1. Comment #387443 by Crapsquire on June 13, 2009 at 5:45 pm

We could do alot to advance the transition from a god-approving society to a rational society by supportinig these sorts of initiatives in any way we can. There ought to be an atheist charity devotoed exclusively to encouraging and financing these sorts of efforts. Christians, Muslims, or Jews in the same boat would rally around such an effort with far more than just moral support. Yet we seem content to cheer them on from the sidelines.

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2. Comment #387465 by shaunfletcher on June 13, 2009 at 8:26 pm

a life without forgiveness? Really? my experience has been that those without religious ties are far more likely to genuinely be forgiving, instead of parroting the words while holding lifelong grudges.

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3. Comment #387468 by Hypnos7 on June 13, 2009 at 8:48 pm

shaunfletcher,

This one aspect of how religion, and Christianity in particular, is an effective meme: if God forgives you, then it's okay if others don't. So it allows you to be a jerk while feeling holy by going to church and donating money.

It's not surprising, then, that the biggest jerks who throw themselves into the lifestyle end up in positions of power. This makes the institution strong.


EDIT: Also, it's nice that one of the atheist billboards encouraged at least one person, "Morgan," to reach out to other atheists.

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4. Comment #387471 by zeerust2000 on June 13, 2009 at 9:26 pm

“I had seen over the years how hard it was for me to get out of religion and maintain proper social relationships with other people,” he said.

I have heard this a lot from this site and others. It seems that in the US this is a big part of the function of christianity. Here in Australia our equivalent would probably be the pub.

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5. Comment #387500 by Anvil on June 14, 2009 at 1:43 am

5. Comment #387471 by zeerust2000:

Same here in the UK... I have seen over the years how hard it was for me to get out of the pub and still maintain proper social relationships with other people. Impossible really.

I spent a bit of time in the States in the late seventies and was astonished at the lack of a decent ‘going out’ culture. I love my local pub. It really is the heart of my community. We celebrate everything there: births, deaths, marriages, divorces, the lot.

In fact, in broken relationships who gets the pub is up there with the house, the kids, the car etc’

Perhaps it’s because of the culture of the pub that leaving all this superstitious nonsense behind seems so much easier here than in the states?

I was honestly quite surprised when the Bus Campaign didn’t run with my ‘There’s probably no god, but there’s definitely alcohol’ suggestion.

Interesting that, in the days before ring-pulls, a tin-opener (kept in the pocket of almost everyone) was most commonly referred to as a 'Church Key'.

EDIT: I do recall, however, that car mechanics referred to the said item as a 'Can Spanner'.

Anvil.

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6. Comment #387501 by Richard Dawkins on June 14, 2009 at 1:52 am

Among the people who need support of this kind are clergy who have lost their faith. Dan Barker, whose books, Losing Faith in Faith and Godless: How an evangelical preacher became one of America's leading atheists, found it extremely hard to give up being a preacher, because it was the only life he knew, he was good at it, and he even composed hymns and performed his own religious music. He is in touch with numerous clergymen who have become atheists but daren't leave the only profession they know.

From time to time I have thought about RDFRS setting up a one-year retraining scholarship for atheist clergymen, to help them learn a new and more honourable profession and give them the courage to come out and leave their church. The trustees were not unanimous in supporting the scheme, and I am not pushing it, but would welcome constructive comments and suggestions. One objection is that we probably couldn't afford more than one clergyman scholar in any one year, and wouldn't that just be a drop in the ocean? My answer to that is that even one clergyman scholar would gain great publicity and might encourage other clergymen to seek retraining via other routes. Also, the publicity from just one rehabilitated clergyman might encourage donors to give money specifically for this cause.

As I said, constructive comments and suggestions would be welcome here.

Richard

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7. Comment #387502 by clodhopper on June 14, 2009 at 2:16 am

Comment #387501 by Richard Dawkins

That's an interesting idea but would be quite a drain on RDFRS. Have the nuts & bolts of how the scheme would work been put together; how the training would be provided; what sort of training and how delivered and by who?

And I can't help thinking of the millions of people who have to remake their career without much support either because they have come to realise that they are in a profession not right for them or more simply because they've been made redundant and have no choice.

Wouldn't it be great though if there was a supported route out and the church could be made to pay for it!

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8. Comment #387508 by Richard Dawkins on June 14, 2009 at 2:55 am

That's an interesting idea but would be quite a drain on RDFRS. Have the nuts & bolts of how the scheme would work been put together; how the training would be provided; what sort of training and how delivered and by who?

