This post is a convergence of concerns elicited by Johnny’s guest post on atheism’s negative PR and my reading of this month’s Mind on Fire book selection, Bury the Chains.
I may be conflating too much history here, but this was a time of revolution and radical egalitarianism. It’s interesting to me that during a time when deism was flourishing and many prominent Anglicans were very secular in their approach to religion, it was a minority of Quakers and Evangelical Anglicans that devoted unceasing effort to abolishing slavery.
I have a few heroes who I admired as a Mormon, later as a Christian, and currently as an atheist Quaker. Some of the more famous examples include Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Theresa. They shared a common concern for the suffering of others that drove them to dedicate their lives to serving humanity. While I don’t accept many of their beliefs, I appreciate their this-worldly focus and cannot deny that they improved the lives of millions. Their visions and examples continue to influence people like me to be our best selves and to work for a better world.
They are among the reasons why I choose to continue to work and affiliate with religion and the religious. Quakers in particular have been on the forefront of social activism throughout history, from the abolition of slavery to universal suffrage to the founding of Amnesty International.
I acknowledge that there are plenty of common folk, religious and secular, who work towards peace and justice. But why do there seem to be so few prominent atheist/agnostic social activists in modern history? Is it simply a matter of poor PR for secular activists? Of basic numbers (more religious people, more chances of producing social activists)? Is there something wrong with my definition of social activism that excludes atheists? Or do religious leaders have more material to work with including powerful religious metaphors, language and narratives and established social networks?
I hope I’m completely wrong, and you send me a barrage of wonderful atheist exemplars for me to add to my list of heroes.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Elaine Frei // Apr 3, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Well, I don’t have any shining examples to give you, John, but I think part of the problem is that so few people, even today, are willing to self-identify as atheists. A new poll in Newsweek (I would post a link, but I’m not sure how to do so here), just published on March 31, shows that only 3 percent of the US public is willing to do so, even though six percent said they don’t believe in any god at all. As the story reporting the poll numbers says, perhaps in overwhelming understatement, this might suggest that “the term may carry some stigma.” Historically, I imagine this stigma likely has a lot to do with the percption that few social activists are atheists.
Perhaps there is also another factor at work: those who have been willing to identify as atheists, especially in the past, might have had trouble either making the contacts to participate in existing socially active organizations. Couple this with a possible reluctance of philanthropists to give money to self-identifying atheists who have wanted to start their own activist organizations, and you could have an answer to a significant portion of your question.
2 Bored in Vernal // Apr 3, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I don’t know about heroes, but would you consider the following non-religious social activists?
Karl Marx
Ralph Nader
Gloria Steinem
Jack Kevorkian
Margaret Sanger
There’s got to be lots more…
I think anyone who believes something strongly can be driven to become an activist. Perhaps religion is better at turning people into fanatics than anything else???
3 mel // Apr 4, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Let’s just call the doers of good and evil what they are: human. And speaking from the probability bent, the huge disparity between the the number of publicly acknowledged atheists an theists is more than enough to account for the apparent lack of atheist social activists — though Bored in Vernal cracked the door to exposing the sampling fallacy.
But if theists and other religiously minded folks want to persist in this fallacy, they could at least do us the favor of honestly taking full account for the statistical predominance of evil done by believers.
The argument that most of the social good done in the world has been done by the religious is about as insightful as claiming that most of the breathes taken in Provo are taken by Mormons.
4 mel // Apr 4, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Wikipedia has a nice list of well known atheists … and again, these are the ones that have openly spoken of their atheism.
Most would have remained silent, knowing that to speak openly would lead to a loss of all credibility (if not many other things depending upon the era and/or culture).
Sam Harris makes a good point when faced with this very claim by Rick Warren it The God Debate:
IOW, even the social reformers among the religious are very ofter more or less rejecting some aspect of orthodoxy in the process. In essence, becoming atheists with respect to the god that currently rules the minds of men.
5 John // Apr 4, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Mel, I want to avoid taking this down the tired path of who is responsible for more evil: religious v. unbelievers. And I know plenty of principled atheists who are very very committed activists. I’m asking specifically for exemplars/heroes–the great servants of humanity.
I suspect that the answer is more complicated than straight odds. I think that numbers help because religious leaders have large groups of people they can mobilize. There may be other issues as well. It may be more difficult to organize and direct large numbers of independent thinkers.
I wonder if passion for a social cause and unrelenting skepticism are difficult to reconcile as well. Or do many atheists spend too much time focused on ideas, and not enough on social reality? I can name dozens of prominent atheist philosophers and scientists, but few of these devoted much of their lives to social activism. Perhaps the exceptions are the atheists who fight bigotry against atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Ellen Johnson).
