Living the Secular Life_New Answers to Old Questions

by Phil Zuckerman

  Greg came back from China somewhat disillusioned, and so he switched gears, focusing for several years on rock music rather than the ultimate questions of existence and meaning. But his hiatus only lasted so long, and soon he was drawn back to the deep philosophical and existential questions he so passionately cared about—and this time, he found a home in humanism. “I just knew. Humanism was the thing that I had been waiting my whole life to hear about.”

  In the early 2000s, Greg got involved in Humanistic Judaism, which was founded in 1963 by Sherwin Wine. Humanistic Judaism is a nontheistic Jewish movement that bases Jewish identity in communal, cultural, and historical experiences, focusing on the celebration of holidays and life-cycle events rather than belief in God. Greg was ordained as a humanist rabbi in 2005, and he then went on to earn a master of theological studies degree from Harvard Divinity School. Shortly thereafter, he got his current job as the humanist chaplain at Harvard University. It was an unusual trajectory for an atheist, to say the least. But Greg openly admits that he is not your typical atheist. In fact, he happily describes himself as having “an intensely religious personality without a scintilla of religious belief.” When I asked him what he meant by saying that he had an “intensely religious personality,” he replied, “I am really interested in these questions of: Who am I? Why am I here? Why are any of us here? What is life supposed to be all about? What does it mean to connect with other people? These questions are really important to me. I think that there is more to life than just being rational and logical. Those modes are not enough to being completely human. I tend to feel things very deeply, and I wonder a lot.” The only thing that Greg doesn’t like about religion is the supernatural beliefs. But otherwise, he’s down with the enterprise. Hence his personal commitment to creating and developing humanist community centers that provide all that religions do, minus the theologies, the faith, the deities.

  When I asked Greg to describe his ultimate vision of a fully realized humanist community center of the near future, his dream came pouring out with enthusiasm and excitement: “There would be a physical building and it would be a beautiful space, decorated by all kinds of art. There will be great music happening there—definitely a performance space that innovative artists would want to come to in order to perform and collaborate. And there would be programs for people of different ages and different cultural backgrounds, different personal styles. There will be some kind of ‘Sunday school’ for kids, where they can learn how to discuss questions like, ‘What is my identity?’ and ‘What does it mean to be a humanist?’ and they would learn about humanism as a core philosophy of life—a core life stance that they can call upon for inspiration, so they can approach questions like, ‘What does it mean to be ethical? How do I find a sense of equanimity amidst the stresses of life? When are meaningful times to celebrate in life? How can I cultivate mindfulness?’ So, yeah, lots of stuff for kids.

  “And we would have therapists and psychologists and scientists and historians and artists help us design the lesson plans and the curriculum. And there would also be adult education offerings, exploring various aspects of humanist values and what it means to live a good life as a humanist. And lots of small groups and peer education. And there would be space for a diversity of cultural groups, such as Humanistic Judaism or a group for cultural Catholics or African American humanists or Confucian humanism and Indian humanism. And lots of artists of every kind, so there would always be art being created and music being created and stories being told.

  “And there would be ceremonies of various kinds—humanist confirmations, humanist weddings, humanist funerals, humanist naming ceremonies, and weekly gatherings of various types, involving music, storytelling, inspirational discussion, food, and people getting to know each other. And most importantly, there would be a ton of community service going on, so that humanists would become known for taking on meaningful projects within their cities and towns that make a difference in the world. It would become known as a place for people to come and do community service that benefits humanity.”

  —

  I FIND GREG’S passion contagious. Whenever we get together and talk, it is always the case that afterward I remain high on the fumes of our conversation for quite some time, feeling excited and enthusiastic about the prospects for creating humanist communities throughout the land. And I want to get personally involved. I want to experience the humanist community center of Greg’s dreams: I want to see my younger kids in the Sunday school, writing sonnets or creating mobiles and learning about Picasso and Martha Graham. I want to see my older daughter leading a discussion on the books of Philip Pullman or Haruki Murakami. I want to be a part of a community service project, along with my fellow humanists, helping those in our neighborhood who are in need, or planting trees, or fixing bikes. And I want to attend a humanist weekly gathering where we read poetry by Walt Whitman and sing songs by John Lennon, and then afterward I want to eat coffee cake in a shaded patio and stand around talking to someone about how unbelievable it is that we have the death penalty in America and how Lars von Trier’s latest film really stunk and how there is this great hiking trail near Mount Baldy that is practically empty. I want this community to exist and I want to join it.

  I’m not so sure, however, if my wife, Stacy, would be that interested. The fact is, Stacy is all too typically secular in this regard: she isn’t much of a joiner. Being part of a community has never had much of an appeal to her. She is as rugged an individualist as they come. A perfect anecdote illustrates this well: Several years ago, I gave a talk at a Unitarian Universalist church in Orange County—I had attended the whole service before giving my talk, and I had enjoyed the songs and the readings and the people and the whole collective vibe. When I came home, I said to Stacy, “You know, I liked that service. I think I would consider joining such a congregation.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Well, for the community.”

  “Ugh. Who needs community?” was her caustic reply, which she offered while gesticulating her dismissal of the idea with a wave of her hands.