Oh, I wasn't thinking that we would actually provide the training (although I suppose in the very long term that might be a possibility). I was just thinking that we would provide the money for the rehabilitating clergymen to go to a course at a training college of their choice. e.g. to retrain as a plumber or an electrician or a social worker. We wouldn't actually teach him plumbing. We'd pay his college fees and support costs while he goes on a course to retrain as a plumber.
Richard

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9. Comment #387511 by clodhopper on June 14, 2009 at 3:09 am

Comment #387508 by Richard Dawkins

We'd pay his college fees and support costs while he goes on a course to retrain as a plumber.

OK. But if they apply for that just point out to them that plumbing is almost as bad on the knees as being a vicar (but much more useful). I should know, I was one for a while - plumber that is. It conjures some funny images for a sunny sunday though!

cheers

clod

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10. Comment #387515 by Quetzalcoatl on June 14, 2009 at 3:23 am

Richard Dawkins-

Even as an intermediate step to actually paying for training, it would be relatively simple to provide support and advice. Someone coming out of the clergy, especially after a prolonged period, might not know how to go about finding something new to do. The RDFRS could help direct them to things they might be interested in. It could also provide a means for ex-clergymen to communicate with each other and help each other through the transition.

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11. Comment #387516 by Corylus on June 14, 2009 at 3:24 am

Comment #387502 by clodhopper:

Wouldn't it be great though if there was a supported route out and the church could be made to pay for it!

Yes it would, but it seems as if they aren't even willing to stump up the costs to help the staff they do have. See here.

[Edit] I suspect retraining as teachers would be a good thing - rather than go doing something very physical. Build on the skills they already have, like speaking in public, literacy etc. Many would probably make brilliant English teachers.

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12. Comment #387517 by Quetzalcoatl on June 14, 2009 at 3:29 am

Corylus-

They could always teach Religious Studies. :)

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13. Comment #387518 by Corylus on June 14, 2009 at 3:30 am

They could always teach Religious Studies. :)

Yeah - it they aren't sick of it!

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14. Comment #387519 by clodhopper on June 14, 2009 at 3:43 am

Richard: You indicated that not all the trustees were supportive of the idea. Was this because they felt it fell outside the remit of RDFRS or that it would generate very adverse publicity?

I wonder just how many clergy are in the situation described by Dan?

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15. Comment #387521 by phil rimmer on June 14, 2009 at 3:47 am

Quetz

I think careers advice is exactly the thing. Certainly in the UK the clergy I have met and chatted to, rate their pastoral care duties as the ones they are most confident in and enthusiastic for. Pointing them at the range of caring professions from social work through therapists would be helpful. Or perhaps some other profession might be leavened with volunteer or charity work. I genuinely believe that a desire to "do some public good" may be why some of the clergy find themselves to be such, rather than a passion to spread the Word.

As to the US, I am less sure. Though widely travelled there I find American religious leaders much more eager to organize others into doing the pastoral care bit. Suitable career choices for them might be business man, politician or terrorist.....

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16. Comment #387522 by The Truth, the light on June 14, 2009 at 3:49 am

I feel that a support network would probably be a better approach for RDFRS to take as I think that funding training courses could potentially open a can of worms and possibly lead to allegations that atheists are trying to buy conversions of the clergy (I'm sure you all know how distorted and exaggerated the faithful can be when they perceive an attack on their beliefs)

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17. Comment #387523 by AllanW on June 14, 2009 at 3:52 am

Of course I applaud and echo the sentiment of helping those who have lost their belief but remain ‘trapped’ but I cant, with the greatest of respect, think that the idea of helping them individually with resources from the RDFRS is anything other than a ‘low-res’ approach.

One observation might also be that this is a problem characteristic of broadly secular societies; how might such an initiative be undertaken in predominantly religious societies? You might argue that we should take one step at a time and I can’t argue against pragmatism but I struggle to understand why limited resources should be applied in situations where the trend is wholly favourable, religion is losing its grip in the UK, against meaningful and potentially balance-tipping programmes or initiatives in other societies where headline-grabbing examples might be gained that actually change the direction of public opinion in this battle between dogma and rationality.

With the caveat that this is not my area of expertise, might it not be more effective to offer a discreet, one-stop-shop of advice and counselling tailored to address the whole range of problems that ex-clergymen and women might face when contemplating this change of life? This would include, of course, the positives of what retraining might be available under existing Government schemes for teaching, social work and charity-sector involvement (taking Corylus’ suggestions that building upon their existing skills and compassion might be more useful than whole scale retraining into manual industries) but would also include advice and specific knowledge regarding relocation (probably a high priority) and housing (one of the most pressing economic problems facing those seeking to leave the Church).

