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An Atheist by Any Other Name

Sam Harris and Ellen Johnson are at the center of the latest sparring match between rationalist thinkers. Sam Harris (The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation) gave a speech at the Atheist Alliance International conference this past weekend and made a rather astounding claim:

We should not call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.” We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.

. . . [R]ather than declare ourselves “atheists” in opposition to all religion, I think we should do nothing more than advocate reason and intellectual honesty—and where this advocacy causes us to collide with religion, as it inevitably will, we should observe that the points of impact are always with specific religious beliefs—not with religion in general.

As a Humanist I’m all for being decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them, but I think now is the worst possible time to go under the radar. With the religious right trying to make even greater inroads into our political and legal system we have to stand up and be counted, now more than ever. We also can’t go underground at a time when we are the most untrusted group in the country. Only visibily can change those statistics.

I also agree with Harris that being a atheist isn’t all that defines me any more than being gay is all that defines me. But to deny either of those parts of myself is to denigrate myself and what do I gain from that denial? Ellen Johnson, Head of American Atheists published a letter yesterday in the Humanist Network News countering Harris’ speech and I couldn’t agree more with her, especially the following remarks:

Mr. Harris cannot see why we need a name for a group of people who are “against” something, or who don’t believe in something. Take racism he says. There isn’t any term for people who are against racism. We give ourselves a name because we are proud of who we are. A group needs to be identified in some way. And we want to be a “group.” We aren’t just against something. We are something. . . . To say we should not have a name is to not exist. For far too long there have been words in our society that were considered taboo. If you didn’t say them, those things didn’t exist. We cannot allow ourselves to be made invisible by those who want the approval of others. At American Atheists we don’t allow our adversaries to dictate what we call ourselves nor do we allow them to determine our actions.

Our movement has many names associated with it. Atheist, Agnostic, Bright, Humanist, Freethinker, Naturalist, Rationalist Skeptic and so on. We have no need to hide our names.

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This entry was posted by Lisa on October 4, 2007 at 1:06 pm and is filed under General, Humanism. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • http://www.thehumanist.org Maggie

    For Harris to say what he did in front of 500+ atheists is certainly controversial. I was also in attendance that evening, and as you can imagine, a majority of the audience disagreed with Harris’ statements. But I can’t deny the fact that he brings up a number of critical points that we can learn from. It’s true that many atheists are too fixated on debating the existence of God rather than advocating reason and science. Some are too busy attacking religion rather than promoting humanistic ideals. On the contrary, our movement probably wouldn’t go far in bringing more supporters if we didn’t assign a name and establish a clear definition of what we stand for.

    Still, it’s worth pondering: Are the use of labels bad for our movement? Do we pay a price when we use the word “atheist”?

  • Lisa

    I think it’s equally worth pondering “Do we pay a price when we don’t use the word “Atheist” or “Humanist” etc and so on. It is terribly important that people know who we are and learn who we are. Otherwise the Religious Right can too easily win the “who has morals?” battle and many other of its arguments directed at secular humanists, atheists and anyone who doesn’t believe in their god.

    I can agree with you that debating the existence of a God is probably one of the less effective things we can do to move forward. Getting real science taught in schools and real sex education based on real science would be higher on my list. Stem cell research and fair treatment for everyone under the law would be higher on my list.

    But if the opposition is going to argue that the bible should be the or actually is the basis of our laws we will have to confront religious bigotry in some manner. How do you question basing laws on the bible without talking about God? We need a much stronger answer to be able to deflect the Rights need to talk about God and to move the conversation to what we feel is right and decent.

  • http://www.humanistnetworknews.org HumanistPR

    Thanks for blogging about this issue and linking to Humanist Network News (HNN), the weekly e-zine of the Institute for Humanist Studies.

    I hope new visitors from this blog will also read the article which appears just above Ellen Johnson’s column in HNN this week. At the Atheist Alliance International conference, HNN interviewed Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett about these issues.

    You can read that article here: http://humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=317&article=0

    Also, on Oct. 24, the Humanist Network News Audio Podcast (http://www.HumanistStudies.org/podcast) will play extended interviews with all the people mentioned above and more.

