Attack of the Theocrats!: How the Religious Right Harms Us All—and What We Can Do About It (18 page)

Surely there must be members of Congress today who openly profess a worldview not dominated by ancient superstition and texts, right?

I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God
.

—George H. W. Bush

To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life
.

—Theodore Roosevelt

Winner: The Good-Ole-Fashioned-Common-Sense Award

Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA)
: Says Congressman Stark, “[I am a] Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social service.” Boy, he is a very scary man! After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he served in the United States Air Force, then earned an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He next founded Security National Bank, which, in less than ten years, became a $100 million institution. Doesn’t this biography just reek of radicalism? Now it’s true that Pete Stark does think for himself. During the Vietnam War, most banks did not display a big peace sign outside the bank. His did. Stark was an early opponent of the Iraq invasion at a time when many Democrats supported the invasion. Stark, a veteran himself, supported reinstatement of the draft on the grounds that if America is to engage in invasions, the burden of military actions should be carried by our entire society and not “on the backs of poor people and minorities.” Eighty years old on November 11, 2011, Stark has seven children and is a devoted grandparent.
We’d love to give out more secular humanist awards to members of Congress, but, umm, this chapter is basically over. That’s right. The number of open nontheists in Congress today totals . . . one.

But think for a moment about all the good people who are Secular Americans and who have a made a positive contribution to our society and whose views on religion and God are essentially unreflected in Congress. Here’s a quick sample of Americans living today whom you might have heard of and who have openly discussed their nontheistic views: Steve Wozniak, Seth McFarlane, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Ani DiFranco, Ira Glass, John Malkovich, Jack Nicholson, Sean Lennon, Eddie Vedder, Andy Rooney, Joss Whedon, Dave Barry, Billy Joel, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Yoko Ono, George Clooney, Bill Gates, Steven Soderbergh, Tom Wolfe, Bill Maher, Oliver Sacks, John Sayles, Michael Kinsley, James Gleick, Kevin Kline, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Bryson, Gabriel Byrne, Jodie Foster, Tom Lehrer, Berkeley Breathed, Jon Stewart, Randy Newman, and Penn & Teller.

Why is there only one member of Congress who openly shares a nontheistic perspective with so many other Americans? There are millions upon millions of decent honorable people who share the nontheistic views of Jodie Foster. There are far more Secular Americans than Jewish Americans. I’m perfectly happy that Jewish people, as a percentage of the population, are overrepresented in Congress. Might it not also be reasonable that there could be at least proportional representation for people who openly think like Warren Buffett, the son of a Nebraska Republican congressman? Does that sound terribly radical? Would that be unreasonable?

But for that to happen, we must build a movement with clout. That’s right, clout. That’s how politics works. Secular Americans must either participate fully or quit whining. The Secular Coalition for America is working now for public policy change consistent with the ideals of all Americans, religious and nonreligious, who value the separation of church and state, and in service to its coalition members.

But, if the secular movement is to grow, we must face the reality that our marketing, our strategy, our level of innovation, and our willingness to invest have generally been sleepy at best and bungled at worst. We are not reaching a broader nation. We preach primarily to our own converted. Sadly, in terms of innovation, we fall far short if we compare ourselves to religious fundamentalists, much less to Silicon Valley.

We must set our sights much higher. We should not merely match fundamentalism; we must surpass it. We must think, act, and innovate like
business entrepreneurs, not sit back and expect the American people to come to us. We live in a Republic endangered by creeping theocracy. We must participate more vocally in the marketplace of ideas and reach out to a broader spectrum of our fellow citizens. I believe that now is the right time to spread our message because we have (1) demographics on our side and (2) a strategic plan imbued with the spirit of innovation. I will describe both these advantages in the next two chapters.

God will wash this nation with blood if he has to
.

—Glenn Beck

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church
.

—Thomas Paine

The struggle between fundamentalism (the world of Jerry Falwell, Joyce Meyer, and Joel Osteen) on the one hand and the Jeffersonian Enlightenment ideal on the other constitutes a central issue affecting the future of our nation. Because America remains the most powerful and influential nation on Earth, protecting our secular values is essential to the future progress of civilization across the globe. If we organize, if we invest our effort and money, and if we are willing to think strategically, I am confident of a success that will benefit America and the entire world.

As much as I respect the logistical and organizational strength of American fundamentalism, its day is passing. As the book
American Grace
points out, although Evangelical Protestantism, from a demographics standpoint, grew in the 1970s and 1980s, it began to lose momentum around 1990. Even so, its institutional and political strength remains huge in our two-party system.

The subservience to fundamentalist ideology by the Republican Party reached a high point with President George W. Bush—and, as evidenced by the U.S. Congress, it risks rising higher still. Whether you are or ever were a member of the Republican Party, it’s difficult to imagine Barry Goldwater or Gerald Ford referencing the Book of Revelations in specific connection
with military policy. President Bush did so when discussing Iraq with French president Jacques Chirac.

To have secured effective veto power over one of two major political parties in the United States represents a monumental success for religious fundamentalists. Their success has even caused Democratic politicians to feel pressure to wear their religion on their sleeves. In short, demographic stagnation notwithstanding—fundamentalist power remains as strong as it’s ever been.

There are valid disagreements on economic issues between the Democratic and Republican Party. And we should not neglect the ideas espoused by the Libertarian Party, which today speaks for some traditional Republican values. But make no mistake: never before in American history have proponents of a particular religious viewpoint—and a minority viewpoint at that—secured such a potentially decisive role in our ostensibly secular Republic.