There are, of course, some companies who already have some expertise in career counselling and/or job seeking and I’m sure it would be easier and more productive to approach experts in this field to consider what headway could be made by targeting this specific niche rather than reinventing the wheel (as the jargon goes). It’s a research brief for someone at RDFRS to scan this recruitment and counselling market, identify potentially effective partners, develop the offering after extensive research into the scale of the problems they face and then work with the best companies and agencies to realise a meaningful project of help.

Just my two cents …

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18. Comment #387524 by clodhopper on June 14, 2009 at 4:00 am

Comment #387516 by Corylus

Thanks for the link. I see what you mean.

Yes, teaching english, math, history & so on would be good alternative careers to work towards.

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19. Comment #387525 by Flapjack on June 14, 2009 at 4:01 am

I think Clodhopper touched on something I'd agree with, that many people find themselves in situations where their job becomes redundant and have to retrain. I guess the only significant difference is being a plumber isn't an ethos which permeates every aspect of your daily life.
Whether this makes a support group a good idea is tricky to say, though I would say that finding likeminded individuals helps. Thing is that these likeminded individuals aren't hard to come by if you know where to look. I would've said this site performs that function to a point.
For me it was the people I met at art college that got me to question my religious indoctrination, though it took a while to adapt! It helped that the art college was in Cheltenham and Richard visited the local town hall to give a lecture with Douglas Adams while I was there. I'm still kicking myself that I gave away my signed copy of "The Selfish Gene" during a clearout!

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20. Comment #387526 by mordacious1 on June 14, 2009 at 4:04 am

I must be in a nasty mood at 4 A.M., but I cannot see giving financial support to individuals who have led a parasitic life up to this point. Get a job that doesn't require training and work your way through uni and earn a career. The idea that these people need more help than others rubs me the wrong way. Sorry Richard.

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21. Comment #387527 by entheogensmurf on June 14, 2009 at 4:07 am

This is where psychointegrators aka entheogens aka psychedelics would come in valuable play for many.
psilocybin mushrooms and ayahausca (DMT MAOI) would allow them to reach far beyond that of what religion had to offer while not giving into the critical thinking destroyer.

It's lamentable that this resource is not readily available.
MAPs.org surely will assist in bringing some form of psychointegrator-assisted psychotherapy for those who need the support along with trauma resolution if applicable.

It's disgusting how UDV is allowed to dose with ayahuasca whereas those who are not Christian basically are left to booze and cigarettes ;)

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22. Comment #387528 by phil rimmer on June 14, 2009 at 4:11 am

Comment #387523 by AllanW

It’s a research brief for someone at RDFRS to scan this recruitment and counselling market, identify potentially effective partners, develop the offering after extensive research into the scale of the problems they face and then work with the best companies and agencies to realise a meaningful project of help.

Nailed it! Anything else smacks of "re-training to be atheist".

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23. Comment #387531 by 35bluejacket on June 14, 2009 at 4:37 am

Mordacious1:

I feel a strong pull in your direction also, but the reason atheism shines so bright is because it holds the moral highground.

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24. Comment #387532 by Paula Kirby on June 14, 2009 at 4:40 am

AllanW: There are, of course, some companies who already have some expertise in career counselling and/or job seeking and I’m sure it would be easier and more productive to approach experts in this field to consider what headway could be made by targeting this specific niche rather than reinventing the wheel (as the jargon goes). It’s a research brief for someone at RDFRS to scan this recruitment and counselling market, identify potentially effective partners, develop the offering after extensive research into the scale of the problems they face and then work with the best companies and agencies to realise a meaningful project of help.

I think Allan has come up with a terrific alternative here: it would allow RDFRS to help a much greater number of disaffected clergy and therefore make much more impact. Money is rarely the real obstacle where someone is really determined to do something: lots of people find a way to retrain for an alternative career later in life, after all. But good advice to help them embark on the right career path now is crucial.

My guess, in any case, is that for clergy who have lost their faith, the real obstacle is more likely to be the fear of rejection and disapproval, rather than money. They probably aren’t on friendly terms with anyone who isn’t part of a church: breaking with the church carries with it the very real possibility of the breakdown of their marriage, of their relationship with their children, rejection by their friends and by the whole community. It’s a HUGE thing to do and must take enormous courage. EDIT: This applies to 'normal' Christians too, of course - not just clergy.

