other faiths as a zero-sum game: you win or you lose. They can feel much the same even about other denominations within the same faith. What's lacking is a conception of how to be a passionate custodian of one religious story whilst living in a plural world of many. The risk is that people of faith have little capacity to see people of other faiths as sojourners with them, together. "The question should be one of relationships, not competition," Selmanovic argues.

In fact, Selmanovic sees pluralism as a positive boon for evangelical traditions such as his own. In a diverse culture, replete with communications technology, everyone can and does proclaim their story. And evangelicalism is nothing if not declarative. It's one reason why it has thrived in modern times.

However, conservative evangelicalism has made a mistake, he continues. Its desire to share and spread the good news has led it to treat non-Christians as objects: "We have it, they have to receive it" – "it" being the message of Christ. But what kind of good news is it, Selmanovic asks, when only an elect few have it? What kind of control freakery is inherent in the perception that you alone have a message from God and cannot receive any good news from others? He points out that the Bible presents a picture of exactly the opposite dynamic, in the examples of God's chosen ones receiving good news from strangers and foreigners. "It's wise men and shepherds who come to the stable," he says. The Christian movement's first financial backers were a bunch of alien astrologers.

His message is that God is fully present in others. You won't see that until you have dug deeply enough into your own tradition to hit bedrock, which is to say that it's the insecure in their own faith who fear the other. It's a view of pluralism that is not ephemeral and uncommitted, but profound and faithful.

There is also a vital role for disagreement in it. Respecting other traditions requires that you indicate when you think they are mistaken – though you have to be prepared to seek out and listen to their reply in turn. Such a dialectic leads to learning. Moreover, all traditions have ideas about pluralism within them. Christianity talks of the body being composed of many parts. Islam talks of people being created different so they can compete in offering good deeds to one another. Humour is key too – though it must pass a test: can a non-Christian, say, make a joke about Christianity in such a way that the Christian can reply, "thank you"?

That said, it seems easy to pick intellectual holes in it too. Aren't there plenty of quotes in the Bible that claim exclusivity, I ask – not least when Jesus says he's the way, truth and life? Selmanovic points out that the context of that saying shows that Jesus was not reflecting on how to live in a plural world but was offering comfort to his disciples. OK, I continue: what about the fundamental differences between religions, such as Christianity, which asserts that salvation comes from God, and Buddhism which asserts that enlightenment comes by your own efforts? Selmanovic argues that contradictions are inevitably apparent to us, as we have no divine "view from nowhere". But "contradictions today become treasures tomorrow", Admit that, and you raise the possibility differences might not be as profound as we think."

Alex

[Twilight]

Seems like another invitation to step on the "neutral ground" that does not really exist...

Athiests and agnostics often want you to step onto "neutral ground" to discuss something.

Which basically means stepping off the bible onto their ground.

There is no such thing as "neautral ground" when it comes to morality and origins...

Mark :-)

[Twilight]

And what happens when we do not "accept" the invitation to step onto neutral ground?

We are accused of being biased and "not willing to engage"...

*sigh*

[Bravus]

Double sigh. Learning is living, ceasing to learn is dying. Those who believe they have nothing more to learn are already dead.

[karl]

Double sigh. Learning is living, ceasing to learn is dying. Those who believe they have nothing more to learn are already dead.

Is that across the board, Bravus? Were you thinking that it doesn't matter WHAT you learn as long as you're learning? Is the quality of your "mind expansion" irrelevant to you? I've learned a few things in my lifetime I would rather not know.

By the way, thanks so much for the condescending sighs above. I'm sorry for you, having to put up with such antiquated ideas as, "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."

Here are more mind expansion ideas for those who are interested in additional "learning:"

What about seeing what we can learn from pornographers? Some of those lighting skills could work with church TV taping.

Casino operators? Perhaps some casino operation ideas would work in streamlining church functions.

Palm readers. We need common ground with them as well. They could teach us to "read" our constituency and con them for bigger contributions.

[abelisle]

Somehow I distinctly remembered Paul "engaging" with the Stoics and Epicureans:

Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. 18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods, “ because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” 21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Acts 17:17-21

Alex

[SivartM]

So let's not learn anything from anyone who disagrees with us?

*throws out his textbooks* My math book's author might be an atheist.

I learned about God from an agnostic yesterday. It was quite a delightful book.

[karl]

Somehow I distinctly remembered Paul "engaging" with the Stoics and Epicureans:

He was sharing the Gospel with them. He wasn't trying to incorporate their beliefs into Christianity.

I have no problem sharing the Gospel with atheists and have done so. I just ask them if they are positive God does not exist, and if so, how they can know that. Most of them will admit they are agnostic. I believe God reveals Himself to those who seek Him and encourage agnostics to do so.

