Burning Bush Book Club

Joe and I have been joining in with the activities of the local atheist, freethought, and humanist groups, but there has been a lack of variety in the activities. The LVA meet up is a social gathering at a deli, and it is just so people can chat. The HALVASON/LVFS meetings are normally more lectures with a guest speaker. So Joe and I proposed starting a book club to start a discussion, meet more people, and get everyone engaged in a more structured event.

As hosts, Joe and I picked the book and organized everything. We put it to a vote, but hands down, everyone wanted to read God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

We got two copies and set to reading because we figured that as hosts it would be really bad if we hadn't finished the book. Last night was the inaugural group and we had a good turn out, with 15 people total. The mix was interesting with people from all age groups, and different walks of life. I was a little nervous about leading the discussion and had tried to find a discussion guide from the publisher or other organizations and didn't find anything. So I flagged interesting parts of the book and hoped for the best.

For those who may not be familiar with the book or author, here is a little background. Hitchens is a well-known public figure in the antitheist community. He is a British-American journalist and has spent his career covering political events and writing commentary/analysis on religious issues, geo-political events, etc. He wrote God is Not Great as a crash course in the role religion has played in world history. He focuses mainly on the three major monotheisms, but includes a chapter on the Eastern religions as well. The book is aimed at a theistic audience. I think he is hoping that believers will read this and learn about the travesties their religion has committed and will question being a part of it/the validity of it, but...well, I'll save it for now. As you will see below, we discussed this very issue, among others.

I started off the discussion by asking what people thought of the title and cover. We talked about how provocative it is and whether it does a service or harms Hitchens' objective. Some folks said they felt proud to be seen with the book in public, while others were a little put off by how aggressive it was. This transitioned into talking about the tone of the book and how flip and provocative Hitchens' can be. Largely we agreed that his style and the cover were probably not going to draw any believers, and as a result, would prevent them from really getting his message. Maybe some fence-sitters, but they would have to be pretty thick skinned and unafraid of the raised eyebrows from others. While the book is very educational and makes valid points, we generally thought that it is probably too confrontational for the audience he is truly trying to reach. As for the rest of us, he is preaching to the choir (no ironic puns intended).

We talked about so many things, but here are a couple highlights that I thought were particularly good points.

Hitchens discusses ways that religions get a pass on behavior that would otherwise be considered unacceptable. For example, he explores the bris, the Jewish circumcision ceremony performed by a mohel in which a man cuts off part of a baby's penis, then sucks on the wound. Because it is a religious ceremony, the practice is overlooked and even when an outbreak of herpes occurs and some babies die, the perpetrator is not prosecuted to the full extent of the law. On the contrary, a slap on the wrist is given, and the practice is continued. We discussed how, as a society, we allow traditions like this to continue when in any other context it would be considered a crime. One gentleman made the point that until we as a society reject the practices that are blatant violations of human rights we will not be able to make a change. But, the reason they are not challenged yet is due to the a) (in the US at least) the fear of oppressing religious freedoms and b) because we are largely tolerant of Abrahamic religions and their practices.

We talked about morality. Most if us have had experiences in which a believer (most of the time Christian) makes the argument that you have to believe in god in order to be moral. Without god you have to incentive to be "good." Hitchens argues that morality is actually a humanist principle, with the notion of doing unto others as you would have done to you being a basic part of human societal formation. These principles have been co-opted by religion and used as a means of control to regulate their followers. Believers act the way they do because of the incentive of favorable treatment by their god, or they avoid committing immoral acts our of fear of retribution or punishment from their god. So I posed the question: Being that nonbelievers are acting morally without supernatural incentive, are we more or less moral that the others? We agreed that yes, nontheists' morality may be more basically motivated and simpler to understand, but in the end actions of morality are all equal. Also, the point was made that even though we are not motivated by such a blatant reward system, we are getting a reward too. Whether it is just feeling good from doing someone a favor, or knowing you have helped someone in need, that itself is a reward. Altruism doesn't really exist and we are all motivated by one reason or another. Where we differ is really in the acts committed in the name of a god. Acts range from helping the homeless to atrocities like killing infidels and enslaving peoples who are of another faith/without faith. We spent some time lamenting how many atrocities have been committed over human history by people claiming to be doing god's work and by claiming to have the moral high ground because their actions are sanctioned by their church.

We discussed how difficult our lives can be as nonbelievers, and I asked if folks thought it would have been easier or harder to be a nonbeliever in ancient times. We discussed how in ancient times, the masses didn't have access to education and only had the information and explanations provided by their religious government, so yes it would be harder because there wasn't any alternative. But, there have always been people searching for truth and exploring our world through science. Largely they have been labeled heretics and suffered horrible fates at the hands of religion. So while our lives nowadays can be inconvenient and socially awkward as nontheists, we have it easy. In general, at least in the US, we don't have to worry about being burned at the stake any longer, but some of us still have quite a battle. Numerous folks in the group fear they would lose their jobs if they came out as atheists, and many are still experiencing family strife simply for believing differently than their relatives. Our society is becoming more tolerant and open to discussing nontheism, and certainly books like this are helping, but we do have a long way to go.

That led into the last question of the night. Hitchens' last chapter calls for a new enlightenment, but doesn't really propose how to get there. So we discussed ways in which we could bring about the change. It was agreed that one step is for the nonbeliever groups to come together and quit playing the name game and segmenting ourselves. We have freethinkers, humanists, atheists, nonbelievers, brights, etc. and many people get testy about their self-appointed label. One person suggested that we come together and embrace a common label and start our ____ Movement. It was compared to the Gay Rights Movement. A minority group "comes out" into society, demands to be heard, and declares that we've been here all along and we are not the evil, amoral, dregs of society that we are made out to be. As for actual modes of action one of the most fundamental things we can do is stand up for our constitutional rights and force our government to uphold the basic rules of our secular government. Yes, our country was founded by Christian people and our documents were drafted by many Christian men, but the founding fathers purposely created a government in which church and state are separate and our government is guaranteed to be secular for the protection of all people. From the seemingly small things like removing god from the pledge of allegiance and removing it from our currency, to keeping creationism and its thinly veiled cousin "intelligent design" out of science classrooms, we need to be vigilant otherwise we all suffer.