Fundamentalists have for years been fighting above their weight class. Their veto power over the Republican Party leads to the perception that the fundamentalist extremists constitute 50 percent of the American people. In fact, they represent about 24 percent of Americans at most. This bootstrapping of political influence has certainly affected politics and perception, but it has also affected policy. The political realities today are profoundly different from those of 1960, when secular policy was largely a matter of consensus. Jack Kennedy was almost uniformly applauded for his speech in Houston favoring church-state separation, and Richard Nixon avoided direct criticism of Kennedy’s speech for fear of a backlash (though his fundamentalist allies spoke ill of Kennedy’s speech). One can only imagine the litany of pejoratives that the Republican Party would throw at that speech if delivered today. Indeed, Senator Rick Santorum and former governor Sarah Palin have both reached back five decades to condemn Kennedy’s Houston speech.

Theocratic laws permeate our statute books. The Republican Party, by any measure, is strong, not weak. They are extremely well funded and well organized. Someday the Republican Party may return to the more libertarian roots of a Barry Goldwater. That is, however, not happening soon, especially not without a counterforce.

Secular Americans must work so that our political clout matches our numbers. Data vary, but look at the percentage of Americans from a recent poll who take a science-based view of the world or do not affiliate with a religion, by age group:

• 7 percent of those 65 and over
  
• 13 percent of those ages 50–64
  
• 18 percent of those ages 30–49
  
• 25 percent of those under 30
  

As a whole, the “nones” (people who report no religious affiliation) shot up dramatically from 7 percent of Americans in 1990 to 17 percent today. Considering the number of secular Jews, secular Catholics, and secular liberal Protestants who may for cultural reasons identify themselves by their religious heritage, it’s clear that the number of Americans who care about secular values is vastly undercounted.

This underreporting is not the result of some conspiracy, but the result of polling questions that are just not phrased to get the most accurate result. To some degree, Secular Americans also face an almost unconscious cultural bias, including from people who bear Secular Americans no ill will or who may even be Secular Americans themselves.

To collect better data, better polling questions are necessary. For example, assume you’ve agreed to participate in a poll and are asked this series of questions:

1. Do you think fundamentalist Christians have too much influence in America today?
   
2. Do you tend to agree or disagree with those who think the government should restrict choices about one’s sexual life based on their interpretation of the Bible?
   
3. Do you believe Zodiac signs can in fact predict personality traits or predict the future? Or do you think they are just for fun?
   
4. Do you value scientific reasoning over supernatural explanations for the world around us?
   
5. Do you think the Earth was created a few thousand years ago as told in the Bible or do you believe that the Earth is billions of years old as scientists conclude?
   
6. Do you think that one must accept Christ as one’s personal savior in order to have eternal life?
   
7. Do you think that a child born in Hindu culture who dies without having accepted Christ will go to hell?
   
8. Do you accept the conclusion of scientists that human beings evolved over hundreds of thousands of years? Or do you believe that humans were created as told in the Bible?
   
9. Do you believe the creation stories of the Druids? Or the creation stories of Australian Aborigines? Do you believe in the creation stories of any non-Judeo-Christian religions?
   
10. Do you believe that Jesus in fact rose from the dead?
    
11. Do you believe that Jesus was in fact born of a virgin?
    
12. Are you uncertain about whether there is life after death?
    
13. Do you have doubts about whether hell exists?
    
14. Do you have doubts about whether heaven exists?
    
15. Do you believe that if someone prays for rain, it will increase the likelihood of rain?
    
16. Do you tend to believe that if someone prays to live longer or prays to ward off disease, a God will intervene on behalf of that one person and not on behalf of others who do not pray?
    
17. Do you sometimes question, if only to yourself, whether there is a God?
    
18. Do you have a question in your mind about the morality of an all-powerful God that could allow 9/11, the Haiti disaster, the Kennedy assassination, the Japanese tsunami, the Tucson shooting, and the Holocaust?
    
19. Do you think there is an actual devil?
    
20. Do you think that a God makes decisions about what will happen to you personally?
    

These questions are mere examples. Many expressly religious people would no doubt agree with a nontheist’s answers to several of these questions. This series of questions gives the person answering time—time to think about what they really think.

There is no doubt that millions upon millions of Americans strongly assert their belief that the Bible is literally true. Indeed, far more Americans assert this than do citizens of most any other nation—thus, our challenge. And yet, many Americans, if they took their time with questions like those
posed here, would feel comfortable answering that, yes, really, in their heart of hearts, they are uncertain about the existence of God, of life after death, of heaven, and of the efficacy of prayer.

At a minimum, this would make them agnostic—meaning they claim no certainty about God’s existence or matters such as Christ’s actual divinity. And many, if they honestly thought about such questions, might even say that they lack belief in a god or gods. I can’t say what that percentage of the population might be. But I’ll guarantee you this: that percentage is far, far higher than the number of people who will say flat-out yes to the following question, which almost shouts off the page:

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN AN ATHEIST?

Yes, of course, none of the polls ever use the McCarthy-era phrase, “Are you now or have you ever been…?” Yet the word “atheist” is loaded with dark historical connotations related to the era of “godless” Communism. Speaking as a happy capitalist myself—and a lifelong believer in the scientific method—there is something about the word atheist that calls to mind Joseph Stalin. And darn it, I don’t like Joe Stalin! I don’t like his moustache, I don’t like his economics, I don’t like that he killed millions of people. I want nothing—zero—to do with that guy. Many people blanch at the word atheist because of these associations. (In truth, Stalin created what amounted to his own religion and was treated, by his own design, as a form of deity that is always watching. Stalin even had the secret police at his disposal to make the “always watching” possibility monstrously credible.)