I would be interested in hearing Christine's thoughts on the following: in my experience, atheists frequently view believers as automatons, as people who cannot or do not think for themselves. I have a few questions: Firstly, is this indeed an impression that many atheists hold? If so, where does this impression come from? Is it justified? Is independent, critical thinking indeed the exclusive domain of atheists?

David,

I think atheists frequently view believers as automatons, and worse. Look at the comments on the Prager-Harris debate. Believers are described as ignorant, non-rational, emotional, illogical, intolerant, bigoted, and eager to impose their views on the rest of society. There are exceptional atheists, of course, such as the anonymous former Christian who posted a comment after my first blog entry. This individual made a reasonable and civil argument, without resorting to the hostility and name-calling that I’ve seen in other posts. I appreciate this kind of tolerance and good will. But many comments coming from atheists are not so magnanimous.

My renegade status is driving a lot of atheists nuts. I understand their discomfort. The me of 20 years ago would have a serious problem with the me of today. As an atheist, I used to buy into the idea that religious people are irrational and stupid. One of the worst things to be called by a fellow Objectivist was a “mystic”—Ayn Rand’s pejorative term for religious people. I wasn’t the only atheist who felt this way, either. My post-modern Marxist colleagues held the same low opinions about religious people, although they had a different term for it, something along the lines of “deluded opium addict.”

Interestingly, since I’ve come out of the closet as a theist, the only people who have given me a hard time are non-religious folks. Again, I urge you to look at the comments on the Prager-Harris debate and judge for yourself. The most scathing criticisms about what I have to say come from atheists who insist on filtering me and other religious folks through their own stereotypes and pre-conceived notions. Some critics of Dennis Prager have sunk quite low and have posted ad hominem attacks that are completely devoid of any real substance. So much for the idea that atheists have a monopoly on logic and reasoning.

I’m getting hell from the atheist camp. But not a single Christian has told me I’ll be damned for all eternity if l convert to Judaism. (If I missed a comment posted to that effect, please bring it to my attention.) At Thanksgiving, my born-again Christian cousin went out of her way to praise the values of Judaism and to tell me she finds it to be an admirable religion. Isn’t that remarkable, given the history of persecution that Jews have suffered at the hands of Christians? Isn’t it especially remarkable, given the supposedly bigoted, intolerant, narrow-mindedness of Christians?

You ask where atheists get their impressions of religious people. Some of it may come from personal experience. I myself have known a lot of religious jerks. Even so, it doesn’t justify stereotyping all believers. Those same folks who don’t think twice about slapping a label on all believers based on the actions of a few would be quick to condemn somebody who used that very same logic toward a particular ethnic group.

I think a lot of criticism toward organized religion these days is a trickle-down effect from the elite intellectual class. Many college professors are hostile to religion, and it shows in the way they teach and handle arguments from their students. A lot of folks in journalism and entertainment don’t like Judeo-Christian folks, and it shows in the way they slant their coverage of the news and the kinds of characters they develop for shows and movies. I am convinced that a movie like “The Sound of Music” could never be re-made today and still retain the spirit of the original. Hollywood would not be able to pull off the portrayal of a religious person without injecting some modern cynicism into it. The remake might have Captain von Trapp and Maria doing a little pre-marital “test drive.” Some skeleton would have to be shaken out of Mother Superior’s closet, just so everybody can rest assured that those serene religious types are actually hypocrites beneath the surface.

You ask whether independent, critical thinking is the exclusive domain of atheists. Contrary to what a lot of atheists believe, it is not a monopoly of either the believer or the non-believer. But, in my atheist years, I would have automatically dismissed any believer as a serious, critical thinker solely because he or she was a believer. Needless to say, I no longer subscribe to this way of thinking.

Sincerely,

Christine Silk

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For almost a quarter of a century, I was an atheist. Only since I turned 40 this year have I become a renegade by switching from the atheist camp to the organized religion camp. I’m an uneasy believer who goes to synagogue, even though I’ve not converted. It’s a strange place to be, after having spent most of my adult life arguing that organized religion is a delusion for people who can’t handle rationality.

