Winter Season Memes and Meme Wars

By Gary Berg-Cross

A Washington Post Editorial called The Christmas story, still captivating the world, published: December 24 stirred up some discussion about the contemporary meaning of the holiday.  They contrasted the story in radio “DAYS of old (1947 to 1956, to be exact)” as they called it when the narratives were mainly:

“from the Bible, mostly from the life of Jesus, presented with the urgent energy of radio drama and the sort of background music, spirited dialogue and sound effects that made it a good deal more compelling than Sunday school. It was widely popular for a time

This pop-up style they contrasted with a more enduring story of generosity, the need for shelter, the feeling of home and a new start to things (throw in New Year’s). This universal appeal:

“ is a tale with universal appeal extending beyond any one faith or doctrine, a story of love and triumph over adversity and also of humility, of the good lay in their warmth, humanity and simplicity, …….an enduring reflection of both the “comfort and joy” of the carol and also of the spirit expressed in a seasonal exhortation last week from Pope Francis: “Let us act so that our brothers and sisters never feel alone.”

Washington Area Secular Humanist

HumanLight Party 2013

Washington Area Secular Humanist

Washington Area Secular Humanist 

Yes, it seems as Alistair Cooke noted, "Washington's birthday is as close to a secular Christmas as any Christian country dare come this side of blasphemy."

There were numerous responses to this more secular, humanist slant to the season. The following from FL-Chet represents a meme of a  more traditional, Christian view of the season.

The Christmas story without his claim that he was fully God while being fully man is like Christmas dinner without the main course. Yes, we can nibble around the table of the Christmas story and learn from these truths. But to ignore his claims to be God come down to rescue us leaves our hearts and lives wanting, and needing more.

Put me on the side of the universal Humanist appeal of the season. Long before there was Christianity we had people celebrating the winter solstice - the shortest day and longest night of the year which falls (in the Northern hemisphere) on December 21 or December 22.  The harvest is in but some plants &  trees remain green thru winter and thus had a special meaning for people in dark, cold times. Today homes in Western culture are decorated with pine, spruce, and fir trees. In ancient times peoples also hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows (to keep away witches, evil spirits, and illness after all the sun-god gets weak in winter) but this seems mostly buried by the later Christmas story meme.

Washington Area Secular Humanist

HumanLight Party 2013

Washington Area Secular Humanist

Washington Area Secular Humanist 

I say let’s keep the non-spiritual side of the season alive with growing Humanist memes about kindness and sharing along with traditions like HumanLight and song.  For the latter I like Vienna Teng’s  The Atheist Christmas Carol.  It is by no means an atheist song, but rather a Humanist one as is Ode to Joy with its inspired message that 'all men shall be brothers'.

. 

As to seasonal wishes there are many that I like. One builds on Mary Ellen Chase’s idea, beyond shopping malls and temples the winter celebration, people, is not a calendar date. It is a state of mind and one in which children can be grateful to parents who fill stockings and a natural sun that stays a minute or so longer each day.

"Keeping a holiday spirit is good, but sharing it is better."
after-- Arnold Glasow

Thoughts on Improved Discussions: Is Atheism a Religion?

By Gary Berg-Cross

Over the summer I attended some meetups where the role of religion is society was discussed.  Occasionally the discussion drifted into a topic that people were hot about and one of these was the perennial question of “Is Atheism a Religion?”  It’s a topic which can be discussed from practical, personal and philosophical perspectives. You can start by focus on clarifying what is meant by Atheism and its practice. But you also need to delve into definitions of religion and how it is practiced, then do some analytic comparisons.

You can for example, just take the simple semantics of atheism as “no belief in a god.” Then if to be a religion there must be belief in a god (a debatable point), then a narrow view of atheism doesn’t qualify.  That would make for a short discussion, but there is more to say about what is involved in atheist organization or secular,/non-faith groups expressing social beliefs as well the definition of religion. After all, the practice of atheism beyond a philosophical position allies with secular beliefs and organizes to become effective in countering religious influence as well as expressing its own values.  Often these may be packaged in practices that seem religious.

To point to just one way that so called organized atheism/non-belief acts like a religion take the London-based” The Sunday Assembly a so called “Atheist Church  -a godless congregation that meets to hear great talks, sing songs and generally celebrate the wonder of life. They have regular services in London and have launched what they call a “global missionary tour.” Indeed an Assembly event is planned in DC on Wed, Nov. 6, 2012 Center for Inquiry-DC. So an organizational form of godlessness is on the march.  If this march includes bands and songs within some physical infrastructure analogous to a temple holding some ceremonial events and ministered to by a hierarchical “leader” with stories of scientific and philosophical heroes, well maybe it should qualify for tax-free benefits. That seems OK to many. Why should these human ways of expressing ourselves be shut off to us? Religions have grabbed and are occupying ground that might be part of our humanness.  Let's take it back, especially if it helps a secular story compete with the religious stories on more of an equal footing.  This trappings of the traditional religions behave is just part of a practical-tactical decision to operate effectively within a social system in order to change it for the better.

