One of my roles is to provide support information to those who recover from faith. Beyond this, I wouldn’t presume to tell Street Epistemologists there is something you should or shouldn’t tell your clients. There are just too many variables (personal history, faith tradition, education, cultural heritage, psychological disposition, relationships, life context, etc.) for universal dos and don’ts.2
This chapter contains post-treatment advice, followed by broad goals to help create a culture in which people value those dispositions crucial to allowing reason and rationality to flourish. It ends with two brief dialogues.
EMBRACE THE VAST SKEPTICAL COMMUNITY ONLINE AND IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
You’ve created a cognitive space, exposed a flawed epistemology, helped someone on a journey out of their faith, now what?
After an intervention, don’t leave the subject hanging. Be prepared to provide names, contact information, and resources that can help. Initially the abandonment of faith can be both liberating and traumatic, especially when one “comes out” to unsupportive friends and family. Those who have abandoned their faith need to know there are support groups ready to help them. Always be prepared to furnish resources at the end of your intervention, and also have that information on hand just in case you run into a subject at a later time. I keep phone numbers and Web addresses of local resources (Center for Inquiry–Portland, Humanists of Greater Portland, Meetups, and the Portland State University FreeThinkers) on cards in my wallet.
If you have time, try and make yourself available for post-treatment relationships. I invite people to “friend” me on Facebook where they’ll at least have online support. I also invite the formerly faithful to lunch or dinner, to office hours, and even to my jiu jitsu class—I’ve become friendly with many people I’ve helped.
Another advantage in forming personal relationships is that you can introduce people to new communities and new friends who use reliable epistemologies. Forming new relationships is important because these interactions mitigate the risk of recidivating and falling back into faith communities. Disrupting one’s interpersonal milieu by providing supportive relationships and communities has the potential to cement new values and new, more reliable epistemologies—this is especially crucial in early stages (precontemplation, contemplation, preparation) when one begins to question one’s faith.3
INSTITUTIONALIZING THE VALUE OF WONDER
“We live in a society where people are uncomfortable with not knowing. Children aren’t taught to say ‘I don’t know,’ and honesty in this form is rarely modeled for them. They too often see adults avoiding questions and fabricating answers, out of either embarrassment or fear, and this comes at a price. To solve the world’s most challenging problems, we need innovative minds that are inspired in the presence of uncertainty. Let’s support parents and educators who are raising the next generation of creative thinkers.”
—Annaka Harris (Secular News Daily, 2012)
Faith has fallen. What goes in its place? Wonder.
Wonder, open-mindedness, the disposition of being comfortable with not knowing, uncertainty, a skeptical and scientific-minded attitude, and the genuine desire to know what’s true—these are the attributes of a liberated mind. Let’s observe, let’s document, let’s carefully describe, and let’s be open to discomforting conclusions. Inquiry and wonder must replace dogmatism and certainty. The long-term goal is to create conditions that turn the dispositions of inquiring and wondering into culturally trumpeted virtues.4
One of the most disappointing realizations for an unseasoned Street Epistemologist is understanding the degree to which wonder and inquiry are prisoner to social values. Like the boy in James Agee’s tragic novel, A Death in the Family, who is robbed of curiosity and hope, often reason and wonder are extinguished by pernicious forces in society (Agee, 2009, pp. 54–55). Interrupting the relationship between wonder and those institutions and forces that put down free inquiry will require the creation of a potent social and intellectual movement—a New Enlightenment—that will enable individuals to adopt the disposition toward reason en masse.
In chapter 9, I suggest that we borrow tools from the civil rights movement to nudge people away from certain values and dispositions and toward the use of reliable epistemologies.
When Wonder Isn’t Enough
In the span of two weeks, my mother had a heart attack, renal failure, sepsis, and a mass discovered in her uterus. The mass turned out to be cancer, which spread to her bowels and bones. A dynamic, vibrant, generous, irreverent, and unbelievably funny and loving woman suffered a slow, painful end. On October 27, 2012, she died at home, surrounded by those who deeply loved and respected her.5
My mother was raised Catholic, though she was not particularly religious, or at least she never showed me that side of herself. She never went to church or, as far as I knew, never prayed or spoke of faith in a Catholic God. Yet when she went into heart surgery she clutched a small statue of baby Jesus on a manger. During her hospital stay, she asked my father to bring it to her, which he did every single day.
I don’t think my mother was scared of death. I do know she lived for her grandchildren and she desperately wanted to see them grow up. Even aside from all of the pain she experienced in her final months, knowing she’d never see the children again was by far the most agonizing thing of all.
When I reflect back, and think about my mother making the sign of the cross with the small figure of Jesus, I know offering her wonder was not enough. Not nearly enough. She needed something else … maybe the news that her grandchildren were safe and doing well … maybe to know that my dad and I were with her, holding her hand, and that we loved her so completely. Or maybe something else entirely?
What can we offer people like my mother in their most trying moments? I’ve thought about this question for quite some time, and the answer is as disconcerting as it is disparaging. Perhaps nothing. Once one has been indoctrinated and infected by faith, there may be nothing we can offer those in need that would grant them the same psychological and emotional comfort offered by their misplaced trust in the unknowable.
