A Manual for Creating Atheists

by Peter Boghossian

  Subsequent to this two attendees approached me to say that my not being cowed by his behavior was a seminal event in their lives. They’d never seen anyone stand up and voice their public opposition to a privileged faithbased claim. One young woman even told me that seeing me confront AA changed her life. She said it gave her hope.

  DIG DEEPER

  Themes Related to Parenting:

  Books for Children

  In the realm of children’s books that meet the criteria of instilling a sense of awe, wonder, and comfort with not knowing, three books standout. Each of these books starts children on an anti-dogmatic path to wisdom:

  Richard Dawkins and Dave McKean, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True (Dawkins & McKean, 2011)

  Annaka Harris, I Wonder (Harris, forthcoming)

  Stephen Law, Really, Really Big Questions (Law, 2012)

  Books on Raising Skeptical (Atheist) Children

  Dale McGowan, Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief (McGowan, 2007)

  Dale McGowan, Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion (McGowan, 2009)

  Entertainment for Teens

  Baba Brinkman (http://www.bababrinkman.com/): “Baba Brinkman is a Canadian rap artist, writer, actor, and tree planter. He is best known for his award-winning hip-hop theater shows, including The Rap Guide to Evolution and The Canterbury Tales Remixed, which interpret the works of Darwin and Chaucer for a modern audience.”

  Online Resource

  Atheist Parents (http://www.atheistparents.org/index.php): “We are dedicated to helping parents worldwide to raise well-educated, thoughtful, ethical, socially responsible, environmentally aware, and most importantly, godless children.”

  Secular Camps

  Camp Quest (http://www.campquest.org/): “Camp Quest provides an educational adventure shaped by fun, friends and freethought, featuring science, natural wonder and humanist values.”

  Camp Inquiry (http://www.campinquiry.org/): “This is a place where kids can be themselves. We work toward helping youth confront the challenges of living a non-theistic, skeptical, and secular lifestyle in a world dominated by religious belief and pseudoscience. Grounded on the conviction that kids can begin establishing habits of the good and ethical life early on, Camp Inquiry adopts a three-part focus: The arts and sciences, the skeptical perspective, and ethical character development comprise an integrated approach to this ‘Age of Discovery.’ Campers, counselors, and teachers will address key issues around individual identity, forging trusting relationships, establishing a sense of local and global community, and living with respect for the natural world.”

  Skepticism for Teens Magazine

  Junior Skeptic (http://www.skeptic.com/junior_skeptic/): “Bound into every issue of Skeptic magazine, Junior Skeptic is an engagingly illustrated science and critical thinking publication for younger readers.”

  Themes Unrelated to Parenting:

  Books

  Russell Blackford, Freedom of Religion and the Secular State (Blackford, 2012b)

  Sean Faircloth, Attack Of The Theocrats! How The Religious Right Harms Us All—And What We Can Do About It (Faircloth, 2012)

  Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion? (Leiter, 2012)

  Darrel Ray, The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (Ray, 2009)

  Al Stefanelli, Free Thoughts—A Collection of Essays by an American Atheist (Stefanelli, 2012a)

  Katherine Stewart, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children (Stewart, 2012)

  Online Article

  Ryan Cragun, “How Secular Humanists (and Everyone Else) Subsidize Religion in the United States” (Cragun, Yeager, & Vega, 2012)

  Suggested Academic-Community Partners

  The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF; http://www.randi.org/site/): “The James Randi Educational Foundation was founded in 1996 to help people defend themselves from paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. The JREF offers a still-unclaimed milliondollar reward for anyone who can produce evidence of paranormal abilities under controlled conditions. Through scholarships, workshops, and innovative resources for educators, the JREF works to inspire this investigative spirit in a new generation of critical thinkers.”

  The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS; http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/): “The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.”

  Secular Student Alliance (SSA; http://www.secularstudents.org/about): “The mission of the Secular Student Alliance is to organize, unite, educate, and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human-based ethics. We envision a future in which nontheistic students are respected voices in public discourse and vital partners in the secular movement’s charge against irrationality and dogma.”

  The Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine (http://www.skeptic.com/): “The Skeptics Society is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) scientific and educational organization whose mission is to engage leading experts in investigating the paranormal, fringe science, pseudoscience, and extraordinary claims of all kinds, promote critical thinking, and serve as an educational tool for those seeking a sound scientific viewpoint. Our contributors—leading scientists, scholars, investigative journalists, historians, professors and teachers—are top experts in their fields. It is our hope that our efforts go a long way in promoting critical thinking and lifelong inquisitiveness in all individuals.”

