Do Atheists Need A Church?

[Lightkeeper]

The fastest-growing faith in America is no faith at all. And now some atheists think they need a church.

By Sean McManus Published Apr 21, 2008


Do Atheists Need a Church?

1) The atheist needs to be, to a certain extent, politicized and educated to be able to defend themselves against the Christian onslaught. You know, the Christian media is so powerful right now, and you probably don’t see it as much in the city, but it’s just, anywhere else in the country it’s kind of overwhelming. —Nathan Bush

2) I don’t think that they need a church. I feel like the entire city is their church. —Warren Giddarie

It seems unlikely that many of the 850 or so people at the Society for Ethical Culture on a recent Saturday night believed that God was still extant. But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and possibly the most famous atheist in the world, was not taking any chances. He gave a PowerPoint presentation driving home that religion does not meet any of the standards of basic scientific inquiry, before casually flicking away a few of His last crutches. Doesn’t God provide people some solace? asked an audience member. “Isn’t that a little childish?” Dawkins replied. “Just because something is comforting doesn’t mean it’s true.” Then someone asked about death, and Dawkins quoted Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born.”



The room erupted in loud applause. God had definitely left the building—if he were ever here at all. Dawkins and his colleagues had helped to produce a kind of atheist big bang, a new beginning. But what kind of new structures might evolve?



The Society for Ethical Culture was formed in 1877, eighteen years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species and made the religious universe wobble on its axis. But godlessness can be a little scary, even for an atheist. Ethical Culture’s imposing 1910 edifice on Central Park speaks to its patrons’ wealth, as well as their concern that society might fall apart if it didn’t have a church. But for all the grandeur of its secular cathedral, Ethical Culture peaked at maybe 6,000 members, with only about 3,000 today.



Now, once again, nonbelievers have a fresh sense of mission. The fastest-growing faith in the country is no faith at all. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released the results of its “Religious Landscape” survey in February and found that 16 percent of Americans have no religious affiliation. The number is even greater among young people: 25 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds now identify with no religion, up from 11 percent in a similar survey in 1986. For most of its modern history, atheism has existed as a kind of civil-rights movement. Groups like American Atheists have functioned primarily as litigants in the fight for church-state separation, not as atheist social clubs. “Atheists are self-reliant, self-sufficient, independent people who don’t feel like they need an organization,” says Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists for the past thirteen years. “They’re so independent that if they want to get involved, they usually don’t join an organization—they start their own.”



The quartet of best-selling authors who have emerged to write the gospel of New Atheism—Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Dawkins (the Four Horsemen, as they are now known)—has succeeded in mainstreaming atheism in a nation that is still overwhelmingly religious and, in the process, catalyzed a reexamination of atheistic raison d’être. But for some atheist foot soldiers, this current groundswell is just a consciousness-raising stop on the evolutionary train, the atheist equivalent of the Stonewall riots. For these people, the Four Horsemen have only started the journey. Atheism’s great awakening is in need of a doctrine. “People perceive us as only rejecting things,” says Ken Bronstein, the president of a local group called New York City Atheists. “Everybody wants to know, ‘Okay, you’re an atheist, now what?’ ”



So some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God. The most successful movements in history, after all—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.—all have creeds, cathedrals, schools, hierarchies, rituals, money, clerics, and some version of a heavenly afterlife. Churches fill needs, goes the argument—they inculcate ethics, give meaning, build communities. “Science and reason are important,” says Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain of Harvard University. “But science and reason won’t visit you in the hospital.”



Many atheist sects are experimenting with building new, human-centered quasi-religious organizations, much like Ethical Culture. They aim to remove God from the church, while leaving the church, at least large parts of it, standing. But this impulse is fueling a growing schism among atheists. Many of them see churches as part of the problem. They want to throw out the baby and the bathwater—or at least they don’t see the need for the bathwater once the baby is gone.