However, at the same time we know we’re all going to die. Though a life without certainty can engender upon some a level of despair, there is hope in the idea that every human being is now equal in death. The human species is made stronger by the fact that in the end we’re all going to die.
Faith’s greatest appeal may be solace—comfort and peace of mind in impossibly difficult times. Even the reward of seventy-two virgins in the afterlife falls short of the promise of eternal bliss with loved ones.6 What comfort does reality-based reasoning offer someone suffering or facing death? I don’t know. During these difficult times, if we can offer anything at all, it is our physical presence. Being at my mom’s deathbed and holding her hand was both incredibly difficult and lovely, and I knew that simply being there helped ease her suffering. When I asked if I could sit on the edge of her bed and hold her hand, she mumbled, “Yeah, sure,” and then smiled. Those were the last words she ever said to me.
I’m aware that my lack of action goes against the thesis of this book, but I was unable to even engage my mother about her faith in the last days of her life.
The Next Generation and the Revaluation of Values
Our hopes rest on the next generation. We need a targeted, comprehensive campaign, in the K–12 school system across multiple scholastic disciplines, in summer camps, in libraries, in discussions with the faithful in front of their children, on TV and radio, in Internet chat rooms, and any and everywhere we can reach children. The thrust of our message must be that there are things we don’t know and it’s okay to not know—even in death. Not claiming to know something you don’t know isn’t a character flaw, it is a virtue.
Helping people, especially children, to be comfortable with not knowing, yet at the same time encouraging the development of curiosity, of wonder, and of a zest to explore the world, is a crucial and indispensable undertaking. Ne
w books and lines of literature about how to make children comfortable with not knowing and how to develop reliable epistemologies must be written, widely circulated, and read ubiquitously. To start we must create the value of being comfortable with uncertainty, particularly with regard to life’s ultimate questions. In other words, not only do we need to devalue an existing paradigm (faith), we also need to revalue an underappreciated one (reason).
Among the valuable lessons I learned from teaching prison inmates is that books alone aren’t enough. We need to get a message to children who can’t read, who would never open a book, and particularly to those in sheltered religious communities. These are often the greatest challenges—reaching the otherwise unreachable: The pastor’s daughter, the youth who’s recruited to be an altar boy, the children who commiserate about being in Sunday school (then, in awe, falsely attribute the church’s architectural splendor to Jesus and not to the skilled laborers who painstakingly constructed it), teenagers in alcohol and drug twelve-step recovery programs, kids in Islamic and Hasidic youth programs, and economically disadvantaged children who have no access to reading material and are stuck in a failed school. The vulnerable, the indoctrinated, and the hardest to reach children are where we should place the lion’s share of our efforts.7 8
Intervention
I ran into one of my former students (FS) while waiting in line at a popular sushi restaurant. He had taken two of my philosophy classes, but I didn’t recognize him as my classes have between 70 and 130 students. He was with his girlfriend (GF), who looked wholesome and in her midtwenties and who wore out-of-place cowboy boots. I was typing on my phone when he enthusiastically greeted me.
FS: Pete! Pete! What are you doing here? Oh my God! Pete!
PB: Hey man.
FS: Do you know who I am?
PB: Nope.
FS: That’s cool. I was in your Critical Thinking class, and your Science and Pseudoscience class.
PB: Right on. How’d those classes go for you?
(We chatted for a few minutes. FS introduced me to his girlfriend. Then he told me he abandoned his faith and it had become an issue in their relationship.)
PB: You two must really love each other.
GF: We do.
PB: Well that’s great. And you’ve obviously listened to each other and really discussed FS’s embrace of reason, right?
GF: Yeah. But …
PB: Go ahead, it’s okay.
(Long pause)
PB: If you’re comfortable I’m all ears. If not it’s all good.
(Pause)
GF: But I’m scared for him. For my family. For us, you know. It’s been a really hard time.
PB: Yeah. I can totally understand that. Life after faith can be scary.
(Long pause)
PB: What scares you the most?
GF: Well … well, that he won’t go to heaven. I know that must sound silly to you. But it makes me sad.
PB: It doesn’t sound silly at all. I totally understand that’s how you feel and that that’s how you were raised.
FS: Yeah.
PB: So you think that because he doesn’t believe in heaven he won’t go there?
GF: No, but, but because he doesn’t believe in Jesus.
PB: Is FS a good man? Does he treat others well. Is he kind? Is he sincere?
FS: Yes!
(Laughter)
GF: Of course he is.
PB: But you’d like more? You’d like him to be good and to believe in Jesus?
GF: Yeah, I would.
PB: If someone’s bad but they believe in Jesus do you think they’ll go to heaven?
GF: If they believe, yes.
PB: So if heaven is your goal, then it’s more important to believe in Jesus than it is to be a good person? I ask because I’m trying to figure out how you’re thinking about it.