RDFRS could certainly act as a service to point them towards atheist-friendly careers counsellors; but I think it has a potentially far more important role to play in simply helping them to contact friendly atheists in their area who will encourage and support them through what will be a very difficult transition in their lives.

And building up these grass-roots support networks is something that would greatly advance the cause of atheism in general (and therefore the charitable objects of RDFRS too) – not just a small number of disaffected clergy. There are many atheists who don’t feel the need of such networks, of course, especially if they don’t live in rabidly religious areas. But I know of many who live in ultra-religious communities and feel extremely isolated as a result; who don’t know anyone in their area they can speak to openly on the subject; who constantly have to feel they have to hide who they really are for fear of the consequences.

Creating a whole network of local support groups, even if they were very small – three or four people in a single area – could make all the difference to them. They would feel less isolated; less intimidated; others would get to hear about it and join in, so the groups would grow; gradually they would feel more confident about speaking out and challenging prevailing religious attitudes, which would startle others into realising that not everyone just accepted religious teaching ... and gradually, very gradually, social change would follow. Social change nearly always takes a long time to achieve – but I do think this kind of grass-roots initiative stands a better chance of making a real difference in the longer term than the occasional headline story ever will.

As an analogy, the organisation I work for is trying to create a more entrepreneurial culture across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland – a very remote and isolated area. The key thing we have learned is that you can’t do this kind of thing top-down: it has to be bottom-up. If you can get six business-leaders together from a cluster of tiny Highland villages and encourage them to support one another more effectively; and if you do the same in another part of the region; and another; and another; and another ... then change on a regional level takes care of itself. All the headline initiatives in the world won’t have anything like the same real impact on the ground.

Apologies for the l-o-n-g post, but changing attitudes across whole communities is something I have been working on for several years now, so it's a subject close to my heart!

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25. Comment #387540 by epicure on June 14, 2009 at 5:41 am

@Anvil

Interesting -- we musicians used to call the opener a 'Gig spanner'.

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26. Comment #387552 by Layla Nasreddin on June 14, 2009 at 7:50 am

The clergy scholarship idea for those who have left their faith is quite an interesting one. I wonder how the particulars might be hashed out, or what the criteria for selection might be.

I do have to admit that one (semi-related) effort I'd really like to see from RDF or another secular charity would be some sort of financial assistance for apostate Muslim women and girls who have broken away from their families and/or friends and who may be in a perilous financial situation, especially if they come from a culture where they've been taught that their duty is to stay home and produce children. They are taught that they owe strict obedience to their husbands in exchange for being financially supported by them -- and that as Muslim women they are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men. The problem (of course) is that there are probably so many potential candidates for such assistance in, say, the UK alone that a MUCH bigger fund would be required!

Failing that, I wonder if there are already-existing resources for such women that exist to which RDF could contribute? These are, of course, just my suggestions, very dear to my heart as you might imagine! I do think there need to be more ex-Muslim groups to support apostates, not just online but in real life, but that might prove hazardous, unfortunately -- you couldn't really publicize such groups in certain areas.

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27. Comment #387554 by robotaholic on June 14, 2009 at 8:05 am

if we could retrain an ex clergyman mabye they could be a spokesman for talk shows or news shows where they want a two sided opinion, we could have the opposing anti-religious point of view-

in fact lets train millions and millions and disperse lol

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28. Comment #387558 by detox on June 14, 2009 at 8:42 am

Comment #387554 by robotaholic

Seconded.

Personally I like the idea of an Atheist Advocate. Take a priest / vicar, someone well versed in the arguments from religion and retrain them in the arguments from freedom. Who better to promote freedom from the tyranny of religion than someone who has arrived at the doors of rationality through their own experience?

Once they've convinced themselves there is no god and religion poisons everything they are the ideal people to help others who haven't quite seen the light yet. And since they know one side of the argument very well they can easily be tutored in all aspects of the counter-argument from the epistemological to the prosaic (creationism).

As to funding, getting the church to pay for it is not as counter-intuitive as it might seem. Churches enjoy considerable tax-exemptions that are unwarranted and would be hard to justify if they were more widely know about. Wouldn't it be possible to redirect some of that lost revenue via the medium of some community tax imposed on the church succubus?

