Council Blog

Some of the secular Fellows of the Secular Global Institute

Catholic, born-again, Reformed, Jew, Muslim, Shiite, Sunni, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist…religions give people labels. The downside can be tribalism, an assumption that insiders are better than outsiders, that they merit more compassion, integrity and generosity or even that violence toward “infidels” is acceptable. But the upside is that religious or spiritual labels offer a way of defining who we are.  They remind adherents that our moral sense and quest for meaning are core parts of what it means to be human. They make it easier to convey a subset of our deepest values to other people, and even to ourselves.

For those who have lost their religion or never had one, finding a label can feel important. It can be part of a healing process or, alternately, a way of declaring resistance to a dominant and oppressive paradigm. Finding the right combination of words can be a challenge though. For a label to fit it needs to resonate personally and also communicate what you want to say to the world. Words have definitions, connotations and history, and how people respond to your label will be affected by all three. What does it mean? What emotions does it evoke? Who are you identifying as your intellectual and spiritual forebears and your community? The differences may be subtle but they can be important.

If, one way or another, you’ve left religion behind, and if you’ve been unsure what to call yourself, you might try on one of these:

1. Atheist. The term atheist can be defined literally as lacking a humanoid god concept, but historically it means one of two things.  Positive atheism asserts that a personal supreme being does not exist.  Negative atheism simply asserts a lack of belief in such a deity.  It is possible be a positive atheist about the Christian God, for example, while maintaining a stance of negative atheism or even uncertainty on the question of a more abstract deity like a “prime mover.” In the United States, it is important to know that atheist may be the most reviled label for a godless person. Devout believers use it as a slur and many assume an atheist has no moral core.  Until recently calling oneself an atheist was an act of defiance.  That appears to be changing.  With the rise of the “New Atheists” and the recent atheist visibility movement, the term is losing its edge.
2. Anti-theist. When atheist consistently evoked images of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, hostility toward religion was assumed.  Now that it may evoke a white-haired grandmother at the Unitarian church or the gay kid on Glee, some people want a term that more clearly conveys their opposition to the whole religious enterprise.  The term anti-theist says, “I think religion is harmful.”  It also implies some form of activism that goes beyond merely advocating church-state separation or science education. Anti-theism challenges the legitimacy of faith as a moral authority or way of knowing. Anti-theists often work to expose harms caused in the name of God like stonings, gay baiting, religious child maltreatment, genital mutilation, unwanted childbearing or black-collar crime. The New Atheist writers including Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins might better be described as anti-theists.
3. Agnostic. Some atheists think of agnostic as a weenie term, because it gets used by people who lack a god-concept but don’t want to offend family members or colleagues. Agnostic doesn’t convey the same sense of confrontation or defiance that atheist can, and so it gets used as a bridge. But in reality, the term agnostic represents a range of intellectual positions that have important substance in their own right and can be independent of atheism. Strong agnosticism views God’s existence as unknowable, permanently and to all people.  Weak agnosticism can mean simply “I don’t know if there is a God,” or “We collectively don’t know if there is a God but we might find out in the future.” Alternately, the term agnosticism can be used to describe an approach to knowledge, somewhat like skepticism (which comes next in this list). Philosopher Thomas Huxley illustrates this position:‘Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle… Positively the principle may be expressed as ‘in matters of intellect, do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.’These three definitions of agnosticism, though different, all focus on what we do or can know, rather than on whether God exists. This means it is possible to be both atheist and agnostic. Many describe themselves as both.The question of what term to use is a difficult one, in strict terms I suppose I’m an agnostic because of course the circle of the things I do know is vastly smaller than the things I don’t know about out there in the darkness somewhere maybe there is a God. But among all the things I do know in this world I see no evidence of a God whatsoever and everybody who claims to know there is a God seems to use that as an excuse for exercising power over other people, and historically as we know from looking at the history in Europe alone that’s involved persecution, massacre, slaughter on an industrial scale, it’s a shocking prospect.
4. Skeptic. Traditionally, skeptic has been used to describe a person who doubts received religious dogmas. However, while agnostic focuses on God questions in particular, the term skeptic expresses a broader life approach.  Someone who calls him- or herself a skeptic has put critical thinking at the heart of the matter. Well-known skeptics, like Michael Shermer, Penn and Teller, or James Randi devote a majority of their effort to debunking pseudoscience, alternative medicine, astrology and so forth. They broadly challenge the human tendency to believe things on insufficient evidence.
5. Freethinker. Free-thinker is a term that dates to the end of the 17th century, when it was first used in England to describe those who opposed the Church and literal belief in the Bible.  Freethought is an intellectual stance that says that opinions should be based on logic and evidence rather than authorities and traditions. Well known philosophers including John Locke and Voltaire were called freethinkers in their own time, and a magazine, The Freethinker, has been published in Britain continuously from 1881 to the present. The term has gotten popular recently in part because it is affirmative. Unlike atheism, which defines itself in contrast to religion, freethought identifies with a proactive process for deciding what is real and important
6. Humanist. While terms like atheist or anti-theist focus on a lack of god-belief and agnostic, skeptic and freethinker all focus on ways of knowing—humanist centers in on a set of ethical values. Humanism seeks to promote broad wellbeing by advancing compassion, equality, self-determination, and other values that allow individuals to flourish and to live in community with each other. These values drive not from revelation, but from human experience.  As can be seen in two manifestos published in 1933 and 1973 respectively, humanist leaders don’t shy away from concepts like joy and inner peace that have spiritual connotations. In fact, some think that religion itself should be reclaimed by those who have moved beyond supernaturalism but recognize the benefits of spiritual community and ritual.  Harvard Chaplain Greg Epstein dreams of incubating a thriving network of secular congregations.
7. Pantheist. As self-described humanists seek to reclaim the ethical and communitarian aspects of religion, pantheists center in on the spiritual heart of faith–the experience of humility, wonder, and transcendence. They see human beings as one small part of a vast natural order, with the Cosmos itself made conscious in us. Pantheists reject the idea of a person- god, but believe that the holy is made manifest in all that exists. Consequently, they often have a strong commitment to protecting the sacred web of life in which and from which we have our existence. The writings of Carl Sagan reflect this sentiment and often are quoted by pantheists, for example in a “Symphony of Science” video series which mixes evocative natural world images, atonal music, and the voices of leading scientists, and has received 30 million views.