    We are collecting voice messages on this topic to include in our next show.

    Call the Toll Free HNN Listener Line at 1 (877) 659-1515

    Thanks again.

  • Rob

    It sounds to me (a Christian) that what Mr. Harris espouses is what many posts on this blog (posts and comments) advocate that Christians should do. It seems to disturb you that there is a Religious Right, yet you seem to be saying you want to build up an “Anti-Religious Left.” Is that logical?

    It may interest you to know (those of you who write for Rant and Reason and have read my comments before) that I am reading a couple Christian books that do indeed share some of Mr. Harris’ ideas from the Christian side of the isle…namely that political power is not the best “tool” for spreading our message. Perhaps it will make for some interesting conversations here in the future.

  • Lisa

    Thanks HumanistPR I blanked on your other article which was excellent. It’s great that you’re going to have podcasts of the other interviews available too. I appreciate your sharing that information with us

    Lisa

  • Lisa

    Hi Rob, hope you’re doing well.

    To answer your question, well I can’t answer it because I think it’s worded wrong. I don’t want to build up an an

  • HumAnon

    I think Mr. Harris’ point was that labels are unhelpful (and even detrimental). I can support church-state separation without calling myself an ardent separationist, and can support science education without being an anticreationist. From an organizational standpoint, I can deal with such issues by joining and supporting Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), among others. What advantage is to be gained by identifying as a humanist or atheist, other than to be able to concisely answer the question “what do you believe?”?

  • Lisa

    Hi, HumAnon, In a different world, one that I hope we get to I would agree with you. I also think it depends on where you yourself are coming from. Sure labels can get in the way and disract and and even make people attack you based on your label and not your ideas. But are you trying to get beyond labels because they aren’t needed or because you are afraid?
    For some of us stating who we are helps us claim our right to be who we are. As Ellen Johnson said, it keeps us from being invisible.
    Labels as you also point out help organize. If you join Americans United you are a member of Americans United and you are using there name to help make your points.
    I feel our Atheist, Humanist etc organization may need to work harder to educate people what they do if the only benefit people can see to saying they are an Atheist is to answer the question what do you believe. But then again there is a lot of power in that answer.

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  • Francis

    To establish or refute a claim that X exists takes two steps:

    1.Assume that the existence of X is possible, and so there is meaning in the word you will give to it.

  • Lisa

    Hi Francis, I’m not sure I’m following this correctly.
    Politicians have been trying to use your dictum “If you let your adversary choose the language of debate, you have already lost.” for quite a while if I’m understanding it correctly, calling it “framing”
    We have your step 1. (I’m going to say God not X since that’s what we’re talking about)
    1.Assume the existence of God is possible.
    Ok like it or not this proposition has been made. The world, as we know it has taken this step. If I ask someone to define what they mean by God they can just say “The God of Abram as revealed to us in the Bible” or “Allah as revealed to us in the Koran”
    I think the best we can do is to make it clear that proposition 1 isn’t a 50-50 proposition. It’s like Russell’s Teapot, it could be there but there’s no evidence it is and that doesn’t mean theres a 50-50 chance that there is a teapot.
    The other argument against it being a 50-50 propositon is that a lot of people believe it. Well, people used to believe the earth was flat and that the sun orbited the earth. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make it any more true.
    I have to concede Harris his point (and that Maggie made above) that we can become to fixated on arguing about the existence of God. I don’t think that means that we should abandon using names to identify ourselves however. Since again I don’t really care to argue the existence of God, but I’m more interested in the points I stated above re science etc and here I am discussing the existence of God.
    So what name for ourselves do you prefer to use since the atheist is a term that appears to concede for you more to believer than it should? How about other readers? I’m sincere in this question because I’m finding more and more people are discussing this acrossed the internet and I can’t think of better terms than what we use now.

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  • Francis

    Lisa says:
    “If I ask someone to define what they mean by God they can just say

  • http://boredbeyondbelief.wordpress.com Joe G.

    I’m catching up on my blog reading so I’m tardy in reading and responding.

