[atheism] redditors interview minister turned atheist activist Dan Barker

Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, was kind enough to answer the top questions from [atheism] redditors. Big thanks to Dan for sharing his time.

Dan Barker was a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years, but left Christianity in 1984 and authored the recent book Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists (foreward by Richard Dawkins).

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Q: I'm an avid listener who loves the Freethought Radio podcast you guys do.
So here's my question: I am a young man who grew up in a fairly religious family, and has left the church for purely intellectual reasons, as atheism and evolution are much more tenable of a worldview as opposed to "sky-goddery". However, in regards to my family, I've avoided stirring up controversy by acting like I have merely lost interest in religion and am too apathetic and too busy to stay involved. In truth, I do still have strong interest in the topic of religion, only now from a skeptical viewpoint. What are your thoughts on the way a new atheist in this position should act, and "come out" so to speak?
- s-orbital

Dan Barker:
Dear s-orbital,
Thanks for listening to the show!
I'm all in favor of just "coming out." And why not? We are not the ones with the problem. But, of course, every family is different. There is no way to standardize "coming out," and no way to predict exactly how your own family dynamics will be altered. You have to figure that out.

I was lucky. My parents resisted (gently) at first, but then they eventually became atheists.

The same thing happened with Pastafarian student leader Andrew Cederdahl, at the University of South Carolina. (See the New York Times article this week by Laurie Goodstein that mentions Andrew.) Both of his formerly believing parents also now admit, mainly as a result of their son’s influence, that they are no longer believers.

I wish it were that simple in all families, but I think that is rare. (Dawkins admits this in the Foreword to my new book, Godless.) I think what happened in my case, and Andrew’s case, is that we have a strong-knit loving family who respect and admire each other greatly. My parents were not going to simply “give up” on their son. So the door was open to dialogue. My parents also knew that I was well-meaning and kind, and they respected at first my intentions and finally my conclusions.

I was talking with the Freethinkers of the University of Texas-Arlington, a couple years ago, and one student said he was ready to go home for winter break and tell his parents he is now an atheist (the parents' worst nightmare), but he learned that his little brother had just told his parents that he is gay! He was worried that a "double whammy" would really upset his family. Another student suggested he could say: "Guess what, Mom and Dad. I have good news. I'm not gay!"

So . . . the key is respect. If your family and friends respect you, then it is much easier. If they see you as a threat, or immoral, or disloyal, then it is harder, because you are seen as a liability rather than an asset. Do whatever you can to inspire respect for your actions and your personality before you get into the argument about religion.

I have a few articles online that might help, depending your situation:

Evangelistic Atheism: Leading Believers Astray

How To Talk to a Fundamentalist, Part 1

How to Talk to a Fundamentalist, Part 2

Finally, if your family’s religious views are not causing any real harm, then you don’t want to come on too strong. They see themselves, after all, as the “good guys.” But if their beliefs and practices are causing harm in some way, then as a moral individual you have a responsibility to care enough about them, and the world, to try to minimize that harm. If it is your announced intention to “lessen harm,” then you can hardly be accused of being disrespectful. Such harm might be the church’s treatment of women, or the denial of medical care to children (replacing it with prayer), or the shielding of molesting priests and ministers, or the threat to science in the classrooms, or their fight against equal rights for all (such as gay rights), and so on. These issues are worth fighting about, and if you family happens to be part of the problem, let them know there is a better way, and (hopefully) they will respect you for your moral intentions.
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Q: Losing Faith in Faith is one of my favourite books on Atheism, as it's the only one I'm aware of that takes the perspective of a Christian-turned-Atheist. I relate heavily to everything in your book, and it was a major deciding factor in my own journey from Christian to Atheist.

My question for you is, seeing how well you dealt with evangelism in the church, how can Atheists approach "converting?" I believe that although religion may serve a good purpose in some lives, the world as a whole would be much better off without it as religion can be a major deterent to education, technology, politics, and simple coexistence.

As I see it, the problems facing Atheists when it comes to converting is a lack of organization, as well as the difficulty in having to appeal to reason rather than emotions and desires. How can Atheists evangelize?
- noseham

DB:
Dear noseham,

Thanks for the good comments about Losing Faith in Faith. (I have now updated the book, published by Ulysses Press, called Godless, 2008.) But mine is not the only story like that. Hector Avalos was a child preacher who is now an atheist teaching religion at Iowa State. John Loftus, a former clergy, has a good book out: Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity. I also have about 25 stories of former clergy that I hope to put into an anthology.

And, coincidentally, I just heard from another pastor who has become an atheist but is still in the pulpit! I hear from about one a month. Daniel Dennett is collecting stories of nonbelieving clergy for an upcoming article.

Regarding “converting” believers, see my reply to s-orbital (above). But I think the soundest policy is education. The more you know, the less you believe. Also, just “coming out” as an atheist can be very surprising and enlightening to many people. “But you’re such a good person!” they might say. And you can reply: “Of course.”