  The difference between Stacy and me on this matter is clear. I am a bit more like Greg Epstein; I too am quite “religious” in my secularity. As I said earlier, it is a big part of my identity, I think about it and read about it and talk about it a lot, and I would be very interested in joining a community group of similarly oriented individuals. Stacy, however, is perhaps more truly secular in her secularity than I am. She is so secular that being secular is of little personal significance—she doesn’t obsess about it, doesn’t fixate on it, and would much rather spend her time doing other things and pursuing other personal interests and enjoying her own individual connections with her close family and friends than joining a humanist community center. But of course, if there were such a humanist center nearby, and if I were to get involved, I am sure she’d agree to come along now and then. Just as she agreed to send Flora to Camp Quest.

  Which, by the way, was a great success. Flora had a blast. When I went to pick her up at camp’s end, I couldn’t help but bring along my tape recorder. And once we had all her things together (sleeping bag, ceramic creations, clothes), and after she had said her tearful farewells to her newly made friends and hugged her cabin mates and counselors goodbye, we got in the car and I hit record. Here’s what Flora said about her Camp Quest experience, nearly verbatim:

  “There was this one point where we had ‘weird and wacky science’ with Ross where we made a real battery that works. Here’s what you do: you lay a nickel and then you get a small quarter of lemon-soaked tissue or something, and then you lay a penny, and you do that for a while, and we got a battery. And also we made silly putty. And also he knows 150 places of pi, and he said it to us. It was so crazy! Blah, blah, blah! And then it was really fun—we had to take a forty-five-minute bus ride to this lake and it was so much fun and when we got there it was huge and beautiful but it was kind of embarrassing because we all had to wear swim caps.
But the water was so nice. And Wendy was so nice. At first it was kind of like new and stuff, but then we got to know each other better and then we formed a group—me, Wendy, and then Raven. And we would wake up early in the morning and we would go down and get hot chocolate and then we would get to ring the bell. The food was so good. One time it was grilled cheese and tomato soup. Another time it was lasagna. And I had a jalapeño! It was very hot! We would sit around the table and see who could eat a jalapeño without needing water, yeah … and every night we sat around the campfire and had s’mores and sang songs and did skits. Oh, but this was the worst: one time I was sleeping in my bed and I woke up and something was running down my nose a lot and I was like, ‘Oh, no—it can’t be a bloody nose!’ and it was like gushing and I couldn’t sit up because it was just gushing so much. So I said, ‘Wendy, I have a bloody nose!’ and she was so nice, she just jumped right out of her bunk and got me some tissue. And one time we saw raccoons … [So what was the best thing about camp? What did you like the best?] The best thing was—I liked free time. You could do whatever you wanted. I would do archery or go to the climbing wall or go to the pool or do arts and crafts. I would do it with Wendy and Raven… . [Did you learn anything?] Yeah, we learned stuff. We learned that a very, very, very good person who was born in like BC or something—he was a guy with a beard. He was teaching people to think for themselves so the king or something, or the people, they made him drink hemlock.”

  A very, very, very good person who lived in “BC” and had a beard and taught people to think for themselves? At Camp Quest, that would be Socrates.

  —

  CAMP QUEST IS such a laudable model for the creation of secular community in America because it is not solely or primarily about being against religion. After all, any community that is predicated principally upon anti-ness is ultimately doomed to toxic curmudgeondom. So it’s a good thing that being antireligious has little place in the goings-on of Camp Quest. Rather, it is principally about fostering positive humanistic ideals. And these ideals are bolstered by the cultivation of a sense of support and solidarity for the children of freethinkers.

  Flora did not have secularism shoved down her throat while at Camp Quest. Rather, she learned a little about the history of free thought, a little about science, a little about nature, and a whole lot about fun and friendship. And hopefully, she got a comforting sense that there are lots of other people out there like her and her family—people who can find sanctuary under a canopy of trees, communion amid campfires, and meaningfulness through arts and crafts; people who believe that faith in God may be perfectly fine for others, but it is certainly not necessary in order to live an ethical and engaging life. Nor is such faith necessary when helping a bunkmate with a bloody nose; empathy and Kleenex are more than sufficient.

  Chapter 6

  Trying Times

  We met in French class. Her name was Krissy. She was sixteen. She had large eyes, she got average grades, she liked MTV, she drank Miller Genuine Draft, and she was my first serious girlfriend. And her father happened to be an evangelical preacher. Originally from Kansas, Krissy’s dad had gotten the call in the early 1980s to move out west with his family and start a new church in Southern California. And one Sunday morning, I accepted their invitation go with them to their church.

  It was in a large, unremarkable building near a mall in Newport Beach. I had never been to an evangelical, nondenominational church service before. There were a lot of people—well over three hundred. Mostly white. And there was a lot of energy. People were into it. I enjoyed seeing Krissy’s dad up there at the helm, leading the whole thing. He had an earnest, unsappy demeanor that I found respectable. There were songs, prayers, sermons, and announcements. But the moment I remember most vividly was when Krissy’s father called a young couple and their small baby up to the pulpit. They came forward, this man and his wife, both in their twenties, cradling their infant in their arms. They somberly faced the congregation as Krissy’s dad raised his arms up over them, palms open, fingers wide.