    I believe that I’ve written this before, but I think both approaches (under the radar or “out-n-proud”) are useful and important.

    I disagree with Harris’ major point, however. I don’t believe that going “under the radar” as a sole or main strategy is wise, especially now. As used to be said in the fight against AIDS and homophobia during the 1980′s: “silence = death”. Don’t mean to be too dramatic, but those who would change America into their particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity are a danger to many people including (or especially?) atheists and humanists. “Going under the radar” can easily “help” their strategy and agenda.

  • Lisa

    Joe I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Or at least I really agree with you. It is a very hard choice to make to be open about who you are when there is the danger that others will disapprove even demonize you and yet some people must if there is ever to be any change.

    I must soften my initial post to say that I believe there is room for those who need or wish to go under the radar, but I think as you say it is useful and important to keep both approaches.

  • Francis

    I consider both Sam Harris and Ellen Johnston wrong.

    She is in the unfortunate position of having to maintain her organization which is stuck with claiming to represent atheism, yet is badly tainted by the moral depravity of its founder, Madalyn O’Hair (who, BTW, was once in the AHA but departed in outrage and excoriated Humanism in abusive language – and THE HUMANIST to its credit published her letter in full!) O’Hair called herself the world’s foremost atheist (yes, in writing, in a sworn deposition filed in court) as if there were not more effective atheist organizations (such as http://www.FFRF.org) and writers more effectively advocating atheism (such as Ayn Rand). So Madalyn is the albatross that inevitably tarnishes Ellen’s credibility.

    As to Sam, well he seems to care about public acceptance. I don’t. My heroes are people like Margaret Sanger (Humanist of the Year 1957), motivated by principle, not by yearning for acceptance or popularity.

  • Lisa

    I’d say that Ellen Johnson is very much her own person and that American Atheist is moving ahead with its own work although they don’t seem to feel tainted by Madalyn Murray O’Hair from what I can tell.
    It may be that Sam and Ellen are both in the right as well as in the wrong. I lean toward Ellen’s position but as all movements must have people at all extremes. I think Harris may be pushing to far but I’m willing to consider it more. The new Radio Show Answers in Atheism featuring Edwin Kagin will have Ellen Johnson on, on October 11. I’ll have to see what comes up from that program.

  • Josh

    As a former Christian I think that this issue is a problem in every ‘religion’. Many people spend time stating how they are different from other religions and how the other religions are wrong. Personally I do not always see this as a problem, yet as humanists it is a larger problem. The solution is not however to get rid of any names, as there is no reason that we shouldn’t be united under a name with common beliefs.

  • Yehudic

    THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF LABELS

    Labels seem to be indispensable. Can you imagine a filing drawer without a label? Or worse, a row of unlabelled folders inside the drawer? Even a filing system with no particular order to its labels is better than one without labels. Random, disordered labels at least offer clues. However, a filing system with a set of labels based on a formal, recognized order is considered sublime. Librarians and Pharmacists will attest to it. Just read the label and you can be certain (almost) about the contents. Errors do happen sometimes but good filing practices include controls to detect and correct errors. Because errors are infrequent and low in number filing systems and their labels work, and they are essential mechanisms of order in our lives. This pretty much describes the good of labels.

    The bad of labels starts when we freely apply labels to things and concepts that we feel the need to distinguish publicly. Unfortunately, when we simply apply labels, we usually forget to first establish a formalized order of labels and publish it so that the labels we use are pre-defined and meaningful. Labels without a formal system of order are ambiguous at best, and prone to misinterpretation and to taking on a life of their own.

    We live in a labeling free-for-all. Topics like racism, bigotry, and politics have a plentiful supply of labels, many of them damaging and misleading. Labeling successes and failures depend on where one stands in a labels spectrum. At any given point in time the terms Republican and Democrat are inadequate on their own. One has to qualify how far from the left, right or center they are within their party and then further again on the national right-left scale of the day. And when that fails right, left and center are qualified yet again with terms like moderate, extreme, and more recently,

  • http://www.compatibleink.info Compatible Ink

    my sister and i loves to read christian books because it inspires us to live life in its fullest `-: