Anti-ness in the classroom – the atheism v religion debate

An interesting article by John Gray published in last week’s BBC Magazine generated some lively debate in the RE social media. He asked the question: Does atheism have to be anti-religious?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34054057

His answer was that while some forms of modern atheism have a tendency to be evangelical in tone, there is a long history of more subtle and positive attitudes towards religion. The boundaries between atheism and religion have not always been as sharp and confrontational as they sometimes appear today. This is reflected in recent thinking such as Sarah Shortall’s notion of Belonging without Believing (SSRC publications) and Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists.

The use of the prefix ‘anti’ by Gray is perhaps unfortunate. ‘Anti-ness’ permeates the whole field of religion and belief and is not particular to atheism. Many Christians are anti-Muslim in the sense that they reject Islamic claims about the personhood of Muhammad and the divinity of the Quran. Many Jews are anti-Christian in that they reject the core beliefs of the incarnation of Christ. etc etc. Certainly many Muslims are anti-Hindu in their rejection of Hindu ways of representing the divine.

And I assume that for many in any religion, this ‘anti-ness’ would extend to the idea used in Gray’s book that these ‘false beliefs’ of other people’s religion are ‘an intellectual error without human value, that we’d be better without’!

The tendency to attack atheism and some forms of humanism for their strident, confrontational and evangelical tone, (yes Richard D, they have you in their sights),needs to be tempered with the recognition that religion also contains this strain of ‘anti-ness’.

What are the implications for RE in all this? Can I suggest three ideas – although there are many more?

1.In exploring any religion with older pupils do we need to investigate the way in which each religion makes sense of the existence of other religions? How do different Christians explain the existence of Islam for example? How do different Muslims make sense of Christianity? Clearly for many Muslims something went wrong with early Christianity in the way the figure of Jesus came to be interpreted. We need to avoid the bland notions of ‘All religions are equally true’ and get inside some of the complexity around the way religions understand each other.

2.The ‘anti-ness’debate often seems to assume a rather over-intellectual and cerebral approach to the idea of ‘being religious’. One of the key issues in this area is exploring the way different religious folk have different ideas about which ‘dimension’ of religion is the most important to them. Smart used his dimensions (doctrinal, experiential, social, ritual etc) to assist in the interpretation of religion. When we investigate the reality of religions and beliefs of real people it is intrigung to ask which of the dimensions is central to them. Where ‘doctrine/beliefs’ are given precedence that can often lead to anti-ness. “Our beliefs separate us from your beliefs”. Where the social, practical or ethical dimensions are central, the scope for valuing the faith of others is often much easier. For how many religious people does the notion of ‘belonging without believing’ apply I wonder? I am not sure we do enough in RE on the idea of different ways of ‘being religious’.

3.Instead of focusing on the anti-ness of atheists, can we focus instead on the contribution of the social and historical sciences to the interpretion and explanation of religion. Not enough attention is given in RE to these ‘ways of seeing’ religion. This blind spot reflects a kind of ‘hidden confessionalism’ that still characterises RE; a reluctance to recognise the interpretative power of secular perspectives on religion. It impoverishes our subject. My sadness is that this whole area of exploration has been ignored in the most recent review of GCSEs. Embarrassingly to find these perspectives you have to go to something like Unit 3 of the AQA Sociology A level with its focus on topics such as:

– The relationship between religious beliefs and social change and stability

– Religious organisations, including cults, sects, denominations, churches and New Age movements, and their relationship to religious and spiritual belief and practice

– The relationship between different social groups and religious/spiritual organisations and movements, beliefs and practices

– The significance of religion and religiosity in the contemporary world, including the nature and extent of secularisation in a global context.

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-2190-W-TRB-SWU3.PDF

So let’s get beyond the crude ‘anti-ness’ of the atheist, and focus more deeply on the fascinating but complex diversity of ways in which it is possible to make sense of the changing nature of the social reality of religion and belief.