Atheists do not lack organization. There are many good groups they can join. (The Freedom From Religion Foundation has almost 14,000 members now, the largest group of atheists and agnostics in the country.) The problem is that most atheists don’t WANT to join a group. They are happy, busy, and have a “live and let live” attitude.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (as well as many other freethought/humanist groups) does a lot of publicity. FFRF’s billboard campaigns (“Imagine No Religion,” “Beware of Dogma”) and bus-sign campaign (“Sleep in on Sundays”) is one part of that, as well as Freethought Radio. You can help in your own way by being more visible.

But as I said in the “Evangelistic Atheism” article: the only way to attract people is by being attractive.

Many people find the emotional appeals attractive, and others find the intellectual appeals attractive. And probably most of us find BOTH approaches attractive. You are right to notice that most atheist “outreach” is intellectual rather than emotional. Being intellectual will appeal only to those who value intellect—which is not bad. So to appeal to the others we either have to champion reason, or perhaps mix in some “emotional appeal” to our message . . . such as arousing compassion for the victims of religious harm.

But I think the country is gradually becoming more secular on its own, regardless of the attempts of us atheists to “convert” people. In your own case, do you think your change of mind came as a result of being “converted” by a proselytizing atheist? Or did it come as a result of your own internal love for truth?

Maybe the simplest approach is to make reason and kindness attractive, and leave our “sermonizing” to the times we have to answer questions or defend ourselves from their attacks. (I’ll be doing my 69th formal public debate this week, at the University of Illinois, Urbana.)
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Q: Many churches bring a great deal to their communities. What is the
roll of church in a post-religion society, and how do you see churches
evolving to that point?
- theantirobot

DB:
Dear theantirobot,

Yes, many churches provide social services and community. (Mainly liberal churches. Conservative churches rarely report charitable work.) But these are secular things, and they are also done by non-church groups. In a post-religion society (yay!), the “church” could still be a meeting place for such things. I spoke yesterday at a Unitarian Fellowship in Kansas. This is a “church” for IRS purposes, but many are nonbelievers. They do charity, social work. Some come just to sing in the choir and have a local community.

I suppose it would be like asking “what is the role of the monarchy in a post-monarchical society?” Look at England . . . all that pomp just for image.

The good that churches do is done by caring human beings . . . and without church, these people would still be caring human beings. Does anyone suppose that those people who are expressing compassion through their church would stop doing so if the church ceased to exist? We have many secular organizations that do the same thing, such as the Red Cross, and many other groups.
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Q: One of the lacks of atheism (to me) is the community provided by churches as well as the intellectual value of a good sermon. While Unitarianism and humanism fill part of that need, I extremely rarely see the same community bonds and groups form there. What is needed to create the same kinds of community structures churches have provided without the religious component?
- Wax Memory

DB:
Dear Wax Memory,

There are many local atheist groups that do provide a sense of community. The Minnesota Atheists, for example, with their picnics and music and charity activities and radio show and, yes, “sermons” at their meetings. The Lowcountry Humanists (South Carolina) and the Atlanta Freethought Society and the Alabama Freethought Association are other good examples. If there is no such group in your area, then start one. The only way such community is forged is because of people like you who make it happen.
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Q: Can you tell us about the extent to which you are routinely threatened by religious people? I know you post excerpts of hate mail in the FFRF paper and sometimes answering machine messages on Freethought Radio, but to what degree do you and your wife feel safe? Has there been any signs of real threats beyond people writing or leaving nasty phone messages? How do you deal with this?
- miappy

DB:
Dear miappy,

We feel relatively safe. There has been very little real violence over the years. About 25 years ago Anne Gaylor was grabbed from behind by a woman in the TV audience, after the show, but the woman was very elderly and Anne’s husband separated them with his cane. We sometimes get threatening phone calls, letters, and emails, and the police have told us they want to be informed when that happens . . . only when it is a real threat of violence . . . so we call the police (maybe once a year), but we are not too worried. A lot of people are just venting. They read something in the paper that makes them mad and they call us to try to make us shut up. We once got a dead fish in the mail. Anne and Paul found a toilet on their front lawn about 20 years ago.

Our office is very visible, right in downtown Madison, two blocks from the state capitol. But Madison is a very liberal town, and even many of the Christians are “proud” we are here, for reasons of diversity. We are not too worried.

We do have an alarm system at the building, and we take reasonable precautions. Annie Laurie is less worried about religious violence than she is about some of the homeless people who sometimes sleep in our bushes, especially when she is working late at night.

Someone threw a rock through our window that came into the reception area and almost hit one of the printers. We called the police, who told us that this happened to a number of buildings along the street that night, so it was not directed at us. Probably kids acting wild. We replaced the glass with plexiglass.

So we are careful. Actually, mental problems are not limited to the believers. It is possible we could be threatened by an unstable atheist (there are a few of those out there) who is angry at how we are do our business. Madalyn Murray OHair was actually murdered by an atheist, a former employee she had hired. (His motive was money--we have very little cash in the building.) But so far, the only “threatening” letters and calls we have received have come from believers.

We do provide security at our conventions, which is a reasonable precaution. (Some of the speakers we invite request security.)

