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Distinguish friend from foe. For more information, contact: Gary Schouborg, PhD (925) 932-1982 |
Schouborg,
Gary (2005). "The Separation of State and Atheism". The Separation of State and Atheism Gary Schouborg Atheist activists want to take reference to God out of governmental
proclamations in order to make the state neutral with regard to religion.
Their goal is confused in three ways, failing to recognize that: (1) atheists
are themselves people of faith; (2) atheism is itself a religion; and (3)
religious neutrality in governmental proclamations is impossible. The
Constitution that separates state and religion also separates state and
atheism. However, the goal of atheist activists amounts to the establishment
of atheism. The conflict here is not, as commonly said, between believers
and non-believers. It is between believers of two different faiths — that God
exists and that God does not exist — neither of which can be proven. Atheism
is therefore a religion alongside all the others, with its own distinctive,
unproven body of faith. In forbidding the establishment of religion, the
Constitution forbids establishing either theist or atheist faiths. Atheist activists sometimes argue that they’re not trying to establish
atheism. That would occur only if they wanted governmental proclamations to
state that God doesn’t exist. What atheists want is to avoid implying
anything about God’s existence one way or the other. Only this is
governmental religious neutrality, leaving citizens free to refer to God
however they wish in the privacy of their own lives. This atheist argument would be unassailable if religious belief had
only literal meaning. However, atheist activists miss the expressive
meaning, which connects private with public lives and points to deeply
felt experiences and values that both theists and atheists often share. My nephew Rob recently supplied me with an example of these two functions
of religious language — literal and expressive. Anxious about upcoming eye
surgery, he finds considerable comfort in Isaiah 41:10 — Have no fear, for I am with you; do not be looking about troubled, for I am your God; I will give you strength, yes, I will be your helper; yes, my true right hand will be your support. Literally, the passage
proclaims the existence of a loving God who supports us in dealing with our
particular challenge. Believers may understand this help to be external or
internal. External: God will work a miracle on our behalf, like raining down
manna from heaven, smiting our enemies, or guiding our ophthalmologist’s hand
to operate successfully. Internal: God will give us the inner strength we need to meet the
challenge. And of course believers may understand any combination of the two. For
example, if we are believers we may focus entirely on the external meaning,
so that we have no sense of our inner resources and believe that we are
totally subject to whatever God wills. Or we may think it presumptuous to
rely on a miracle and therefore may focus entirely on the internal meaning,
so that we believe God will give us the inner strength to meet the challenge.
Or we may both hope for a miracle and, if that is not God’s will, for
strength to overcome the challenge or peace in accepting failure. Expressively, the passage
evokes our innermost resources, which enable us to calm ourselves, address
the challenge, and even accept undesirable results. We might call this the
poetic, psychological, or experiential function of the passage. When we open
our hearts and minds to the expressive meaning of scriptural passages, we no
longer merely hope for inner strength, but allow the words to evoke that
strength within us — now. On the literal level, theists are free to attribute any of these
effects to a helping God, whereas atheists are free to appeal only to brain
and psychosocial processes. But both sides can open their hearts and minds to
the expressive meaning, sharing the same experience evoked by the expressive
power of the scriptural language. Whether they do so depends largely on how
the literal and expressive meanings involved interact in each individual. Externally focused on a helping God who can influence external events,
literal belief may draw our attention away from our own inner resources. Even
internally focused on a helping God who can enhance our innermost coping
powers, literal belief may draw our attention away from our current
inner resources, leaving us hoping only for some future infusion of
strength from God. In either case, whether externally or internally focused,
we may be left with no inner experience of our own except a debilitating
sense of emptiness. I take this to be the state that St. Paul referred to
when he talked about faith being worth nothing without charity — the
spiritual experience of finding life worthwhile even in the face of
what our mind conceives of as an undesirable event. Atheists as well as
theists can take inspiration from Paul’s teaching that experience takes
priority over belief. On the other hand, literal belief in a helping God may awaken hope,
the gateway to experience. Literal belief in miracles may awaken the hope
that somehow God will make us happy. Even when such hope is riddled with superstition,
it may nevertheless be healing to the extent that it awakens in us the
suspicion that somewhere, somehow it’s possible to be glad to have been born.
This suspicion is all the more healing when our belief is internally focused,
pointing to our innermost resources as the place where we can experience life
as gratifying even in the face of daunting challenges. Atheists as well as
theists share those resources. Finally, literal belief in a helping God may not only inspire us to
hope that we can find life gratifying under any conditions, but it may also
have for us the expressive function of actually awakening our inner
resources, rather than waiting for some external power to do it for us. This expressive function of awakening our innermost resources is where
theists and atheists can meet. For example, on the literal level, theists can
interpret “one nation under God” in any way they choose while atheists can
simply disregard it. But on the expressive level, both theists and atheists
can agree that this nation depends on resources within each of us that are
deeper than we can fully identify. On this expressive level, rather than
quibble endlessly about the literal meaning, we can enjoy the sense of unity
that comes from realizing that we all share these inner resources as human
beings. After all, belief itself in no panacea. The belief of either theist or
atheist believers can help or hinder them in experiencing the gratifying core
of life. As St. Paul taught, it’s the experience that counts, not the belief.
The belief is only a means to the experience. Like any means, belief in a loving God may be useful or
counterproductive. It may help us find the gratifying core of life or it may actually
seduce us from that core, as we have just seen. The same is true of belief
that no helping God exists. For like theists, atheist believers can so focus
on their belief itself that their attention is drawn away from their own
inner resources. Like superstitious believers, superstitious atheists can
then mistakenly look outside themselves for their deepest happiness,
differing with theists only in where they believe such salvation lies. On the
other hand, just as the belief of theists can awaken them to their own inner
resources, so can the belief of atheists when it reminds them to look within,
rather than outside, themselves. In a time of heightened sociopolitical conflict, the current conflict
between atheists and theists is one we don’t need. Taking reference to God
completely out of governmental proclamations amounts to the establishment of
atheism. For the elimination of religious language from public discourse
sterilizes its expressive function for atheists and theists alike, insofar as
reference to God reminds us that our nation depends on the deepest resources
within every citizen, resources that we all share as human beings. If atheist
activists could replace traditional religious language with equally
expressive secular language, they would have a point. But they have not
suggested this alternative for the good reason that, given the centuries old
meaning that religious language has for most people, an expressively
equivalent replacement is unlikely. Since atheist activists seem to see themselves
as more sophisticated than their traditional brethren, surely they can bring
themselves to ignore their literal differences with theists while sharing
what they expressively have in common. |
