o7An appeals court recently ruled on a case involving a prison
inmate attempting to hold a study group on atheism and humanism. The
court ruled that the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin
violated James Kaufman's 1st Amendment rights when it refused to
allow the group to meet. In the opinion, a judge cited the U.S.
Supreme Court's recognition of atheism as being equivalent to a
"religion," even though the dictionary defines it as "disbelief or
denial in the existence of God or gods." Should atheism be treated as
a religion?f7
A true atheist is one who is willing to face the full consequences
of what it means to say there is no God. Given some of what we treat
as religion, this is a significant commitment. The bottom line is
that " ... many an atheist is a believer without knowing it. You can
sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You
can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't.
So it goes ... " writes Frederick Buechner in "Wishful Thinking."
Sometimes atheism isn't bad fun: I do what seems right to me and
you do what seems right to you, and if we come into conflict with
each other, society has human judges to invoke human laws and
arbitrate between us. To say there is no God is to say that there are
no absolute standards, no divine judge, no cosmic law, only "the rule
of thumb."
Other times, there is that feeling we get in the pit of our
stomach that there must be an absolute good by which some act can be
denounced as absolutely evil. So, the problem of good is a major
stumbling block for atheism as a religion, just as the problem of
evil is a major stumbling block for religious faith. Both must learn
how to live with their doubts.
Buechner uses laughter as the example to distinguish faith in God
from faith in no-God: The laughter of faith in God is like
100-year-old Abraham's laughter when God says his 90-year-old wife is
in a family way (Genesis 17:17).
The laughter of faith in no-God is heard in Sartre's story "The
Wall": A man is threatened with death if he doesn't betray the
whereabouts of his friend to the enemy. The man refuses to do this
and sends the enemy on a wild goose chase to the place he feels
certain his friend isn't. By chance it turns out to be the very place
where his friend is. The friend is captured and executed and the man
is given his freedom. Sartre ends the story by saying the man laughed
till he cried.
All laughter is welcome in prison, but which laughter is
religious?
(THE VERY REV'D CANON)
PETER D. HAYNES