Another perspective is to just to focus on religion as something that has a set of committed beliefs.  So if atheists, free thinkers (or scientists) start expressing beliefs in things like evolution, well then it’s their religion. The counter, of course, is that religion is organized about superstitious not scientific beliefs.  The essential religious beliefs seems to be involve an unchangeable idea of a higher or supernatural power, which is often expressed as some type of god. Religion puts beliefs in a range of super-natural phenomena and powers that aren’t testable, but relies on faith. It is not regular & practical belief, but faith-based.  The power of prayer is one example. 

Religions also proposes quality concepts and judgments like 'good' or 'evil' that are measured and defined by non-human entities, but must be bought into.  Sorry these are nothing like my natural beliefs in gravity and a physical cosmos.  Sure, I commit to them in some practical way every day, but my understanding of gravity is open to allow a Higgs boson to enter that understanding and expand and refine it. But that understanding comes without the idea of something beyond the natural. As Robert G. Ingersoll said in What is Religion” (his last public speech delivered in Boston, Massachusetts the evening of June 2, 1899):

“Religion rests on the idea that Nature has a master and that this master will listen to prayer; that this master punishes and rewards; that he loves praise and flattery and hates the brave and the free.”

No such system of beliefs for free thinkers.  For us it is more like what Ingersoll expressed in what was labeled his "Creed" including - Justice is the only worship and Love is the only priest. If you accept my "praise" of justice as a form of religious worship, then OK I'm that kind of religious, but not the one that expects some hidden master's punishment if I stray.

But perhaps love of love and such should qualify as something larger that society recognizes as worth supporting in the way that it does traditional religion which gets beaucoup benefits as studies have shown -see the figure alongside for examples.

One source that I often consult on issues like “what is religion” where a deeper perspective is needed is Tom Flynn’s “The New Encyclopedia of UNBELIEF.”  (BTW Tom will be speaking at WASH's MDC chapter Dec. 14 in the Rockville library from 2-4).
 Opportunisitc conversations on such things can be better grounded by consulting its pages which are tripped up or hung up discussing colloquially ideas of “religious”.  We run into these things is the loose semantics of conversation, such as when we describe a friend that is “religiously adhering to a diet”. Sure it is a type of commitment, but not what gets fully to the ideas of religion which Tom's Encyclopedia explores more systematically. Perhaps I can put on my wish list an online version of this to be consulted at Meetups!  
Under the Religion entry, for example, the Encyclopedia, starts by quoting from the International Humanist and Ethical Union statement on the use of the term religion.  Here is what they said which clarifies the Humanist position quite a bit with 3 ideas that people may hold about religion and whether there is one definition we can agree on:

Being concerned about the confusion and contention sometimes caused by the words "religion" and "religious",

This board wishes to place on record the following points which can be agreed by all humanists:

1. Some humanists use the word "religion" as roughly equivalent to "life stance"; others take it to imply some theistic or non-naturalistic reality.
2. Those humanists who use the word "religious" to describe themselves or their organisations do not imply that their humanism accepts any theistic or non-naturalist realities.
3. In the sense of the word "religion" which implies "accepting a god", humanism is not a religion; in the sense of "religion" meaning "life stance", humanism is a religion.
4. There is disagreement among humanists about which is the "true" or "appropriate" meaning of the word "religion".

From the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU)  site and its 1989 resolution on Use of the word "religion"

Which brings me back to the occasional conversation on this question of Is X a religion (take your pick on X as atheism, Humanism, Secular Humanism etc.). If you want to use religion as a life style well then, yes, but you may not be talking tax benefits style religion recognized in legal codes.  Should we have to believe in some non-natural power to be considered a religion?  I may disagree, but society may draw some lines to advantage such beliefs. I think that a mistake, but it is something to be discussed more broadly than just at Meetups.  

I guess that one other thing one might inject into these conversations after the depth of Tom’s Encyclopedia is a little bit of modern, edgy humor that ignores some nuanced differences between belief and faith to make its point.  Bill Maher backhands the idea that atheism is a religion with stinging putdowns:

"Idiots must stop claiming that atheism is a religion…..religion is defined as the belief in a “superhuman controlling power” (god), and atheism is precisely not that. Indeed, atheism is simply the absence of belief in a god or gods. It is not a world view, a philosophy, or a religion. It is simply the absence of belief. To be without a belief in god, is to be an atheist….Treating atheism like a religion would be like saying “abstinence is a sex position.” After all, when was the last time a non-believer ever claimed to see the silhouette of Christopher Hitchens on the side of a tree?"