  Secular Legal Support

  Americans United for Separation of Church and State (https://www.au.org/): “Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of church-state separation as the only way to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.”

  Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF; http://ffrf.org/): “The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion. In modern times the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women’s right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers, just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery. The Foundation works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church.”

  Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF; http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/): “The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom to which they and all Americans are entitled by virtue of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

  National Engagement Opportunities

  American Atheists (http://atheists.org/about-us): “Since 1963, American Atheists has been the premier organization laboring for the civil liberties of atheists and the total, absolute separation of government and religion. It was born out of a court case begun in 1959 by the Murray family which challenged prayer recitation in the public schools… . Now in its 50th year, American Atheists is dedicated to working for the civil rights of atheists, promoting separation of state and church, and providing information about atheism.”

  Center for Inquiry (http://www.centerforinquiry.net/): “The mission of the Center for Inquiry is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. To oppose and supplant the mythological narratives of the past, and the dogmas of the present, the world needs an institution devoted to promoting science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. The Center for Inquiry is t
hat institution.”

  Council for Secular Humanism (http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php): “The mission of the Council for Secular Humanism is to advocate and defend a nonreligious lifestance rooted in science, naturalistic philosophy, and humanist ethics and to serve and support adherents of that lifestance.”

  Foundation Beyond Belief (http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/): “ To demonstrate humanism at its best by supporting efforts to improve this world and this life, and to challenge humanists to embody the highest principles of humanism, including mutual care and responsibility.”

  Freedom From Religion Foundation (http://ffrf.org/)

  Secular Coalition for America (http://secular.org): “The Secular Coalition for America is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization whose purpose is to amplify the diverse and growing voice of the nontheistic community in the United States. We are located in Washington, D.C. for ready access to government, activist partners and the media. Our staff lobbies U.S. Congress on issues of special concern to our constituency.”

  Entertainment

  It is not a coincidence that depictions of a godless world commonly occur in television and movies that take place in the future.

  Babylon 5

  Blake’s 7

  Farscape

  Stargate Universe

  Star Trek

  NOTES

  For why someone should care about the truth, see American philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s brief but engaging book, On Truth (Frankfurt, 2006). Frankfurt writes, “how could a society that cared too little for truth make sufficiently well-informed judgments and decisions concerning the most suitable disposition of its public business?” (p. 15).

  We need to clean up our language and remove the vestiges of religious ages. Here are some frequently used expressions that I’m advocating we stop using: “God bless you,” “May the Lord have mercy,” “The devil is in the details,” “Thank God,” “Soul searching,” “For God’s sake,” “God helps those who help themselves,” “God only knows,” “God willing,” “Thank God for small favors,” “God’s gift to women/men,” “Godspeed,” “Our thoughts and prayers are with you,” “Thank you, Jesus,” “May the Lord have mercy,” “God dammit,” “Bless you,” “Leap of faith,” “Act of faith,” “To act in bad/good faith,” “Show good faith,” “Take it on faith,” “An article of faith,” “An act of God,” “Count your blessings,” “Have faith in me,” “Match made in heaven,” etc. These and other expressions permeate our language in virtually every domain, for example, law (“Act in bad faith”), insurance (“Act of God”), football (“Hail Mary pass”), computing (Daemon), computer gaming (“God mode”), physics (“The God particle”), ethics (“God’s eye view”), relationships (“Soul mate”), etc. It is possible for religious language to fall into disuse. Witness the women’s movement—words and titles have, in one generation, been changed—Mrs. to Ms., spokesman to spokesperson, stewardess to flight attendant, fireman to firefighter, etc.

  In Philosophical Investigations, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein popularized the phrase Sprachspiel, or “language game” (Wittgenstein, 2009). “Language game” is meant to capture the idea that words have a multiplicity of uses—people use the same word across many different contexts. There’s no fixed meaning of any word.

  By 2015, my Atheism course at Portland State University will hopefully become a MOOC. The course should be free and open to the public.

  Many people struggle with the sense of meaninglessness that the contemporary world seems to thrust upon them. The specter of relativism makes individuals think that all answers are the same—hollow and useless. God-fearing people see relativism as an enemy and as meaninglessness as an inevitable result of being cut off from God. What figures like Nietzsche teach us is that the sense of meaninglessness is a result of millennia of dependency on mythological thinking. When myths are shown to be false, the result is a sense of despair because we’ve been dependent upon them for so long. The step out of meaninglessness should not be dependency on a new myth (the New Age movement, Scientology, Mormonism), but self-sufficiency and a tough-mindedness that is weary of resting the sense of meaning on what someone else has said or done or promised. We have to earn meaning for ourselves.

  The sequence of escaping myth is: dependency, despair, reawakening, and self-sufficiency that embraces the value of tough-minded living.

  In Oregon, for example, a student Christian organization at Portland State University sponsors Louis Palau’s crusade (http://www.palau.org/) along the riverfront. Teenagers by the thousands are lured to the event with sports demonstrations and music, but they must also endure a heavy dose of evangelism. I’ve yet to see a single picketer at this event. Even a few dozen people with signs who picketed the entrance and warned parents that the event is not what it seems would make a difference. There’s plenty of religious propaganda that could use a conspicuous, public assault by clear thinkers. Many people are willing to picket an event, but few are willing to organize an event. Find someone who’s willing to organize an event and tell them you’ll attend.

  I recently formed academic-community partnerships with the RDFRS and with the JREF. The RDFRS partnership will potentially allow students in my New Atheism course to publish their work on the RDFRS Web page: http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/. The JREF partnership will allow students to make their work accessible on the iPad. But beyond this, these partnerships enable me to find students who are passionate about, and committed to, spreading reason and rationality. It’s an amazing opportunity for students to improve their writing, delve into a topic in great depth, and have a competitive advantage when they apply to graduate schools.

  Conspicuously absent from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s information Web page are epistemologists: “From the food you eat, to the air you breathe, to staying safe wherever you are, CDC’s mission touches all aspects of daily life. CDC researchers, scientists, doctors, nurses, economists, communicators, educators, technologists, epidemiologists and many other professionals all contribute their expertise to improving public health” (CDC, 2012). We need to institutionalize the way we deal with cognitive contamination by virulent epistemologies. Future generations will likely view the eradication of epistemological contagions in the same way that previous generations viewed the importance of eradicating smallpox and polio.

  When I told my father that K–12 educational systems should promote the value of epistemological rigor, he replied incredulously, “Are you kidding me? High school dropout rates are hovering around 33 percent in most [U.S.] cities. We can’t even teach kids how to read. What makes you think we’d be any more successful with instilling ‘epistemological rigor?’” Whether or not we can be successful in helping people see value in epistemological rigor is an empirical question. I have my own speculation that this can be accomplished through pop culture—for example, comic books and TV shows for children that personify new heroes, Epistemic Knights, and new villains, Faith Monsters.

  Tax revenues could then be put into public health programs that attempt to contain faith and promote reason. Additional monies and incentives could aim at: reforming colleges of education that grant promotion and tenure to faculty who attempt to reconstruct reason and conduct community outreach work in the public understanding of reason and science; institutionalizing critical thinking curricula in grades K–12; sponsoring public outreach campaigns that reframe the value of faith; funding music, movies, and TV shows that portray faith (not the faithful but the process and consequences of faith) in a negative light; etc.

  In Germany and even Ireland and Italy, there is growing support for taxing the Catholic Church, their holdings, donations, and lands. I don’t, however, see this happening in the United States within the next five years. Yet I can imagine a single, enlightened U.S. government official recognizing the hypocrisy of taxing a nonprofit dedicated to feeding the impoverished or curing cancer, while Scientologists continue to build their empire, tax free—this is the kind
of change we can demand as society learns to value and promote reason.

  For every dollar spent by FFRF or Americans United, the Christian ministries (in coalition) spend more than $150 (Brown, 2012; A. Seidel, personal communication, December 5, 2012). They employ special interest law firms whose primary mission is to petition appellate and supreme courts to either sue or file friends-of-the-court briefs on issues ranging from public school release time for religious instruction, to bans on abortion, to programs designed to stop contraception.

  The American Psychiatric Association’s description of the DSM reads, the “DSM … contains descriptions, symptoms, and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. These criteria for diagnosis provide a common language among clinicians—professionals who treat patients with mental disorders. By clearly defining the criteria for a mental disorder, DSM helps to ensure that a diagnosis is both accurate and consistent; for example, that a diagnosis of schizophrenia is consistent from one clinician to another, and means the same thing to both of these clinicians, whether they reside in the U.S. or other international settings. It is important to understand that appropriately using the diagnostic criteria found in DSM requires clinical training and a thorough evaluation and examination of an individual patient” (American Psychiatric Association, 2012).

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, thanks to my wife. I could never have done this without her tireless support. She is my rock. She is my place of safety in chaos. Thanks to my daughter for her patience and to my son for allowing me to bounce ideas off of him. Thanks to my mother and father for a lifetime of kindness, generosity, and unconditional love. Mom, you were my best friend. You are missed beyond measure: your grace, humor, compassion, irreverence, and unconditional love are models I strive to emulate. My goal is to do for my children what you have done for me. Thank you for sharing your life with me. I love you and will always love you.