Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

On Faith: Georgetown Blog, July 16, 2007

Query: Can an atheist or agnostic commentator discuss any aspect of religion for more than thirty seconds without referring to religious people as imbeciles, extremists, mental deficients, fascists, enemies of the common good, crypto-Nazis, conjure men, irrationalists, pedophiles, bearers of false consciousness, authoritarian despots, and so forth? Is that possible?

First, some basic definitions. Politically speaking, American secularism is made up of two overlapping, albeit distinct, constituencies. The first is comprised of the aforementioned nonbelievers whose best-selling spokespersons are fast becoming the soccer hooligans of reasoned public discourse. The second is much larger and much quieter. It encompasses religious Americans who favor strict Church/State Separation this they share with the nonbelievers.

Nonbelievers of late have been churning out loud, unsubtle, anti-religious manifestos. The world would be a better place, they all seem to suggest, if religion and all of its associated personnel were simply to disappear. In this regards the new nonbelievers seem stuck in the ‘90s—and by this I mean the 1890s. This calls attention to one glaring problem with atheism and agnosticism today: it lacks new ideas. The movement abounds in polemicists, but has not produced a thinker of real substance since perhaps the days of Jean-Paul Sartre.