Religion should be a private matter

I was seven years old when I first self-identified as an atheist.

I remember the setting vividly. I was in a social studies class in the second grade. My teacher – the American education system’s answer to Margaret Thatcher, albeit with less charm – was explaining the concept of religious diversity by going around the class, asking us about how we observe religion at home. When it came to my turn, I dithered, not knowing how to answer. Religion was a neglected topic in my family; my father turned away from religion in his youth, and my mother – while technically Hindu – kept to her own personal spirituality and beliefs. At the age of seven, I had never been to mass in my life, and had only ever stepped inside a synagogue for family events. I had the vaguest understanding of Christianity and Hinduism, but would not learn about Islam for another two years. So when I was inevitably asked about my religion, I simply replied with something along the lines of “I don’t have one”. The looks I received from a large number of my classmates – a mixture of incredulity and odium – still resonate with me to this day. For a long time after that, I kept my religious viewpoints exclusively to myself.

I write this because my experience in that second grade class is very much a vignette for attitudes towards atheists in America (and elsewhere in the world) today. That it was considered acceptable for my teacher to pick out students based on their religion is telling enough about America’s lax attitudes to constitutionally enshrined secularism. Yet in the US, atheism is seen by many as evil, and fundamentally un-American, an attitude perfectly encapsulated by then president George H. W. Bush, who famously said of atheists that “I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.” Bush’s view is one shared by the majority of Americans; a Pew survey in 2007 found that just over 60% of Americans would not vote for an atheist president, however qualified. A follow-up survey in 2014 found that atheists and Muslims vie for last place concerning public perception of religious beliefs.

Of course, I am lucky to have identified as non-religious in the US, where atheism only results in mild stigmatisation, and a de facto restriction in my ability to run for public office. In seven countries throughout the world (Afghanistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Mauritius, and Yemen), to be non-religious is to invite the death penalty. Elsewhere, atheism and secularism is met by cold stigmatisation, and criticism of religion is zealously silenced by governments, fanatics, and law enforcement the world over. Even in the UK, a relative bastion of secularism, it is not enough for many adherents of religion to simply allow those who do not follow their faith to simply go about their lives unmolested by their fervent desire to impose their atavistic worldview on those who have no want or need for it. I have lost count of the number of times I have been accosted by Mormons on my morning commute; or have had a tract shoved into my hand by a saccharinely smiling Jehovah’s Witness; or else have been rendered deaf by megaphone wielding Muslim preachers. In every single case, my desire to remain quietly secular is challenged at every turn with a kind of simpering passive-aggressiveness that belies a fundamental and deep-seated lack of respect.

In world politics too, religion aggressively ingratiates itself. In Ireland, Catholic beliefs in the principle of life ‘beginning at conception’ precipitated an outright ban on abortion procedures regardless of a woman’s religious or personal beliefs. In the USA, the retail chain Hobby Lobby successfully argued its way out of providing certain legally mandated forms of healthcare on the basis that it did not agree with the religion of the company’s owners. In the UK, religious advocacy groups were instrumental in the successful push for legislation banning certain forms of pornography over the previous summer. Around the world, religiously motivated prejudices have resulted in the establishment of a morass of legislation which censures, stigmatises, and criminalises homosexuality. Note that in every case, it is not enough for these men and women of faith to simply observe the details of their religious morality in private, it must be forced upon every single person, regardless of whatever belief system they adhere to.

It is as a result of this that I am forced to roll my eyes as the cries for ‘respect’ espoused from Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings. Even the avowedly progressive Pope Francis stipulated in his speech concerning the attacks that: “One cannot provoke; one cannot insult other people’s faith; one cannot make fun of faith.” Yet, at every turn, the secular worldview is challenged, derided, and elsewhere undermined by many people of faith, while death awaits those who criticise or deride religion, along with the tacit, finger-wagging defence that they quite frankly brought it upon themselves. It is an attitude that smacks of hypocrisy of the utmost highest degree.

Adherents of religion must decide what is most important to them, the desire to see their religion respected, or the desire to ingratiate their beliefs into the public sphere. If they choose the latter, then they have adopted a position of power that necessarily attracts criticism and ridicule; after all, we do this to our politicians at every opportunity. If the religiose wish to aggressively preach, then they may expect their lack of respect to be reciprocated in kind.

When religion becomes a private matter, kept out of our schools, courts and parliament, and when I am able to walk down the street without attempts at conversion thrown disrespectfully my way, then I will march with the hundreds of Muslims, Christians and Jews calling for religious respect. Until that time, Je suis Charlie, résolument!