In short, we are not very worried.
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Q: What, do you feel, is the best approach for promoting the atheistic point of view? Given that many(?; most?; some?) atheists would support the global abolition of religion as a whole, is it realistic to support such a position when the opposition outnumbers us by such a large margin? Is it more realistic to concentrate on the separation of church and state in the US, for example, than completely ridding the world of religion?
- rcroyle

DB:
Dear rcroyle,

Yes, I think the best hope for the world is a secular government. That’s why FFRF concentrates on the separation of church and state. We don’t want to outlaw religion . . . we want religion to decide someday to outlaw itself. I think if we promote education, science, reason and human kindness, that is what will make religion seem obsolete.

It’s like what Jesus is reported to have said (if he ever existed): “They who are whole don’t need the doctor; only they who are sick.”

Or like what I said at the World Religions Conference a few years ago: “If salvation is the cure, then atheism is the prevention.”

If people realize they are just fine, and don’t need religion, then religion will go away all by itself.

Of course, in the meantime, there is no harm in us freethinkers speaking out, doing debates, trying to persuade, making freethought visible and attractive. A small number of people will be “de-converted” this way.
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Q: As a Buddhist and an atheist, I find that the atheist "movement" (if it can be called such a thing) lacks two things: compassion and understanding. Either you are an atheist, or you are a stupid and irrational person that can't understand simple logical reasoning.

I understand the root of such aggressiveness, as atheists find themselves one of the few minorities that it is openly acceptable to hate, and we also find that we are often forced to live our lives based on religious beliefs and ideals.

But without compassion and understanding, all this vitriolic attack of religion will do is cause both sides to draw battle lines and further entrench each others' beliefs. As people are free to address the unknown and the totality of their existence any way they choose, religion will always be with us, and so the atheist movement has to start finding ways to live with religion rather than pit it as "us against them."

So how do you think we can make a push for a more accepting and understanding atheist movement, when most atheists are unwilling to offer any compassion to theists or spiritual persons?

DB:
Dear buddhist,

You are right. Some atheists are obnoxious. Since atheism is not a creed, there is nobody telling atheists how to behave, nor should there be. We are all free.

I question whether we should call atheism a “movement.” I suppose in the strictly sociological or anthropological sense, it is a general “movement,” but a very strange one. It is a movement with no followers. There are no anointed atheist bishops, popes, messiahs, leaders. (If there were, most atheists would leave the movement!) There is no atheist creed. Atheism is simply the lack of theism. (Like the old joke: “If atheism is a religion, then baldness is a hair color.”)

However, we ARE seeing a recent “new atheism,” which is only new in the sense that we are becoming more vocal, more visible, similar to what happened (is happening) in the gay movement. That increased visibility is resulting in a wider acceptance of atheists in the world. I suppose we might call this “new atheism” a kind of “movement” in a loose sense.

Most atheists that I know are not obnoxious. Most of them are kind and compassionate. Most of them allow, even cherish, the freedom of believers to think and worship as they choose. Working for the separation of church and state is good for ALL of us -- atheists and believers alike. We don’t want to limit free speech or freedom of religion or freedom of association or of the press. We simply want our place at the table.

Most atheists (unlike many religionists) welcome disagreement. We atheists don’t all have to think alike or take the same approach. Some take the confrontational approach, belittling believers. Others of us realize that the believers are human beings who are not stupid or evil. (Some of us used to be like that, so we understand and empathize.)

However, there is a subset of believers who cannot distinguish between neutrality and hostility. Like Jesus, who said, “He who is not with me is against me,” displaying a kind of small-town dictator paranoia, many Christians will feel threatened by atheists no matter WHAT we say or HOW we say it. We can’t win. Everything we say, no matter how gentle, will be perceived as an insult.

So, does that mean we should shut our mouths in order to avoid “offending” these believers? I don’t think so. I think it is a GREATER offense to treat them as if they were little children unable to handle informed criticism. We are doing them a favor by speaking out. After all, our intention is to improve the world, not make it worse.

And I guess it also depends on your personality. I think atheists fall across the human bell curve of psychological traits, most of us landing somewhere in the middle of the distribution, some of us over to one side with the “saints” and others over to the other side with the “troublemakers.” You (like most buddhists) appear to fall over to the gentle caring side. Anything you can do to promote that approach is admirable, I think.
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Q: Do you think there is any way to counter act the proselytizing that is being done in third world countries?
- groovychick

DB:
Dear groovychick,

Yeah, good question. We atheists don’t exactly have a “missionary organization” sending emmisaries all over the world. Those 3rd-world countries are very vulnerable to conservative evangelical, pentecostal religions. Since life is very tough, religion gives them something to hope for . . . a cosmic lottery to enter.

Education is always the best approach.

But sociologists notice that as a country’s well-being increases, its obsession with religion decreases. When women have equal opportunities, and most people have access to adequate health care, and birth control, and education is free and available . . . and so on . . . then religion gets pushed away naturally, organically. Denmark is one example. (See Phil Zuckerman’s new book, Societies Without God.)

So, I guess, anything we can do to improve the general state of existence in those countries will result in less religious obsession.