I know, as atheists, we don't do organisation because we don't have any belief system, no axe to grind, herding cats yadda, yadda. To me it is akin to the Charles Simonyi professorship position: if we are so primitive that we actually need someone to highlight to us how important science is, then so be it. But why not have two positions, or ten? Lots of people promoting the public understanding of science. It seems to me we rely on Richard and the other horsemen for our advocacy of reason - why not increase the number of advocates and improve the dissemination of the message?

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29. Comment #387560 by huzonfurst on June 14, 2009 at 9:13 am

My experience with atheist and "humanist" groups has unfortunately been extremely negative. They seem to attract pompous know-it-alls who much prefer self-congratulation to actually doing anything, and whenever someone struggling with religion would show up looking for a little help they would be driven away by this clubby atmosphere.

I discovered that one can do much better just by going to a regular coffeehouse and engaging in freewheeling discussions about anything under the sun (and some things which aren't). Of course this limits the sample to people who go to coffeehouses but that's still a far larger one than people who go to atheist meetings, and the food is better too.

To address the concerns of those who grew up in close religious communities, I did not so I don't miss the social aspects of that. My parents were nominally Lutheran but infrequent churchgoers. We had plenty of friends of various faiths but that was seldom discussed. I did enjoy eavesdropping on some heated political debates, though, when the grownups figured I was too young to understand.

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30. Comment #387579 by clodhopper on June 14, 2009 at 11:08 am

Comment #387552 by Layla Nasreddin

Layla: You're right. Support for muslim women is still woefully lacking and support networks for them in every muslim community should be being set up now and I would give wholehearted support.

Again, it may be seen to be outside the remit of RDFRS; but why not create another arm of the organisations whose remit is precisely to support such projects?

There was this from Johann Hari - some time back now - but still.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-where-is-the-support-for-muslim-women-421267.html

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31. Comment #387582 by mirandaceleste on June 14, 2009 at 11:44 am

I think that this article brings up a very important point about how difficult it really is to give up that "comfort blanket" when you leave religion behind. I know that my life, in general, was easier in a lot of ways during my childhood, when Catholicism permeated every aspect of my existence, simply because it told me what was right to do and what was wrong to do (and had the threat of going to a literal hell to enforce that distinction) and thus I rarely had to make decisions of a behavioral or ethical nature for myself. That's very comforting and very easy. Being that every part of my life was ruled by Catholicism, leaving it behind was terribly hard in that I had to learn to replace the gaping holes it left behind with my own ideas, decisions, ethics, choices, etc. It is truly difficult to create a moral, ethical, and social compass for oneself when you've never been given the tools with which to do that, and it's a lot easier to just stay with the Church and let them do all of that for you, keeping you childlike and infantile.

Another thing that is very comforting is "knowing" for certain that there's an afterlife and that you will absolutely be seeing your dead loved ones again, if you're good enough to make it to heaven. Realizing that that wasn't the case was a very hard thing to come to grips with for me. It took a while to accept, definitely.

These things, and many more, are very comforting and I still sometimes miss them a great deal. What I find frustrating is that when I've expressed that vague nostalgia for the comforting aspects of religion, I've sometimes had fellow atheists tell me that I wasn't being a "good atheist" or that I should just realize that the comfort was false comfort and leave it behind. And of course it's a false comfort, but it's not that easy to leave it behind, by any means. I retain no aspect of belief, and haven't since I was a teenager, but that doesn't mean that I don't miss certain parts of something that was the very core and the center of my childhood. And I think that it's quite ridiculous to criticize someone who grew up in a very religious environment for having that nostalgia. Many of my family members have basically disowned me and refuse to speak to me because I left the Church, and because that's a very difficult thing to deal with, I think that I sometimes like to focus on the more comforting aspects of the past in order to avoid thinking about the consequences and results of my decision to leave it.

I sometimes wonder if there is, in general, a big difference between atheists who grew up in very religious environments and atheists who did not. I doubt that there's any real way to determine that, though. I'm definitely not saying or implying that one group would necessarily have different or stronger experiences, feelings, etc., than the other (that would be a gross over-generalization), but I am curious about the differences between the two groups (and obviously there's a whole spectrum of experience in-between, too.)

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32. Comment #387594 by Mr DArcy on June 14, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Presumably, if the priests are having such a hard time changing vocations, we should also think of their "leaderless" flocks. Re-training as a carpenter should be a must for ex-Christian priests. I see the Queen has opened up a vegetable patch in Buckingham Palace. She is the head of the Church of England, so maybe the flock should grow their own! Dig for victory!

