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Bravo! Secularism
Growing in the U.S.
Editorial
by Paul Kurtz
The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume
22,
Number 3.
 There
has been a significant increase in secularism in the United States in the last
decade. This may very well be in response to the high level of religious belief
and practice that pervades American life today. In this regard, the United
States is an anomaly, at least contrasted with other developed democracies of
the world. Among them, the United States has the highest level of religiosity,
as expressed in religious identification. American religiosity more resembles a
third world undeveloped country in Africa, Asia, and Latin America than an
advanced democratic society. (Please see the article by Gregory Paul in this
issue.) I am referring here to the incidence of belief in God, heaven and hell,
angels and immortality, prayer, miracles, and occult phenomena. By any measure,
beliefs and practices in France, Britain, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Sweden, the
Netherlands, Japan, and other countries are far more secular than in the United
States.
Undoubtedly there are two contending streams of culture in the United States,
for, along with conservative morality, religion, and spirituality, there is a
liberal secular and scientific culture. The secular stream defends free inquiry,
naturalism, democracy, and humanistic values.
It is puzzling that religious belief is so high in the United States, for we
are the most advanced scientific-technological power in the world, and we are an
open democratic country, a truly universal society, with virtually every ethnic,
religious, and racial minority in the world represented. This no doubt is due to
the great number of immigrants who have come to these shores seeking freedom and
opportunity.
There are various explanations for the inordinately high level of
superstitious belief in the United States. Rodger Doyle in this issue attributes
this to our earliest Puritan heritage, surely a factor. But there are many other
possible explanations. We have never had an established church at the national
level—despite strenuous efforts by the Religious Right to declare Christianity
or Judeo-Christianity or even monotheism as the "official" religion of
the land. As a consequence we have not had a strong anticlerical tradition, as
in Europe. The positive aspect is tolerance. We prefer to respect all religions,
no matter how wacky or dangerous.
Another explanation for the prevalence of religions is economic: American
religious bodies have taken a free market approach. Diverse religious creeds are
promoted to consumers, each seeking a new market niche. In his recent book The
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions (2nd ed., Prometheus Books,
2001), James R. Lewis describes over 1,200 such sects, from the Branch Davidians
to the Nudist Christian Church of the Blessed Virgin Jesus; no doubt there are
many more. On virtually every city street corner one finds churches, mosques,
synagogues, temples, and storefront sanctuaries catering to diverse tastes. By
contrast, in most other countries there are often at best one, two, or three
major religions. In this sense, American religion is unique in being sold
supermarket style.
There are no doubt other explanations for the current growth of religion. One
is political: the Religious Right has worked hard to elect or appoint
conservative or born-again devotees to public office to favor faith-based
programs. Also it has used the media-buying radio and television stations and
publishing houses-to promulgate its messages. But by and large, until very
recently the mass media has not submitted religious claims—as
outrageous as some of them are-to critical scrutiny. Popular
religious-spiritualist-paranormal films and television programs sell all sorts
of quack ideas—from heavenly angels to miraculous healings, reincarnation, and
communion with the dead to other spiritual claptrap-with very little, if any,
critical dissent (a notable exception being Harvey Weinstein's Miramax Films).
Yet one bright ray of light penetrates the spiritual mush that has engulfed us:
there has been a rather dramatic growth of a secular opposition in the United
States. Evidence for this recent development is the survey published by the
Graduate Center of the City University
of New York American Religious Identification Survey, 2001, by Barry A.
Kosmin, Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar. This study finds a significant increase
in the number of adult Americans who profess no religion. Today there are 29.4
million American adults who have no religious identification—an increase since
1990 from 8.16 percent to 14.17 percent. Moreover, the number of people who
reside in a household whose members do not belong to a religious organization
has likewise increased, from 46 percent in 1990 to 54 percent today.
It must be granted that a preponderance of the public (if often only
nominally) still self-identifies as Christian-77 percent in 2001, in comparison
with 86.7 percent in 1990. Yet here, too, this is a 9 percent decline. Today
those with no religion are the third-largest minority, after Roman Catholics
(50.9 million) and Baptists (33.8 million).