When I was an atheist, I had this mistaken image that religious people find God in a blinding moment of epiphany, and then walk the primrose path forever more. Well, I’ve had no epiphany. I don’t know if God is real. And my path is not strewn with primroses. It’s full of obstacles and uncertainty. I was far more tranquil in the certainty of my atheism.

I became at atheist at 16, when I discovered Ayn Rand. My Italian-Catholic family was horrified, but I thrived on being a maverick.

Besides the rebellion factor, atheism had other benefits. It was, in some circles, a litmus test for admittance into elite intellectual company, as I found out during my college years.

Among certain students and professors, it didn’t matter how one came to atheism, whether through Rand, Marx, science, or the zeitgeist of modern intellectual life. What mattered was to avoid being branded as one of those naïve religious types. That was the ultimate stigma of uncool: to admit that you went to church or synagogue and actually believed the stuff.

For most of my life I considered atheism to be a hallmark of intellectual seriousness. No matter how smart or accomplished or wise somebody was, if he or she believed in God, that was a strike, in my book.

Atheism g
ave me an excuse not to wrestle too hard or too long with transcendent issues, such as: What is the good life? Where does morality come from? Why does existence exist, as opposed to non-existence? Why order as opposed to chaos? Ayn Rand had worked it out, or so I believed, and whatever gaps she left, scientists would fill in.

Then I got married and had children. Eventually, they started asking questions. Is God real? If not, why do people believe in Him? Where do good and evil come from? What happens when we die?

I wasn’t sure how to answer. I couldn’t simply dust off my dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged and start reading passages aloud to them. So I did the sensible thing: I let my husband answer those questions. He had already moved on from his agnostic phase and was beginning to study Torah.

We had our kids converted to Judaism when they were very young. This was not a problem for me. My atheist reasoning was this: I’d been baptized. Holy water in my youth had not stopped me from becoming an atheist, and a mikveh would be no barrier to them if they chose to give up their belief when they got older. I don’t hold this viewpoint now, but it made sense to me at the time.

Eventually, my husband wanted to join a Conservative synagogue. I was willing, but nervous.

“They’re going to know I’m a shikseh the moment they find out my name,” I told him. “And then when we talk theology, they’ll kick me out when they discover I’m an atheist.”

“Don’t worry,” my husband said. “Nobody will care.”

He was right. Nobody at synagogue gave me the third degree about my religious beliefs, nor did anybody look askance when I said my name. In many ways, I found it easier to be an atheist among believers, than, I imagine, it was to be a devoutly religious person in a secular university.

Not long after we started attending synagogue, I ran into a distant relative entering her sophomore year at college. She announced that she was an atheist. She was glib about it, as if she were talking about pledging for a sorority. As an atheist, I should have felt happy that she was joining my camp.

But I wasn’t. I was taken aback. Had atheism now become a fashion statement among college students? When I was an atheist, it meant something. At least that’s what I told myself. There was a certain gravitas you had when you said it, and you had to be ready to defend your position.

But now that atheism was trickling down to the undergraduate masses, it was becoming so commonplace that they didn’t seem to feel the need to defend themselves, as we “old school” atheists did. Had any of these youngsters actually read Antony Flew, Richard Dawkins, or George Smith? Did they know about Pascal’s wager and the argument from design? No? Then they weren’t serious atheists. Or maybe nobody cared enough to challenge them.

But my reaction to this college student wasn’t really about her or her generation. It was about the fact that I was growing older and outgrowing atheism.

The great Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig was once asked whether he put on tefillin. “Not yet,” he replied. For me, those two words sum up where I find myself these days. I’ve had no direct experience with God, no extraordinary insight, no proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt of anything supernatural. Not yet. Still, I go to synagogue, celebrate Shabbat with my family, and read Pirkei Avot from time to time.

My kids occasionally ask me if I’m ready to convert. “Not yet,” I tell them. And it’s the best answer I can give right now.

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