If none of these fit … Keep looking. Many of the American founding fathers were deists who didn’t believe in miracles or special revelation through sacred texts but thought that the natural world itself revealed a designer who could be discovered through reason and inquiry.  Naturalists assume a philosophical position that the laws operating within the natural realm are the only laws governing the universe and no supernatural realm lies beyond. Secularists argue that moral standards and laws should be based on whether they do good or harm in this world and that religion should be kept out of government.

A parody of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, is an iconic image
of the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ by Arne Niklas Jansson.

Recently there has been steep uptick in people who identify as godless and a parallel uptick in atheist and humanist visibility efforts.  Many godless people are newly out of religion (or newly out of the closet). Despite the best efforts of, say, the Humanist Community Project or Foundation Beyond Belief, stable communities organized around shared secular values and spiritual practices have yet to emerge. That means our labels are largely individual and sometimes experimental. We may try one on for size, live with it for a while, then try on something else.

As a movement, sexual and gender minorities have faced a similar challenge. LGB started replacing the term “gay community” in the 1980s. It then became LGBT, and then LGBTQ (to acknowledge those who were questioning) or LGBTI (to include intersex people).  In India, an H got added to the end for the Hijra subculture. For urban teens, the catch-all termqueer has now replaced the cumbersome acronym. Secular rights activists may eventually evolve a similar catch all, but in the meantime, organizations that want to be inclusive end up with long lists on their ‘About’ pages:  atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker, pantheist, skeptic and more.

So, join the experiment that picking one that fits and wearing it for a while. Or make up your own. I often call myself a “spiritual nontheist.” It’s a mouthful, but it forces people to ask, what is that?  and then, rather than having them make assumptions I get to tell them where I’m at: I don’t have any kind of humanoid god concept, and I think that issues of morality and meaning are at the very heart of what it means to be human. Maybe next year I’ll find something that fits even better.

By: Valerie Tarico . . This article originally appeared in AlterNet.

When the monument is finished, the Baphomet will rest on the block beneath the inverted pentagram. His lap will serve as a seat for children.

One of the favorite myths that Christian conservatives like to tell about themselves is that they are champions protecting “religious freedom” from the supposed oppressions of a secular humanist society. But that argument is increasingly being tested by, of all people, Satanists. Yes, people who claim to worship the demon that Christians believe runs hell are quickly learning how easy it is to show that the Christian right never had any intention of protecting “religious freedom”. Instead, time and time again, Satanists are showing that the conservative Christian definition of “religious freedom” doesn’t apply at all to faiths, like Satanism, that offend them. Faced with the demands of Satanists, the supposed religious freedom crusaders of the religious right turn right back into the theocrats they always were, interested only in having government endorsement of their religion and often eager to demand that the government stomp out religious practices that offend them.

