America is functionally atheist
Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014
Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com
Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Journal Founding: August 2, 2012
Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year
Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed
Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access
Fees: None (Free)
Volume Numbering: 11
Issue Numbering: 3
Section: B
Theme Type: Idea
Theme Premise: “Outliers and Outsiders”
Theme Part: 28
Formal Sub-Theme: None.
Individual Publication Date: August 15, 2023
Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2023
Author(s): James Haught
Author(s) Bio: James A. Haught, syndicated by PeaceVoice, was the longtime editor at the Charleston Gazette and had been the editor emeritus since 2015. He was thought to have been the first investigative reporter in West Virginia. He won two dozen national newswriting awards and was author of 12 books and 150 magazine essays. He was also a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine and was writer-in-residence for the United Coalition of Reason. He died on Sunday, July 23, at the age of 91.
Word Count: 518
Image Credit: None
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN): 2369-6885
*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the publication.*
Keywords: America, atheist, Christian, Christian nation, Dan Barker, Graham Lawton, Heaven, James Haught, jokes, The Clergy Project.
America is functionally atheist
Some jokes reveal truths. Remember the quip that “no Christian wants to go to heaven right now”? Obviously, the hidden truth is that most Christians secretly doubt church promises of paradise.
Well, I think secret disbelief goes deeper, saturating most of this “Christian nation.” A majority of Americans behave as if they doubt the reality of gods, devils, heavens, hells, miracles, visions, prophecies and the rest of church supernaturalism. For most of society, daily life proceeds in a manner generally called “functional atheism” (acting as if God doesn’t exist).
Even priests and ministers have secret doubts. That’s why skeptics such as FFRF Co-President Dan Barker, a former minister himself, created The Clergy Project, an online refuge where troubled preachers come out of the closet to reveal their uncertainty about holy dogmas. Hundreds have confessed, so far. The disclosures were first published in a report titled “Preachers Who Are Not Believers” and later assembled in a book titled Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind.
At a British book symposium, author Graham Lawton declared that “no one really believes in religion, not even priests.” He said cultures give lip service to supernatural beliefs, but it’s a pretense. “If you ask quite religious people about the claims that are made by religion — like the fact that God’s watching you — they don’t really believe that,” he said.
Well, Lawton is mostly right, but not entirely. America contains a significant streak of what sociologists call “intense” religion. A 2017 Harvard study found that hard-line, narrow-minded, far-right Christians remain fervent in the United States. Big-money television preachers still reap hundreds of millions of dollars. Also, an estimated 10 million Americans are Pentecostals who “speak in tongues.” These worshippers clearly believe supernatural dogmas.
However, they’re a shrinking fringe, relentlessly retreating. Most of America is turning secular with amazing rapidity. Church membership has dropped 20 percent in the past two decades. Around a third of young adults say their religion is “none.” In general, supernatural faith is dying, and the rest of the nation lives by functional atheism.
Panic is growing among some church figures. Conservative writer Rod Dreher fears America’s swelling secularism so much that he wrote a book, The Benedict Option, urging believers to renounce mainstream society and bond in private communes like Benedictine monks in monasteries. For Dreher, the Supreme Court approval of same-sex marriage was a Waterloo, the worst of many defeats, for his type of hidebound, intolerant Christians. It cast them as bigoted gay-haters out of step with the nation. Dreher has written: “Christians who hold to the biblical teaching about sex and marriage have the same status in culture, and increasingly in law, as racists.”
Well, the bible decrees (Leviticus 20:13) that gay males must be put to death. Does Dreher want Christians to hold to that biblical teaching about sex?
So far, I haven’t seen any fundamentalists heading for cloisters. But maybe they should, because they’re shriveling to an unappetizing fringe, while the rest of America increasingly lives by functional atheism.
This piece is adapted from a June 24, 2019, column written for Daylight Atheism at Patheos.
Bibliography
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Footnotes
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Citations
American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition): Haught J. America is functionally atheist. August 2023; 11(3). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist
American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition): Haught, J. (2023, August 15). America is functionally atheist. In-Sight Publishing. 11(3). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist.
Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): HAUGHT, J. America is functionally atheist. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Fort Langley, v. 11, n. 3, 2023.
Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition): Haught, James. 2023. “America is functionally atheist.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 11, no. 3 (Summer). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist.
Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition): Haught, J “America is functionally atheist.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 11, no. 3 (August 2023).http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist.
Harvard: Haught, J. (2023) ‘America is functionally atheist’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 11(3). <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist>.
Harvard (Australian): Haught, J 2023, ‘America is functionally atheist’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 11, no. 3, <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist>.
Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition): Haught, James. “America is functionally atheist.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vo.11, no. 3, 2023, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist.
Vancouver/ICMJE: James H. America is functionally atheist [Internet]. 2023 Aug; 11(3). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/America-atheist.
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