Atheism a Religion? … Say What!

The United States does not have an established church, but it does have (and always has had) an established religion, or at least a dominant religious philosophy, an established way of thinking.

What is religion and can it be defined? I will attempt to do so for the purpose of clarifying terms. The best term I feel is applicable to religion is this:

Religion may be defined as a way of thinking about ultimate questions. A persons religion answers questions such as how and why (and everything else) came into existence, whether the purpose of life has been established by a Creator or is up to us to decide, and how we can have reliable knowledge (revealed by God or revealed by Nature) about the world and about ourselves.

The officially recognized answers to these questions make up a society’s established religious philosophy, its culturally dominant way of thinking about origins. But let us look at what some dictionaries say about faith and religion.

v Webster’s New World Dictionary defines religion as a specific system of belief, worship, often involving a code of ethics. Faith is defined as unquestioning belief… complete trust or confidence… loyalty.

v Funk and Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary has this to say about religion, The beliefs, attitudes, emotions, behavior, etc., constituting man’s relationship with the powers and principles of the universe. On the matter of faith it says, Confidence in or dependence on a person, statement, or thing as trustworthy… Belief without need of certain proof.

There is nothing sinister or inherently unconstitutional about the existing of a de facto established public philosophy on religious questions (such as origins and mans purpose). The philosophy is established not in the sense that it is formally enacted or that dissenters are subject to legal punishment (although in recent years this has started to happen), but in the sense that it provides a philosophical basis for lawmaking and public education, in law school this is taught as public policy. For example, one culture may endeavor to encourage its schoolgirls to look forward to lives as mothers and homemakers, while another may encourage them to reject traditional gender stereotypes and pursue formally masculine careers. To encourage either choice reflects a dominant public philosophy about human nature and gender roles. Similarly, any community that operates a public school system must have a policy of some kind concerning, say, sexual morality, even if the policy is merely to encourage adolescents to choose for themselves. Relativism itself is a policy choice, it rests on assumptions about reality, and man’s relationship with the powers and principles of the universe as Funk and Wagnalls says.

Soldiers use to march to the Battle Hymn of the Republic – a song that is banned from most public schools today. Some people would say we, as a Nation, have become neutral about religion. The evidence, however, points to one philosophy replacing another. Lets see if we can glean what this new religious belief is that so dominates the Western hemisphere now. For instance, the public schools have become a battleground for religion. John Dunphy, a secular humanist, wrote in the Humanist magazine:

I am convinced that the battleground for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith; a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preacher, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subjects they teach regardless of the educational level – preschool daycare or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity together with all its adjacent evils and misery . . .

John Dewey, the father of modern education, hoped to replace sectarian religion with a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class, or race. The religion envisioned by Dewey is that of secular humanism. The Supreme Court has even recognized it as a religion (Torcaso v. Watkins). This is why there are tax free atheist churches with pastors and counselors. The Humanist Manifesto was signed by many of the prominent atheistic and evolutionary educators of the day. Among its signers were John Dewey, Harry Elmer Barnes, C. F. Potter and John Herman Randall. The manifesto called for a radical change in religious perspectives. A religion adequate to the twentieth century regards the universe as self-existing, not created, and regards man as part of nature evolved in its processes. Mind-body dualism, supernaturalism, theism, and even deism are rejected. The goal of life is the realization of human personality. Social and mental hygiene are priority items. Social control is a means to the abundant life for all. That statement was updated in 1973 by a Humanist Manifesto II, which adds an additional emphases on human responsibility toward humanity as a whole, a specific system of belief, worship [of man], often involving a code of ethics, as Webster puts it.

This is one of the catalysts that brought Judge Pendergerst of the Baltimore Superior Court to say:

It is abundantly clear that the petitioner’s real objective is to drive every concept of religion out of the public school system. If God were removed from the classroom, there would remain only atheism [secular humanism: a religion]. The word is derived from the Greek atheos, meaning ‘without a God.’ Thus the beliefs of virtually all pupils would be subordinated to those of Madalyn Murray.