Oh yeah, and it all has the side benefit of exposing the Christian right as a humorless movement that struggles to tell the difference between reality and satire. But that’s just a bonus for observers. A few recent stunts by Satanists have done a great job exposing Christian hypocrisy.

The latest dust-up involves a Satanic “black mass” conducted in a Civic Center in Oklahoma City. The Dakhma of Angra Mainyu Syndicate held a 2-3 hour ceremony that mocked the Catholic mass by stomping on bread and sexualizing the grape juice-in-lieu of wine, as well as praying to various demons.

Father Jonathan Morris went on Fox News Sunday to demand that Oklahoma City officials shut down the black mass. After paying lip service to the idea that Satanists have a “political right” to worship, the fact that some people in the community oppose it should be considered reason enough to shut it down. “When you have a group that does this, not just because they want to do their own little worship, but they are provoking anger and hatred among the community, the city can step in and say, ‘That’s not worship, that’s not free speech, that’s mockery, and you’re inciting violence!’”, he added, as if it’s the fault of Satanists if people assault them and not the fault of people doing the assaulting.

“But what if I want to go and desecrate a Koran out in front of my church?” complained Morris. “What if I want to speak pro-Nazi stuff right in front of my church and get people all fired up on a public sidewalk?” In fact, both of those would actually be completely allowed under the First Amendment. Christian conservatives are constantly floating the fear that Christian pastors will be thrown in jail for preaching hate against gay people, but in fact, this doesn’t happen precisely because of the same freedoms that allow a bunch of Satanists to stomp on some bread and say they are against Jesus. By flailing around like this, Father Jonathan Morris showed how much the Christian right wants to have it both ways: Demand broad religious rights for themselves while demanding state oppression when others want the exact same rights.

Oklahoma is the home of another stunt by much-funnier Satanists who have figured out how to expose this particular Christian right hypocrisy.  Christians put a monument to the Ten Commandments up at the Oklahoma Statehouse, declaring their right to do so as one of religious freedom. The Satanic Temple, run out of New York City, responded by demanding the same religious freedom to put up a monument to the demon Baphomet.

The proposed monument is a hoot: Baphomet sitting on a throne while two children gaze adoringly at his goatly visage. The point of the stunt, however, is quite serious, to expose the hypocrisy of Christian conservatives who want to justify government endorsement of religion under the guise of “religious freedom”. Lucien Greaves of the Temple told Vice, “Constitutional law is quite clear on this issue: The state can’t discriminate against viewpoints. If they’ve opened the door for one, they’ve opened it for all.” To turn down the Satanists is to admit that the Christian right didn’t care for religious freedom at all, but simply wants government to push their religion while suppressing others who disagree.

The Satanic Temple is pulling a similar stunt in Florida, to protest the Orange County Public Schools, which allowed the World Changers of Florida to pass out Bibles and religious pamphlets on campus.  An atheist group already managed to get its protest in by getting similar permission to pass out atheist materials, putting the district in a situation where they either had to let them do it or risk a lawsuit. But the Satanist groups are making the situation hilariously surreal by asking to distribute The Satanic Children’s BIG BOOK of Activities, a coloring book with games that explain the ins and outs of Satanic rituals, as well as showing kids how to draw a pentagram.

The Satanic Temple publishes a kids’ coloring book called ‘The Satanic Children’s Book”

As with the Oklahoma case, Greaves explains that it’s a matter of simple fairness, because “if a public school board is going to allow religious pamphlets and full Bibles to be distributed to students — as is the case in Orange County, Florida — we think the responsible thing to do is to ensure that these students are given access to a variety of differing religious opinions.

Ian Millhiser at Think Progress concurs, pointing out that in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, the Supreme Court decided that churches could show religious films on school property so long as they didn’t turn around and discriminate against other religions who want the same rights. “Under the Constitution, what’s good for an evangelical church is also good for the Satanic Temple,” Millhiser concludes.

For years now, the Christian right has been able to push government endorsement of religion by claiming that they aren’t asking for special rights to use school grounds, statehouse lawns and civic centers for their religious agenda. The only way to know for sure is to put them in a situation where they extend the same privileges they want for themselves to people who they not only hate, but fear: Satanists. So far, they’re failing the test.

By: Amanda Marcotte . . She is the author of “It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.”