  Krissy’s dad explained to his flock that this young couple’s new baby had a heart defect and was predicted to die within the month. As he spoke these words, the young couple began to cry. Krissy’s dad asked the entire congregation to pray together for a miracle, to pray for this young couple’s baby to be healed, for her little heart to be mended. Everyone closed their eyes and began praying fervently, while Krissy’s father led them with heartfelt words, beseeching God to save this little child.

  I remember that as I sat there, my initial reaction was: flummoxed. Pray to God to heal a baby’s defective heart? Really? But doesn’t God, being omniscient, already know that this baby’s heart is defective? And doesn’t God, being omnipotent, already have the ability to heal the baby’s heart if he wants to? Isn’t the defective heart thus part of God’s plan? What good is prayer, then? Do these people really think that God will alter his will if they only pray hard enough? And if they don’t pray hard enough, he’ll let the baby die? What kind of a God is that? Such coldly skeptical thoughts percolated through my fifteen-year-old brain.

  But they soon fizzled out. As I sat there looking at the crying couple, listening to the murmur of prayers all around me, my initial skepticism was soon supplanted by a sober appreciation and empathetic recognition of what I was witnessing and experiencing. Here was an entire body of people all expressing their love and sympathy for a young couple with a dying baby. Here were hundreds of people caringly, genuinely, warmly pouring out their hearts to this poor unfortunate man, woman, and child. The love and sadness in the gathering were palpable, and I “got” it. I could see the intangible benefit of such a communal act. There was that poor couple at the front of the church, crying, while everyone around them was showering them with support and hope. While I didn’t buy the literal words of the pastor, I surely understood their deeper significance: they were making these suffering people feel a bit better. And while I didn’t think the congregation’s prayers would realistically count for a hill of beans toward actually curing that baby, I was still able to see that it was a serenely beneficial act nonetheless, for it offered hope and solace to these unlucky parents, as well as to everyone else present there in that church who was feeling sadness for them, or for themselves and their own personal misfortunes. So while I sat there, absolutely convinced that there exists no God who heals defective baby hearts, I also sat there equally convinced that this mass prayer session was a deeply good thing. Or if not a deeply good thing, then at least a deeply understandable thing. I felt so sad for that young couple that day. I could not, and still cannot, fathom the pain of having a new baby who, after only a few months of life, begins to die.

  Since that day, I have acknowledged and appreciated the benefits of religion for people enduring trying times. When people experience pain or suffering, illness or death, hardship or devastation, fear or loss, religion can be a unique balm. It works on two fronts, providing both communal support and personal psychological comfort. Those experiencing life’s difficulties can rely on the care and camaraderie of their coreligionists, who will pray for them, bake for them, watch their kids for them, raise money for them, donate blood for them, and then some. And for the soul of the individual who is suffering, having faith in God can provide a sense of inner peace, love, or hope. Such a faithful person can know that they are not lost entirely, they are not alone, no matter how dire or painful their situation may be. God is up there, with outstretched arms.

  Given these undeniably comforting aspects of religion, it comes as no surprise that extensive research over several decades has revealed the positive and beneficial ways in which religion helps people cope with life’s trials and tribulations. For example, numerous studies have shown that religion can help people cope with various forms of stress, it can help parents cope with the death of their children, it can help people seeking to overcome alcohol addiction, it can help people deal with chronic illness and pain, it can help people cope with cancer,
it can help comfort refugees fleeing persecution, it can help the victims of sexual assault, and in still more ways. Such extensive research allows leading psychologist of religion Ralph Hood to confidently declare the justified truism that “turning to one’s faith in times of difficulty is helpful and constructive in dealing with both problems and emotions.” What is common to all of the above research, however, is that it generally shows that people who are already religious are able to successfully draw from their faith or religious community in coping with difficult life circumstances. As the leading expert on religious coping Professor Kenneth Pargament readily acknowledges, it comes as no surprise that the people who find religion most helpful as a coping mechanism are those very people who already maintain higher levels of religiosity, and thus “those who invest more in their religion gain more from it in coping.” This is to be expected.

  But what about the nonreligious? What about those who don’t believe in God and don’t believe in the efficacy of prayer and aren’t interested in joining a religious congregation? What do these millions of secular men and women in America do when they face hard times? How exactly do they cope without the benefit of religious faith or community?

  In my research, I’ve sought out and interviewed many such nonreligious people who have experienced traumas, tragedies, and all-around tough times. I’ve interviewed those who are battling cancer, parents who have lost children, children who have lost parents, siblings who have lost siblings, spouses who have lost spouses, people who have gone through nasty divorces, endured prison, disease—and I’ve even talked to quite a few atheists who have spent a good amount of time in foxholes, from Normandy to Da Nang to Baghdad. I’ve spoken to atheists who have experienced spinal cord injuries, agnostics who survived the Holocaust, and nonbelievers who have battled severe drug addiction. Their experiences and insights reveal that while it may not be as easy to endure trying times without the comfort of religion, it still can be done. In fact, it is done—every day, all the time.