The Empirical Root

Even though the science versus religion “conflict myth” has been debunked by scholars for some time now, this chapter shows that most American atheists still presume it is true today. Methodologically, they prefer science’s integrity over religion’s comfort; attitudinally, they elevate science’s open-mindedness above religion’s closed-mindedness; and in terms of consequences, they believe science leads to progress while religion leads to regression. Yet, unlike the New Atheist authors whom many atheists have read, their worldviews do not come so close to scientism, the perception that science is the only way of knowing about the world. Instead they complement their esteem for science with strong convictions about things that are personally meaningful to them and, in some cases, even feel comfortable with describing themselves as spiritual.

Acquiring Atheist Identities

This chapter explores people’s accounts of what it felt like to first identify as atheists. In talking about this, they rely on one of two acquisition frames. The teleological frame depicts atheism as an outcome of one’s personal growth, whereas the situational frame casts it in terms of being a consequence of one’s lived context. In providing these accounts, they also say that identifying as an atheist took either a modest or a considerable level of effort on their part. Taken together, these two sets of categories provide four “ideal types” of atheist identity acquisition narratives: inquisitives (teleological frame, modest effort); searchers (teleological frame, considerable effort); consolidators (situational frame; modest effort); and responders (situational frame; considerable effort). Most of this chapter is focused on describing these four narrative types in detail.

Conclusion

This conclusion begins by pointing out some of the differences between the foci and findings in this book and those addressed within the psychologist and philosopher William James’s classic The Varieties of Religious Experience. His book focused on religious conversion, whereas this one attends to atheists. James pays most attention to the psychological aspects of conversion, while this book draws readers’ attentions to aspects of social context that shape the expression and experience of atheism. While James argues that religious ideas are variable and only the feeling of finding the sacred is consistent across individual cases, this book shows that, for atheists, the idea of the science versus religion “conflict myth” is constant, whereas the feelings that authenticate this idea are actually variable. This chapter concludes with suggestions about how atheists could offer a more incisive contribution to American public discourse than they do at present.

Maintaining Atheist Identities

Whereas only a minority of American atheists participate in atheism-related groups and communities, this chapter describes how many more of them maintain their atheist identities by situating themselves within an “imagined community” of nonbelievers. They do this by telling “stigma stories” that range from minor suspicions about being treated differently by believers to outright rejection by them. Next, they cast the believers in their midst as being irrational insofar as they are deemed insufficiently equipped, unable, or unwilling to properly use their reason when addressing matters of faith and religion. Finally, they access and rely upon their feelings as a kind of affective confirmation that they are living decent and purposive lives without religion. These feelings include regret about their religious pasts, a feeling of freedom from religious strictures in the present, and a sense of responsibility for carving out meaningful lives into the future.

Well, I’ll Be Damned!

This chapter debunks three presumptions about atheism and three presumptions about American atheists themselves. Concerning atheism, it demonstrates that, rather than being something simple, atheism is actually quite complex and variegated. Rather than being new, it is actually a long-standing phenomenon, and to illustrate, this chapter focuses on various atheist roots, or styles of atheist thinking, that appear in ancient Greece. Instead of being something extrinsic to the development of Western religion and consciousness, atheism is actually a reflection of these. Concerning atheists in the United States, this chapter also demonstrates that they are generally not immoral, which they are widely presumed to be. Nor, on the other hand, are they necessarily more rational than their religious fellow citizens. Lastly, atheists are not an insignificant minority since the proportion of Americans who identify as atheist is larger than that of many well-known religious groups; in fact, their numbers and cultural influence seem to be growing.

The Critical Root

This chapter addresses atheists’ views on religion, which are considerably more nuanced than what one finds in the books by New Atheist authors. Specifically, everyday atheists are less bothered by other people’s belief in God than they are by the detrimental behaviors they consider to be often wrought from believing in such images of God as judge, sovereign, and father. They are similarly less critical of many people’s innate religiosity than they are with the objectified worldviews from distinct religions. Lastly, they are much less critical of religious people (who are often their friends, family members, spouses, and so forth) than they are of religious institutions, which they think make people worse than they would be otherwise. Ironically, these nuanced positions, this chapter further shows, actually resemble the positions of many progressive people of faith far more than atheists generally realize.

The Agnostic Root

This chapter demonstrates how atheists acknowledge their unknowing about certain questions of human existence and, in so doing, present and even experience themselves as people who are exceptionally open to life’s mysteries in general; to a new way of living for which feelings of responsibility and gratitude are prominent features; and even to the reality of death, which, in light of their brevity, only serves to intensify their commitments to living responsible, grateful lives.

The Immanent Root

This chapter explores atheists’ common contention that their moral sensibilities represent progress over those expressed by people of faith. Atheists generally contend that morality is not derived from religious worldviews, that most morally decent religious people actually get their ethics from the same secular sources as do atheists, and that overall atheists are actually more moral than their religious fellow citizens. They also claim that atheist morality represents progress from its religious counterparts because, requiring little by way of systematic thinking or heroic levels of obligation, it is more achievable in everyday life, and since it is imparted to individuals through societal norms and institutions, its requirements are actually more accessible to people who thus do not need to rely upon others’ expertise in discerning ethical positions.