Discrimination against atheists

Many atheists have experienced discrimination, mainly from religious entities. These are not so severe as to be called persecution, but they are indicative of the social rejection atheists have suffered through the ages.

Etymology

The term athéisme itself was coined in France in the 16th century as adopted from the Greek term Áthèos (Á meaning not or non, and thèos meaning religious or religion). Athéisme was initially used as an accusation against scientists, critics of religion, materialistic philosophers, deists, and others who seemed to represent a threat to established beliefs.

Cold War

During the Cold War, the United States often characterized its opponents as "Godless Communists", which tended to reinforce the view that atheists were unreliable and unpatriotic (an example of the fallacy known as affirming the consequent). In the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign, Republican presidential candidate George H. W. Bush reportedly said, "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God."

Present-day persecution

United States

In the United States, there is widespread disapproval of atheists. For example, according to motherjones.com, 52% of Americans claim they would not vote for a well-qualified atheist for president. More recently, a 2006 study at the University of Minnesota showed atheists to be the most mistrusted minority among Americans. Notwithstanding such attitudes, atheists are legally protected from discrimination in the United States. They have been among the strongest advocates of the legal separation of church and state. American courts have regularly, if controversially, interpreted the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state as protecting the freedoms of non-believers, as well as prohibiting the establishment of any state religion. Atheists often sum up the legal situation with the phrase: "Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion."

In the 1994 case Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, Justice Souter wrote in the opinion for the Court that: "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion." Everson v. Board of Education established that "neither a state nor the Federal Government can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another". This applies the Establishment Clause to the states as well as the federal government. However, several state constitutions make the protection of persons from religious discrimination conditional on their acknowledgement of the existence of a deity, apparently making freedom of religion in those states inapplicable to atheists. These state constitutional clauses have not been tested. Civil rights cases are typically brought in federal courts; so such state provisions are mainly of symbolic importance.

In the Newdow case, after a father challenged the phrase "under God" in the United States Pledge of Allegiance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the phrase unconstitutional. Although the decision was stayed pending the outcome of an appeal, there was the prospect that the pledge would cease to be legally usable without modification in schools in the western United States, over which the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction. This resulted in political furor, and both houses of Congress passed resolutions condemning the decision, nearly unanimously. A very large group consisting of almost the entire Senate and House was televised standing on the steps of Congress, hands over hearts, swearing the pledge and shouting out "under God". The Supreme Court subsequently reversed the decision, ruling that Michael Newdow did not have standing to bring his case, thus disposing of the case without ruling on the constitutionality of the pledge.

Several private organizations, the most notable being the Boy Scouts of America, do not allow atheist members. However, this policy has come under fire by organizations who assert that the Boy Scouts of America do profit from taxpayer money and thus cannot be called a truly private organization, and thus must admit atheists as well as gays. An organization called Scouting for All, founded by Eagle Scout Steven Cozza, is at the forefront of the movement to expose perceived hypocrisy on the part of the Boy Scouts of America. Cozza and others allege that when the BSA wants to discriminate, they act as a private organization; when they want money or the use of publicly-funded buildings, venues, or property, they act as a public organization.

State Constitutions

Some States' Constitutions in the US require a religious test as a qualification for holding public office:

The Bill of Rights of the Texas Constitution (Article I, Section 4) last amended on September 13, 2003 states that an official may be "excluded from holding office" if she/he does not "acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."

North Carolina's Constitution, Article 6 Sec. 8 states "Disqualifications of office. The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God...."

South Carolina's Constitution, Article 4 Section 2: "Person denying existence of Supreme Being not to hold office. No person who denies the existence of the Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution."

Tennessee's Bill of Rights: Article 9, Section 2: "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."

Sweden

Even in Sweden, generally considered the most secularized country in the world (see e.g. the Inglehart Values Map) there exist laws that discriminate against atheists:

• As stated in Successionsordningen Sweden is a constitutional monarchy, where the king is the official head of the state. Successionsordningen also states that the king, and the whole Royal family, must adhere to the Augsburg Confession. This means that the king is not allowed to be an atheist, and that the state teaches its head into a particular religion.

• Until the year 2000, Sweden had an official state church. Even after the law was changed, there is a special law that regulates the church and its affairs. Atheists claim that this violates secularism and therefore is discriminating against atheism.

• In many public schools, the commencement after each semester is held in a church and a priest delivers a sermon. Sometimes schools go to church to celebrate holidays. When atheists have objected to this "tradition", politicians have defended it. On the 26th of October 2006, the Swedish minister of schools, Jan Björklund, stated that "We should not have any general rules in Sweden that you may not continue to have school commencements or ceremonies in a church any longer. There will definitely be no change on that issue." [1]

• In October 2006, the Swedish Humanists filed a complaint to the ombudsmen of parliment (Registration number 4882-2006) and The Chancellor of Justice (Registration number 6726-06-21) about cermons arranged by the parliment because, the Humanists claimed, it was contrary to secularization, and thus discriminating against people of non-christian faith, including atheists. Both the ombudsmen and the chancellor concluded that they had no jurisdiction over the issue and chose not to comment further on the case. Thus, these cermons will continue.