GF: Well the way you get to heaven is through Jesus. If you believe in Jesus that will make you good.
PB: Really? A lot of people believe in Jesus but they’re not good. Or do you think they’re just pretending?
GF: I don’t know. Maybe they’re just pretending.
PB: Yeah, I’m sympathetic to that view. There’s way too much pretending going on. So I’m curious, if you could choose only one, FS being good or FS believing in Jesus, which would you choose?
GF: Both.
(Laughter)
PB: But let’s just say you can’t have both.
(Brief silence)
GF: Good.
PB: Then you already have what’s really important to you.
GF: Yeah, I guess so. I just want more. For him.
PB: Wanting more is probably part of the human condition. I’m curious, you obviously consider yourself to be a good person, right?
GF: Yeah.
PB: Would you be good if you didn’t believe in Jesus?
GF: What do you mean?
PB: I mean if you didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God, if you came to the conclusion that this was just a fairytale, would you still act the way you do or would you do bad stuff? Would you be mean, vindictive, petty, you know, do bad stuff?
GF: I never thought about it before.
PB: Let’s just say at some point, maybe tomorrow or the next day, you decided that the whole Jesus, heaven, devil thing was just a story, a myth, and so you stopped believing. Would you continue to be good?
GF: I don’t know. Honestly, I think I’d be scared.
PB: Scared of what? Death? Not going to heaven?
GF: Yeah. Not going to heaven. Death. Yeah. All of it.
PB: Of not seeing the people you love, like FS?
GF: Yeah. I guess of nothing. You know?
PB: You mean of there being nothing after you die?
GF: Yeah, sure. Of course.
PB: I don’t want to put words in your mouth. I’m just trying to understand.
GF: I know. What do you think?
PB: It’s not really about what I think, it’s about what you think.
GF: I know. But I want to know what you think.
PB: What I think about what?
GF: What you think about this discussion. About what I’ve been saying. About this.
(Gesturing at FS)
PB: Well, I think you’re both good people. I think you’re sincere and that you’re trying to do the right thing. I think you really love each other, and that matters—a lot. I also think you’ve been indoctrinated into a set of beliefs. I think if you were raised in another part of the world, like Saudi Arabia, you’d be a sincere Muslim. I don’t think that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and deep down I think you really question whether or not that’s true, and that you have for some time now. I think you like the idea of believing in something, and you like to think of yourself as the type of person who holds this belief. I think that you have a real possibility of letting go of that belief and making your own way. I know you can do that. And I also think you’re at a point in your life when you’re ready to. That’s what I think.
(Long pause)
FS: Wow. Dude.
PB [to GF]: What do you think about what I think?
(Pause)
GF: Well … well. Maybe. I don’t know.
PB: It’s okay not to know. I think you’re ready to take your sincerity and honesty and apply that to your beliefs. Just be really, really honest with yourself. Ask yourself if you really believe someone rose from the dead or walked on water. Ask yourself if you or if [FS] needs to believe that to be good. Really ask yourself.
(Long pause)
GF: Okay, okay.
(We hugged each other.)
DIG DEEPER
Books
Seth Andrews, Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason (Andrews, 2012)
Jerry DeWitt and Ethan Brown, Hope after Faith: An Ex-Pastor’s Journey from Belief to Atheism (DeWitt & Brown, 2013)
John W. Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist: Personal Reflections and Additional Arguments (especially chapter 20) (Loftus, 2008)
Online Resources
The Clergy Project (http://clergyproject.org): “The Clergy Project is a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs. The Clergy Project launched on March 21st, 2011… . Currently, the community’s 390 plus members use it to network and discuss what it’s like being an unbelieving leader in a religious community. The Clergy Project’s goal is to support members as they move beyond faith.”
John W. Loftus, “Advice to People Who Leave the Fold,” http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/07/advice-to-people-who-leave-fold.html
RationalWiki, “RationalWiki Atheism FAQ for the Newly Deconverted,” http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki_Atheism_FAQ_for_the_Newly_Deconverted
Recovering from Religion (http://recoveringfromreligion.org/pages/home): “Recovering from Religion is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing multi-dimensional support and encouragement to individuals leaving their religious affiliations through the establishment, development, training, and educational support of local groups nationwide.”
The Secular Therapist Project (http://seculartherapy.org/index.php): “In my work with the secular community I have heard many stories from people who consulted a mental health professional only to find out after several sessions that the professional was spiritual or religious or had new age ideas. Investigating, I soon learned that it is quite difficult to find a therapist that is actually secular or will only use evidence based methods with a client. Secular therapists don’t advertise that they are humanist or atheist because that might alienate the churches and ministers who often make referrals to them. It might also drive off religious clients. Too many people have told me that they simply cannot find a therapist in their community who is not religious. On the other hand, I know that there are thousands of secular therapists, so how do we get these clients together with therapists. That is the task that Han Hills and I decided to tackle in 2011. We went live with the site in April of 2012 and are seeing clients and therapists finding each other and hopefully engaging in productive, life enhancing work.”
A Manual for Creating Atheists Page 14