On a recent chilly Friday night, a few dozen members of the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism were gathered downstairs at the Village Community School on West 10th Street for Shabbat. For them, this is a monthly ritual that includes lighting candles and singing Jewish songs that have been carefully excised of a deity. “Where is my light?” asks the song “Ayfo Oree.” “My light is in me.” According to the congregation’s leader, the humanist rabbi Peter Schweitzer, who wrote much of the secular Shabbat service, as well as the lyrics and verse for the congregation’s life-cycle events like weddings, funerals, and bar and bat mitzvahs, Judaism is mostly a culture—religion is just one component. So he simply takes a red pen to the God parts. “We offer a different door in,” says Schweitzer. “One that doesn’t ask you to compromise your lack of beliefs.”

Do Atheists Need a Church of Their Own? -- New York Magazine

Are some atheists leaning more toward spirituality?

[metis]

Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

Are some atheists leaning more toward spirituality?

I guess it at least somewhat depends on how one defines "spirituality". One could adapt some forms of Buddhism, for example, that do not have a belief in deities, and all Buddhist groups do not believe in a creator-god. But do they have "spirituality"? How are we to define it is my question?

[Rev. Kelly]

Yes and no. Most people consider a church a place of worship, and since atheists don't believe in a god, in this sense they don't need a church. On the other hand, to have a place to be able to gather with like-minded people and discuss their views and beliefs, then yes they would need a church. It will all depend on your definition of church.

[mooomooo]

Atheists cannot have a 'Church' .

A church is a place of 'Worship to God' ,, and a place for people to gather and share their Faith with others who are also in Faith , and some who are curious , and some who do not believe , but all are welcome but it has been 'structures' for people in Faith of God .

Any Atheist can 'rent' a Church so to speak and have Atheist meetings and etc but they cannot call their place of meetings a Church even if it is a Church because as soon as the Atheist uses the Church for their agendas it is no longer a Church albeit it certainly looks like one .

Just as a Karate Club might rent out the 'gymnasium' at the Church and state their Karate meetings are being held in " Church ' but they mean it is being held " in the Church building " but not in the Church as the Church is not for that in it's concept of God , and a place of Worship to God .

A Muslim group could rent a Christian Church for meetings but again the Church is 'rented' etc and not being extended to the Muslims or Atheists as then it would no longer be a Church and would just be a rented beautiful place , and then on Sunday Worship , it becomes a Church again .

So just because a person decides to go to a Jewish Synagogue and watch them Pray does not make them Jewish or Atheist , and although all are welcome , the Church is for Christians and the Synagogues for Jewish etc and if an Atheist says they are going to hold their Atheist meetings at the Jewish Synagogue , that does not make them Jewish and the Synagogue changes when the Atheist uses it and when the Atheists are done the Synagogue returns to the Jewish representation it beholds .

So,, the Atheist getting their own 'Church ' is a good mis-use of words and as Rev Kelly stated , sort of ,

" A home is not a home if no one is living there " .

So yes , it is great that the Atheists will become 'united' and hold meetings in a recognised concept with a 'structured building' but the building will never be Church but it will be a ' Place For Atheists" ,, and there is nothing wrong with that .

[evangelicalhumanist]

This is going for something of a stretch, but no, I don't think atheists have any particular need of a "church," or even anything that vaguely resembles one. However, I think that many atheists are quite as spiritual as many religious (as I think that some religious are just as empty of real spirutuality as some atheists).

My reason for saying so is that, to me, a church is a place where people bolster their faith, by participating in rites with like-minded people. I think sometimes that (though there may be people who have genuinely mystical experiences) a lot of folks in church are merely verifying for themselves that, because so many people seem to believe, then it must be true.

Atheists, on the other hand, have typically come to their god-free worldview pretty much on their own. Almost every atheist in the west has been brought up around some form of religion, but rejected it. (This is unlike the majority who, brought up around religion, accept it because it's there. I'll grant some of them intellectually come to their own, personal reasons for belief, but most -- I think -- believe out of cultural conditioning and habit).

When you've come to your own, hard-thought conclusion about something as important as god, it is really unlikely that you'll need much support or reinforcement. That's why the various atheist groups have so few members attending meetings. What's there to do but bash theists? And really, after a while that gets to be boring (except for the "New Atheists," of course, who make pots of money from selling books doing just that).