In their introduction to their significant survey, the authors observe:
. . . often lost amidst the mesmerizing tapestry of faith groups that
comprise the American population is also a vast and growing population of
those without faith. They adhere to no creed nor choose to affiliate with any
religious community.
. . . The pattern emerging from the present study is completely consistent
with similar secularizing trends in other Western democratic societies (p. 5).
Another interesting recent Gallup poll (2001) concerns rather dramatic
changes over the past two decades in beliefs about the Bible. Of significance to
readers of Free Inquiry magazine is the fact that 20 percent of the
American public now consider the Bible to be a book of fables and legends, in
comparison with 11 percent in 1981 (a year after Free Inquiry was
founded). Moreover, belief that the Bible is "the actual word of God"
declined from 65 percent in 1963 and 37 percent in 1981 to 27 percent in 2001, a
rather strong trend, more in line with European belief.
Gallup Poll 2001
In 1980 we issued A Secular
Humanist Declaration, calling for free inquiry into the claims of the
Bible. We surely are not taking credit for these newer trends, but we do believe
that we have had a modest impact on the shift in American public opinion. Since
that time the Jesus Seminar and many major books and articles have focused
considerable attention on biblical criticism, demonstrating the fragmentary
character of the historical record supporting Old and New Testament claims. This
has led to an increase in skepticism.
Given the intense conflicts between contending fundamentalist dogmatic claims
in the world today, many people have grown exasperated with policies formulated
"in the name of God." They have asked for concrete secular, political,
and ethical alternatives to resolve these conflicts. Here secularism has an
important role to play. For it can show that it is possible to lead the good
life, be a good citizen, and display exemplary moral conduct without benefit of
religion or clergy. Indeed, contemporary secular European societies enjoy high
standards of living and education, and they suffer less violence, addictive
behavior, repression, or tyranny than religious societies. We hope the secular
trends now emerging in the United States will continue to grow. This is the
vision and the call of secular humanism—to demonstrate to everyone the
positive reach of humanist values as an alternative to God-intoxicated
theologies and the importance of keeping alive reason rather than faith.
It is difficult in a quarterly publication such as Free Inquiry to
comment on every issue that emerges in the passing parade of news events, but
some brief comments are in order as they relate to the main theme of this
magazine, that one can be moral without belief in God, and indeed that fanatic
religion is often wicked and harmful. The recent child sex-abuse and pederasty
scandals concerning priests and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church are hardly
evidence for the superior morality of supernatural religion that we hear about.
Again, the opposition to voluntary euthanasia in Oregon by Attorney General
Ashcroft, supported by Protestant fundamentalists and Roman Catholic
conservatives, suggests an insensitivity and lack of compassion for terminally
ill patients desperately wishing to die. Thus, in spite of the approval of the
electorate in Oregon, its enlightened and humane new assisted-suicide law had
not been implemented, and is in the courts. The movement for euthanasia is a
long-standing interest of secular humanists. We are pleased to see that a new
law was finally enacted in the Netherlands after two decades of practice, in
which the Dutch have allowed or assisted terminally ill patients wishing to die
to do so. Similar campaigns are underway in France, Belgium, Britain, Austria,
and other countries, which are considering new legislation to legalize, or at
least decriminalize, assisted suicide and euthanasia. A key case was recently
tested in the English courts, resulting in a decision that allowed beneficent
euthanasia to occur. Similarly, the opposition to cloning in the United States
on "moral grounds" is supported by a curious metaphysical and
theological notion: the proposition that a cell that divides is a person, and
that therefore is off limits to scientific research—even though possibly
enormous positive therapeutic benefit may result. Allowing a doctrine of faith
to decide a key scientific issue again demonstrates the egregious error of
permitting religion, on alleged moral grounds, to censor science.
It is clear that those of us who believe in a secular society need constantly
to argue against the intrusion of religion in all areas of life, and to ask for
some form of secular liberation for science, morality, politics, and human
behavior.
Paul Kurtz is editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry
and professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at
Buffalo.
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