6 John // Apr 4, 2007 at 1:55 pm
That Wikipedia link is handy! Here’s my nascent list of atheist social activist heroes:
- Margaret Sanger
- Andrew Carnegie (for his philanthropy)
- Mikhail Gorbachev
John Dewey and Albert Einstein are already on the list, though they are not known primarily for their social causes.
7 mel // Apr 4, 2007 at 2:08 pm
John, I think you misunderstood what I was saying about that “tired path”. My fault. My point isn’t to assign blame but to point out that good/evil is a human problem not a theism/atheism issue.
And if the appearance of a theism/atheism correlation is not largely a probability issue … a sampling fallacy … an illuision … then it can only be that “tired path”. What I’m saying that it’s not a theism/atheism issue but rather a human issue.
And ultimately, an issue of the mind and how it views the world. In this case, books and their writers are the supreme social activists.
8 John // Apr 4, 2007 at 4:23 pm
What I’m saying that it’s not a theism/atheism issue but rather a human issue.
Perhaps you’re right. I’m tempted to look at this as a social science (i.e., human) question. When say, the Catholic or Mormon churches want to mobilize for a political cause, they have hierarchies and networks already in place. Secularists (and believers who want to work outside of the values/constraints of their religious bodies) have to rely on other forms of social networking. They may have to work harder or more creatively, but probably have more freedom than believers.
And ultimately, an issue of the mind and how it views the world. In this case, books and their writers are the supreme social activists.
I struggle constantly over this. I’m all about ideas. Without Locke and Luther, there would have been no abolition. I do less well with implementation of those ideas in the real world. I can write all day about compassion, but am not all that good at cultivating and showing it. I get discouraged at the academics (some, not all) I associate with who seem completely disconnected from the real world.
I’m trying to find the right balance, where I can talk the talk and walk the walk. I think that’s one reason why I like hanging out with Quakers. They think, talk and write about ideas like radical egalitarianism and pacifism, but then they successfully turn those ideas into action as well.
9 Miko // Apr 4, 2007 at 4:59 pm
It’s been said, but I think a major reason is the built-in community structure a religion provides for social activism. MLK had considerable practice (if not training) in public speaking and rhetoric. Mother Theresa had a group of people who would do what she told them to (once she became “mother”, when she was just a sister, she simply had people who were inclined to listen to her & agree with her). I would argue that the changes made by Sanger & Nader are that much more impressive since they did not have a built-in structure of followers/agreers. The challenge for atheist social activists is to unite, not just to have good ideas.
10 Mana // Apr 4, 2007 at 5:18 pm
“Is it simply a matter of poor PR for secular activists? Of basic numbers (more religious people, more chances of producing social activists)? Or do religious leaders have more material to work with including powerful religious metaphors, language and narratives and established social networks?”
Yes, yes and yes, but I also think it’s a matter of perspective. I, having been raised in Europe, I see the issue more pronounced in the US. I grew up with only atheistic role models, thus to me it never seemed the religious involved themselves exclusively in good deeds.
Check out here a paper on atheist patterns around the world: http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html
According to some of the sources quoted in this paper as many as 60 to 80% of Swedes say they don’t believe in God.
When growing in a religious environment one is not raised to see the non-religious do-gooders out there. Little girls don’t grow up to have Tarja Halonen as a role model. Despite being President of Finland and a very popular and highly active social equality fighter, Halonen would raise some eyebrows in the US–she left the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland in protest to their member taxation policies, was elected as president while not being married (but having a common-law partnership with a man whom she married during her first term), oh and did I mention she’s female?
Probably just as many atheists are socially involved, but those who are outwardly atheistic as you said are fewer. Also I think the type of involvement is different. Most famous atheists are involved in the promotion of science, social justice, education etc.
Also, as I was reading just recently on a post on the Freedom from Religion Foundation website, atheists are generally not militant, thus they don’t make the news as much. Catherine Fharinger says, “If there do exist great groups of atheists joining together across the country in their various tax-exempt meeting houses to sing rousing militant songs about war and about being soldiers for their cause, I haven’t read about them in their special section of the newspaper.”
http://ffrf.org/fttoday/1997/october97/fahringer.html
And I agree with Mel, books, scholarship, make for very good social activists.
11 Bored in Vernal // Apr 4, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Just loooove the quote from Fharinger!
12 Atheist Revolution // Mar 11, 2008 at 8:14 am
You can find an online social network for Atheists at Atheist Revolution.
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