Nones and Spirituals: Update from a College Survey

by Gary Berg-Cross

Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture recently emailed an online survey to about 2,000 students at 38 colleges and universities across the country.This is the group that release the the September 2009 report called  American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population (based on the American Religious Identification Survey 2008).  

They have followed up this with a new survey analysis (drawn from the larger ongoing American Religious Identification Survey, the 2013 National College Student Survey but conducted in conjunction with the Center for Inquiry - Yea!), that had a pretty broad swath questions about  spiritual/non-spiritual, political and moral values. These ranged from belief in God and worship attendance, which was an obvious focus, to climate change and same-sex marriage. And as one might expect these allowed a search for some correlated  patterns between opinions.

The survey asked some simple what-kind-of-person-are-you-questions such as:

   “In general would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular person?

Notice the inclusion between religious and secular of an in-between category of  "spiritual". These are not so much church-mosque or temple goers, and may not believe in a personal God, but in a "higher beyond-the-natural power." They might seek a spiritual experience but not in a temple. They are big on homeopathy, faith healing, numerology, astrology, amulets, etc. Only 1% or so of Mormons & Muslims fall into the spiritual group.

The gross result is that interviewees pretty evenly divided between the 3 categories:

About a third, (32%), relied as true religious believers. Another 32% or are spiritual but not religious. And 28% consider themselves secular.  Yes, it doesn't add up to 100% so there are as many "none of the above or others" as there are any of the main triad. 

This survey provides some update on the rise of what these authors had earlier popularized as the “nones,” or people when asked what religion they belonged to replied 'none'. This is generally expressed negatively as is a-theist so they are described as "unaffiliated" that is lacking in affiliation -alas how these things are framed.

 In this survey update more light is shed on the majority (2/3rd) of the nones who fall into the secular grouping (yep the other third say they are "spiritual"). As the authors report:

“This finding is a challenge to the notion that the Nones are just ‘religiously unaffiliated’ or religious searchers who have not yet found a religious home. This survey clearly revealed that today’s students with a Secular worldview, who are mainly Nones, are not traditional theists.”

And the Nones seem to  be the growing faction of students they have doubled in recent decades which is even more than self identified atheists.

It is interesting that the authors make much of the in-between category of spiritual. Spirituals are mid-way between Religious and Secular in believing in miracles or the afterlife. It's something like an 80 to 40 to 8% belief from Religious to Spiritual to Secular.  They have some leaning on the supernatural - 44% accept the existence of spiritual beings like angels. Outside of the religious category female students are more likely to be spiritual while male students are secular. Well it turns out that they are not a simple middle ground on all things and it gets interesting when we leave typical Christian belief and add ideas from other religions.  Take the idea of reincarnation.  The students who say they are religious don't much believe in it (9%), but Spirituals are twice as likely to believe in such things (21%). OK, I can imagine this mixed dating of male seculars with female spirituals.  It happened in my day too and the relation to political beliefs sounds familiar too:

"Some 44 percent of seculars dubbed themselves as liberal, 20 percent as progressive, and only four percent as conservative. Among spirituals, 11 percent identified as conservative, 17 percent as moderate, and 35 percent as liberal."

So again if a progressive, secular guy has to date outside his traid, a spiritual gal is a bit better fit with a spiritual gal. Overall, the Spirituals are closer to the Religious when it comes to the supernatural, but closer to the Seculars when it comes to some hot button social/political issues like abortion or assisted suicide. 

The authors draw out some composite pictures contrasting the points n the triad:

"Religious students go to church, are more likely to believe in creationism or intelligent design, and oppose assisted suicide, adoptions by same-sex couples and gun control. Secular students, of course,  do not believe in God, endorse evolution, accept assisted suicide as moral, say gay couples should be able to adopt and want more gun control.,,,

Spirituals are more than twice as likely as the Religious to see religion as a source of conflict, but considerably less so than the Seculars."

It's nice to get this updated view of where college students are and it will be very interesting to use these results as a base from which to judge movement over time. Perhaps the Spirituals will parallel growth in Europe where extra-spiritual beliefs provides an intermediate position from established religion and allows exploratrion of  incremental growth to progressive and secular humanism over time.

For more go to: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/09/26/first-the-nones-now-the-spirituals/#sthash.kN1jYEDe.dpuf