America's Foolish Romance with God

"The Last Taboo" by Wendy Kaminer, in The New Republic (Oct. 14, 1996), 1220 19th St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036.

Many sermons are preached these days about America's moral decline and loss of religious faith. Nearly everybody seems to agree that the spirit of secularism has seized the nation. Kaminer, a Public Policy Fellow at Radcliffe College, begs to differ. Americans, she says, give too much respect to religion-and too little to the rational alter- native: atheism.

"If I were to mock religious belief as child- ish, if I were to suggest that worshiping a supernatural deity, convinced that it cares about your welfare, is like worrying about monsters in the closet who find you tasty enough to eat, if I were to describe God as our creation. . . . I'd violate the norms of civility and religious correctness, I'd be exco- riated as an example of the cynical, liberal elite responsible for America's moral decline. I'd be pitied for my spiritual blindness; some people would try to enlighten and convert me. I'd receive hate mail. Atheists generate about as much sympathy as pedophiles. But, while pedophilia may at least be character- ized as a disease, atheism is a choice, a will- ful rejection of beliefs to which vast majori- ties of people cling."

She cites a 1994 survey showing that 95 percent of Americans believe in God or some other universal spirit, and that 76 percent "imagine God as a heavenly father who actu- ally pays attention to their prayers." Many also entertain more exotic beliefs. According to a 1991 survey, 53 percent of Catholics and 40 percent of Protestants believe in UFOs (unidentified flying objects). Nearly one-third of the nation's teenagers believe in rein- carnation.

"In this climate-with belief in guardian angels and creationism becoming common- place-making fun of religion is as risky as burning a flag in an American Legion hall," Kaminer asserts. "But, by admitting that they're fighting a winning battle, advocates of renewed religiosity would lose the benefits of appearing besieged. Like liberal rights organizations that attract more money when con- servative authoritarians are in power, reli- gious groups inspire more believers when secularism is said to hold sway."

H. L. Mencken and other thinkers once scorned religion as akin to imbecility. Today's intellectuals, Kaminer complains, have "aban- doned the tradition of caustic secularism that once provided refuge for the faithless."

The supposedly liberal, mainstream press is no better, she maintains. It "offers unprecedented coverage of religion, taking pains not to offend the faithful." In an op-ed piece on popular spirituality that she wrote for the New York Times last summer, she was not allowed by the editors to say "that, while Hillary Clinton was criticized for conversing with Eleanor Roosevelt, millions of Amer- icans regularly talk to Jesus, long deceased, and that many people believe that God talks to them, unbidden. Nor was I permitted to point out that, to an atheist, the sacraments are as silly as a seance. These remarks and others were excised because they were deemed 'offensive.'"

A little more offensiveness is precisely what's needed, in Kaminer's view: "A resur- gence of skepticism and rationality . . . would balance supernaturalism and the habit of belief with respect for empirical real- ities, which should influence the formula- tion of public policy more than faith."