Don't forget Pascal's Wager, either. Very logical and useful for both atheists and agnostics.

It is not necessary that we imbibe atheism in order to witness to atheists.

[abelisle]

karl,

I think you've failed to appreciate the "flavor" of this piece. This was not written to suggest we either "incorporate" the beliefs of atheists or "imbibe" in them.

It's really about "attitude" and I sense a negative one in what you and others have said. Being open-minded doesn't mean one becomes openly gullible or religiously compromising.

BTW, why is it perfectly okay for us to share the Gospel but refuse to even listen to those who don't know the Gospel. How convenient for you to say that Paul was "sharing" but quick to say that he wasn't "incorporating." Therefore I can only assume that you feel both articles are encouraging Christians to compromise what they believe if they even deign to listen to atheists/agnostics?

Alex (why does everyone so quickly take sides on just about everything that is said here?)

[Bravus]

(and my sighs were an echo of someone else's, btw)

[Bravus]

And on Pascal's Wager: http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1498

[Bravus]

karl: even say you can learn nothing from non-Christians - do you still have anything to learn from Christians, from the Bible, from God? Or do you already know everything you need to know? *That* is what I was talking about.

[Twilight]

Quote:

Being open-minded doesn't mean one becomes openly gullible or religiously compromising.

Open minded about what?

My beliefs are based on absolutes.

The absolutes of the bible.

What is there to be open minded on?

Mark :-)

[olger]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

Ok, what system of ethics can atheism provide? Without a divinely mandated system of ethics, who is going to dictate it? Me? You? And if we disagree, who is going say which of us is right?

Thank God somebody spoke up.

How dare Christians to believe that religion is essentially different from and superior to atheism?

The author is convinced that Christians are interdependent with atheists (socialism at work) and therefore we must find commonalities in our belief systems. He seems to want atheism and religion on a par in our minds.

Yes, and then we can find that happy medium between the two and the devil will be delighted with any medium we want to consult.

Nonsense. All Christians should want witches to pray for them. SS arranged that and tells about it.

[olger]

Seems like another invitation to step on the "neutral ground" that does not really exist...

Athiests and agnostics often want you to step onto "neutral ground" to discuss something.

Which basically means stepping off the bible onto their ground.

There is no such thing as "neautral ground" when it comes to morality and origins...

Mark :-)

There is no demilitarized zone where the forces of truth and error may meet under a flag of truce and negotiate. Thank God for that.

[abelisle]

Twilight,

When I speak of "open-mindedness", my best example is Jesus himself: "Jesus met the people on their own ground, as one who was acquainted with their perplexities. He made truth beautiful by presenting it in the most direct and simple way. His language was pure, refined, and clear as a running stream. His voice was as music . . ." and "His messages of mercy were varied to suit His audience. He knew "how to speak a word in season to him that is weary" (Isa. 50:4); for grace was poured upon His lips, that He might convey to men in the most attractive way the treasures of truth. He had tact to meet the prejudiced minds, and surprise them with illustrations that won their attention.Through the imagination He reached the heart. His illustrations were taken from the things of daily life, and although they were simple, they had in them a wonderful depth of meaning.

Alex

[abelisle]

There is no demilitarized zone where the forces of truth and error may meet under a flag of truce and negotiate. Thank God for that.

This is NOT about negotiations. This is about having a conversation. Are you frightened to do that? Jesus didn't have a problem with having conversations.

Alex

[olger]

Ain't skeered, I guess. I have studied the works of emergent authors enough to be convinced that they are adrift in dangerous waters.

"Conversation" is a well warmed emergent buzzword from the soft underbelly of "New Spirituality" (to quote Herbert E. Douglas).

I am all for talking to people Alex, I love people. But when I hear SS inviting witches to pray for christians, I draw the line real sharp. And when he says that shamanism has advantages over Christianity, someone ought to stand up and say "listen pardner..."

Or when he says "A biblical worldview in the recent past meant clinging to the maps at any cost. People are done with such idolatry…our Scriptures have spoken to us, and our lives ought to speak back. That's how we love our religions, not only by studying the itineraries of the Bible, but by adding our own.” (http://www.faithhousemanhattan.org/faith_house/page/2)

og out

[abelisle]

"Alex, since I shamelessly stole the link from you --and didn't credit you at all-- that would be awesome. Especially if he has links that would allow me, the atheist, to learn more about these 220 world religions. Thanks"

From one of my atheist friends on Facebook with whom I have been having "conversations" and who now wants to learn about different religions. It was this link to my first post on this thread. I offered to connect her to my my friend.

For me, it's a two-way street. I can learn from them about their world-view and I in turn have a lot to offer them.

Alex