Why I am Not an Atheist:
Why I am Not a Christian, pt. 2

April 23, 2006

I suffer discomfort at the label of atheist. If I were asked directly about the existence of God, I would probably retreat to something like "I don't know." But "agnostic" seems like a cop-out, and I prefer to state an actual opinion rather than retreat into a non-threatening generality.. even if the opinion, by its nature, cannot be proven.

And my opinion would be that there is no God. I don't see what makes a God necessary. We like the idea of everything occurring by means of cause and effect.. "this is here because.." There are clear evolutionary gains to be had from the ability to reason about the origins of what one sees, and that reasoning will often take the form of a story.. "Why is this place being visited by that group?" The story that explains the past allows for the prediction of events in the future. This habit of mind works out very well in most areas of human development, allowing for the discovery of cycles and patterns.. but it has also led to a bundle of assumptions about the way the universe worked.. and led us to ask questions about the origin and nature of the universe itself.

We should be on guard against the reflexive question.. "If there is no God, then why does anything exist?" I suspect that would be the primal fall-back question for most theistic versions of the nature of the universe. It invites a further question.. "Then how did God come to exist?" Somehow that one is out of bounds; you can't ask questions like that about God. But what if you can't ask questions like that about matter either? What if the atomic physical nature of the matter breaks some of our human demands for cause and effect, beginning with the need for a beginning and end?

So, if that is my opinion, why not comfort with the label of atheist? My answer has to do with the nature of identity. Words like Christian and Muslim and Jew and Hindu have a lot to do not only with creedal belief, but with cultural identity. In two weeks when Emily and I go to Egypt, we will be required to fill out a form for a tourist visa. Among other questions on that form will be one in regards to religion. Theoretically one could write "atheist", but that would be met with both incomprehension and distrust.. and we will fill in "Christian".

There will be nothing dishonest about my claim to be a Christian.. I am culturally a Christian. We can imagine a line up of infidels from different religious traditions: a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Muslim. Even if each of us were agreed on everything I said above about the existence of God, so that we were united in belief, there would still be obvious differences between us, and those differences would be the result of culture. There is more to religion than simply a rote list of propositions with respect to God and the universe. In addition there are a million unstated values and assumptions about life and the best way to live.

An eye-opening experience came during my time in Morocco.. during my first trip to the Middle East. I was translating poetry with a girl in Fes who was majoring in English literature. We worked out something of a reading exchange.. I helped her in English, while she helped me in Arabic. At some point we came to the "The Lamb" by William Blake. You may remember it:

Little Lamb, who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice.
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee;
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by His name,
Little Lamb God bless thee,
Little Lamb God bless thee.

The first paragraph was no problem, but the second one presented some unexpected difficulties. For someone with a Christian background, the references to Jesus as the Lamb of God leap out. And the idea of the Incarnation is there.. God becoming a lowly Man. It all seems easy coming from a Christian background, but how to explain these things to my Moroccan friend? It was nigh impossible. These ideas simply did not compute.. God became a humble lamb? God a little child?

We here enter a conceptual/metaphorical world that is influenced by religion, but which also lies near the base of what we think of as culture. A secular American.. which is one possible description of myself.. by no means leaves behind cultural values unique to Christianity. Many aspects of Christianity.. including forgiveness, grace, and faith.. are susceptible to secular psychological reinterpretations (note the vast shelf of self-help books at your nearest bookstore). These are exactly the elements that would separate a secular Christian from a secular Muslim, Hindu, or Jewish counterpart.

Some Christians, I know, are resentful toward religious "free-riders".. that is, secular people who hold onto religious values while dismissing the belief system which gave birth to it. But that is to miss the reverse influence of culture on religion. A Christian from Italy, Russia, Egypt, and America would share some values, but would also be remarkably different. That difference can be explained only by reference to culture. Christianity has taken on various guises as a result of its interaction with individual cultural systems.. a Russian Orthodox believer is a product both of a religion and a cultural tradition that shaped that religion. When an Orthodox believer ceases to believe in the tenets held by church authorities, does he or she cease to be Russian Orthodox? In a specific way, yes.. but in another, deeper way, no.

Atheism is employed today.. especially in political debates.. largely as a label for outsiders. To be called an atheist is to be defined as someone who does not share the values of the majority of Americans. I am not particularly interested in rehabilitating the term. When I fill out that visa form in a couple of weeks, I will continue to check the box for "Christian".. even as I represent a non-theistic version of American Christianity..