• There is special funding to religious NGOs, "trossamfund". According to Swedish law, in order to register a trossamfund one must organize divine services. Thus secular and/or atheist organisations who fill the same purpose as religious groups are discriminated from this funding. There is no equivalent funding for secular groups.

Atheism as immorality

The first attempts to define or develop a typology of atheism were in religious apologetics. These attempts were expressed in terms and in contexts that reflected the religious assumptions and prejudices of the writers. A diversity of atheist opinion has been recognized at least since Plato, and common distinctions have been established between practical atheism and speculative or contemplative atheism.

Practical atheism was said to be caused by moral failure, hypocrisy, willful ignorance and infidelity. Practical atheists were said to behave as though God, morals, ethics and social responsibility did not exist; they abandoned duty and embraced hedonism. Maritain's typology of atheism (1953, Chapter 8) proved influential in Catholic circles; it was followed in the New Catholic Encyclopedia. He identified, in addition to practical atheism, pseudo-atheism and absolute atheism (and subdivided theoretical atheism in a way that anticipated Flew). For an atheist critique of Maritain, see Smith (1979, Chapter 1, Section 5).

According to the French Catholic philosopher Étienne Borne (1961, p.10), 'Practical atheism is not the denial of the existence of God, but complete godlessness of action; it is a moral evil, implying not the denial of the absolute validity of the moral law but simply rebellion against that law.'

According to Karen Armstrong (1999):

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic... In his tract Atheism Closed and Open Anatomized (1634), John Wingfield claimed: 'the hypocrite is an Atheist; the loose wicked man is an open Atheist; the secure, bold and proud transgressor is an Atheist: he that will not be taught or reformed is an Atheist'. For the Welsh poet William Vaughan (1577 [sic]–1641), who helped in the colonization of Newfoundland, those who raised rents or enclosed commons were obvious atheists. The English dramatist Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) proclaimed that the ambitious, the greedy, the gluttons, the vainglorious and prostitutes were all atheists. The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist. (p.331-332)

On the other hand, the existence of serious, speculative atheism was often denied. That anyone might reason their way to atheism was thought to be impossible. The existence of God was self-evident, and (apparently) necessary for the proper functioning of society. Thus, speculative atheism was collapsed into a form of practical atheism, and conceptualized as hatred of God or a fight against righteous social mores. This is why Borne finds it necessary to say, 'to put forward the idea, as some apologists rashly do, that there are no atheists except in name but only practical atheists who through pride or idleness disregard the divine law, would be, at least at the beginning of the argument, a rhetorical convenience or an emotional prejudice evading the real question.' (p.18) Martin (1990, p.465-466) suggests that practical atheism would be better described as alienated theism.

Other pejorative definitions of atheism

When denial of the existence of 'speculative' atheism became unsustainable, atheism was nevertheless often repressed and criticized by narrowing definitions, applying charges of dogmatism, and otherwise misrepresenting atheist positions. One of the reasons for the popularity of euphemistic alternative terms like secularist, empiricist, agnostic, or bright is that atheism still has pejorative connotations arising from attempts at suppression and from its association with practical atheism; as mentioned above, godless is still used as an abusive epithet today.

Mynga Futrell and Paul Geisert, the originators of the term bright, made this explicit in an essay published in 2003:

Our personal frustration regarding labels reached culmination last fall when we were invited to join a march on Washington as 'Godless Americans'. The causes of the march were worthy, and the march itself well-planned and conducted. However, to unite for common interests under a disparaging term like 'godless' (it also means 'wicked') seemed ludicrous! Why accept and utilize the very derogatory language that so clearly hampers our own capacity to play a positive and contributing role in our communities and in the nation and world?

That several religious groups have adopted the disparaging names handed to them as a badge of honour (the 'Methodists', for example) seems to have only increased their ire.

Gaskin (1989) abandoned the term atheism in favor of unbelief, citing 'the pejorative associations of the term, its vagueness, and later the tendency of religious apologists to define atheism so that no one could be an atheist...' (p.4)

Despite these considerations, for others atheist has always been the preferred name. Charles Bradlaugh once said, in debate with George Jacob Holyoake, 10 March 1870, cited in Bradlaugh Bonner (1908):

I maintain that the opprobrium cast upon the word Atheism is a lie. I believe Atheists as a body to be men deserving respect... I do not care what kind of character religious men may put round the word Atheist, I would fight until men respect it. (p.334)

For more on repressive definitions of atheism, see Berman (1982, 1983, 1990).

See also

• Boy Scouts of America membership controversies