Received 10.21.2000

I found your website a couple of days ago but have only so far had a chance to browse bits of it - I've bookmarked it though and will continue to read through it's pages. Can I congratulate you on your diplomatic tone, I'm not sure I could remain as well balanced if I was the one their vitriol was being directed at. My opinion is that someone who is religious is displaying a level of thinking which is fundamentally lazy, and I therefore consider it a character flaw. While there are, and always will be, matters which we will never know the true answers for, but to assign them along with your moral responsibilities to some supernatural force is to stop using your own powers of wonderment and thought. This is why I feel very uncomfortable around people of any religion, not just Christians, and why I kind of admire your ability to stay friends with a number of believers despite their unguarded comments about atheism.

I'm not a closet atheist, I'm quite open about it, but it's a relatively new label for me. I was brought up Church of England (in other words no religion really), went through a long New Age mysticism phase and emerged as cynical about Jesus and Mohammed as I am about astrology and crystal healing. I wonder though whether in Britain it's easier to be like this: my impression is that the religious activists in the USA are much more vocal
and carry more clout than they do over here. For example I can't imagine any person I have ever worked with or for spending 20 minutes telling us about the holy spirit just because they had a captive audience in a meeting. We have no significant group like the Moral Majority, and while many politicians display their faith eg Tony Blair, there are others who are openly atheist. So, I can understand why you choose The Closet Atheist as a handle.

Most atheists I know spend more time dealing with issues around Christianity than all the other religions put together. I can't decide whether this is because Christianity is the 'dominant' religion in the West, or whether it's just a more obvious load of nonsense. Probably a bit of both.

Anyway, if you don't object I'll send you anything that makes me laugh at the god squad. We don't need sandals and acoustic guitars to have a good time!

My Reply:

Thanks for the great note.  It sounds like there is a big difference between the United States and Britain when it comes to acceptance of atheism.  In fact in February of 1999, Gallup did a poll of American citizens that asked:

Between now and the 2000 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates--their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [INSERT A-H], would you vote for that person?

Below are the results ranked in order of disapproval.

Atheists fared a full 10% worse than homosexuals, and worse than the other six remaining categories combined.  A black, Jewish homosexual candidate would receive fewer "No" votes than an atheist candidate.  If you are a politician in the U.S., admitting you are an atheist is a career killer.

Thanks again for writing.  I'll look forward to any future notes you may send.

Reply from another British reader.  Received 11.6.2000

Hi

Like one of your other emailers (the one from here in the UK), I tend to see Americans as far more frothy than most people over here. It may, of course, be a matter of perception - and there are plenty of vocal American atheists and freethinkers. It does, however, seem that religion taints everything, and it's a given that religion is allowed to inform politics, which should be entirely secular.. Anyway, good website. I've bookmarked it, too, and will be popping back.

Best wishes

Andy

Reply from an Australian reader.  Received 11.13.2000

Following on from your correspondent about openly atheist UK pollies, here in Australia we generally neither know or care what they are. The present Prime Minister, I am told, goes to church on Sunday, but I don't know what denomination. It has certainly never been mentioned in any political context. A previous PM was openly atheist (again, nothing to do with politics) and a comedy sketch on television included this exchange:

Interviewer: I understand that you are an atheist.
PM: Yes, that's correct Paul. I don't believe in God; however, I have it on very good authority that [looks down modestly] God believes in me.

However, religion has been playing a part in politics in the last couple of years. This is because the balance of power in the Senate is held by one Brian Harradine, a independent (that is, not aligned with any political party) and a rabid Catholic. He has been able to force some of his views on the Government as a price for passing Government legislation. The general community agrees that the sooner he is gone, the better, and that as bad as pollies in general are, pollies with religious convictions are even
worse.

Keith

My Reply:

Thanks for the note. It is always good to hear the state of affairs in other countries.  It sounds like people in Britain and Australia have more common sense about the separation of church and state than people in the U.S.  In the U.S. we have the Christian Coalition, which was founded by preacher Pat Robertson.  Their mission, as it is stated on their web site, is "to impact public policy on a local, state, and national level."  They even issue voter guides to their 1.5 million members.

Reply from original author.  Received 11.28.2000

Yet another survey of Britain's religious attitudes....coming 2 days after a bishop's inauguration speech warned that the Church of England would have to begin to pull out of many rural and deprived industrial areas because they just don't have the staff! This has interesting connotations over here, as the Conservative Party would like religious and charitable organisations to take over much of the social and support tasks funded by government. 

Anyway, this is what the BBC reported -

Almost half of all adults in the UK say they have no religious affiliation, according to a new survey. The decline in religious belief is most apparent in the Church of England which now claims the loyalties of just over a quarter of the population. The number of people who say they are members of the state religion has dropped by 40% since 1983, according 
to a poll by the National Centre for Social Research (NCSR). The British Social Attitudes poll of more than 3,000 people showed 44% said they had no religious affiliation, down from 31% in 1983. That figure rises to two-thirds of 18-24 year-olds in the UK who say they have no religious affiliation, compared with a quarter of pensioners. The report found 
that 48% of people in the UK claim to belong to a religion, compared with 86% of people in the US and 92% of Italians. The NCSR's nationwide survey will alarm churches battling against constant secularisation in British society. Attendances at Church of England services fell below the one million mark for the first time in the late 1990s.

Turn to Islam

Earlier this year, Peter Brierley, the leading expert on church attendance in Britain, suggested that Christian life will be all but dead in 40 years with less than 0.5% of the population attending a church service. In his book, Steps to the Future, published by the Scripture Union, he said the decline in church attendance will also be marked by a general decline in the basic beliefs of Christianity. A spokesman for the Church of England said the relative decline in those saying they were CofE was the result of changes in society in general.  This is hardly surprising - 100 years ago many, many more people would have  said they were Church of England. "In the past people were much more likely to automatically say they were CofE because it was the state religion - 
people are less likely to do that now. And many more people now belong to different 
religions such as Islam. It is not about a fall in the number of people who worship but the way worship has changed over the years." The survey also found that almost two-thirds of people interviewed believe there is "no excuse" for begging. Nearly half said it was "just an easy way to make a living", while 60% said the existence of a welfare state meant no
one had an excuse for vagrancy. 

Reply from a Canadian reader.  Received 12.13.2000

I have been perusing your site and must say it is very entertaining and informative. I am not a closet atheist however I try and hold my tongue because I get such a kick out of arguing with deists. I live in Canada - Toronto to be exact and I have noticed that our situation here is nothing like the one you have down in the good ole USA. I find it hard to find anyone of any religious inclination at all in Toronto. This seems diametrically opposite of your country where you have all the televangelists, the moral majority, Pat Robertson, etc. It seems foreign and quite sad that people in your country fear it being known that they are atheists. What really gets me curious is why people believe in religion at all. To my eyes it is so utterly, transparently man-made that it's laughable that people take this seriously. 

Anyways I feel I am being long winded, basically all I'm trying to say is that just a few miles to the north we enjoy a totally different situation than yours and I wonder if you or anyone else have any idea why that is.

Sincerely,

Geoff

My Reply:

I can't say for sure why things are so different in the U.S., but I have a theory.  The people who immigrated to the U.S. were many different faiths and as a result a free market, competitive mentality developed towards religion.  There is no state funded faith so religious groups have gotten very good at marketing themselves, competing with each other for members and money.  Like good capitalists, every angled is explored and every niche is exploited.  It's survival of the fittest.