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33. Comment #387615 by jpgj on June 14, 2009 at 2:41 pm

The main problems of priests loosing faith are probably psychological and social. Nevertheless, when it comes to financial problems they may have (learning a new job, etc… ) there are two questions that come to my mind:
- Is a priest who has been fired (defrocked) for loss of faith entitled to unemployment benefits? If not, then why?
- Should not government agencies subsidize retraining them? In Switzerland, the state invalid insurance would certainly help retrain a helicopter pilot who's lost the perfect eyesight his profession requires. Since priesthood (imam,etc…) is just a service profession and having faith just a job requirement that can also be lost, why not help them too?
I don't know the answers, but it would be nice to see a government treating faith as a (non too productive) job skill instead of " the fount of "our" shared European values", and subsidizing recovering clerics who might do something more useful than their parasitic employers, the churches.

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34. Comment #387624 by Layla Nasreddin on June 14, 2009 at 3:16 pm

#31 clodhopper

Layla: You're right. Support for muslim women is still woefully lacking and support networks for them in every muslim community should be being set up now and I would give wholehearted support.

If I won the lottery (ha!), I'd really want to set up something like that. I know how it is to feel totally adrift and at loose ends, desperate, etc. -- and my family wasn't even Muslim! I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for a lot of these girls and young women in some of the really insular Muslim communities in Britain, who are often deprived of an education and thus who would find it extremely difficult to support themselves -- assuming they can escape from near-imprisonment from their very traditional families. Not that it's that bad for all Muslim women, but on the other hand even well-educated girls from well-off Muslim families may find themselves completely cut off and helpless if they were to publicly renounce Islam, and even if they aren't particularly religious. (The group identification aspect among Muslims can exercise as strong a grip over its members as it does among otherwise secular Jews.)

Of course, if I were in fact to come into a lot of money, I'd also want to contribute to the above-mentioned "clergy-reclamation" project, as well! :-P The truth is, a lot of lower-level clergy do NOT in fact make very much money, in contrast to the enormous amounts some of their more profitable institutional church bodies pull in. But, as has been mentioned, they may feel helpless to change because it would be too big a disruption or it would feel like they've wasted their lives or they feel completely unqualified or whatever. I do think this could potentially be a useful project, considering that many such people are in fact quite intelligent and clever, but they're currently wasting their talents.

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35. Comment #387636 by clodhopper on June 14, 2009 at 4:11 pm

Comment #387582 by mirandaceleste

I sometimes wonder if there is, in general, a big difference between atheists who grew up in very religious environments and atheists who did not.

I think there is if only because if you have experienced it personally then you have a greater empathic understanding of a person going through it, which manifests perhaps in a more tolerant less acerbic approach.

Thanks for sharing your personal and moving post with us. Though sharing a similarly catholic childhood I do not recall ever gaining much 'comfort' factor from it. Perhaps I never subconsciously ever accepted such bizarre stuff and never experienced such disownment or isolation from the family as you did.

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36. Comment #387648 by jpgj on June 14, 2009 at 4:40 pm

Comment #387582 by mirandaceleste on June 14, 2009 at 11:44 am

Re: your question

I sometimes wonder if there is, in general, a big difference between atheists who grew up in very religious environments and atheists who did not. I doubt that there's any real way to determine that, though.

I don't now either. I have never had any religion and grew up in an atheist family, or rather, some very anticlerical and somewhat socialistic thinking is the nearest thing to religion I was exposed to by my parents (it can be pretty dogmatic too in a way).

However, like you, I also regret my own childhood certainties, above all the ethical certainties, when everything your parents tell you is true and forms a coherent system, then life gets more complicated, alas… I suppose it's the same for what priests told you at the same age, only better systematized.

You mention the comforting thought of meeting dead relatives in heaven. Since I never expected to meet any anywhere except in the morgue and feel none the worse for it, could it be that this hope of an afterlife (or of nothing) is not a natural tendency but learned expectations around which we build our feelings, hopes and fears, and then hold on to for dear life?
I am not only talking of the hope of heaven, but the expectation that death is final too.

There must be other aspects of religion or irreligion that affect us on a deeper and more subtle level, but I don't really know what they are.

I don't know if this helps answer your question, and I don't know what a "bad atheist" is either.

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37. Comment #387708 by ksskidude on June 14, 2009 at 8:12 pm

This is great news!! I live in the Kansas City area and would be happy to go and attend one of these groups.

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38. Comment #387812 by severalspeciesof on June 15, 2009 at 9:33 am

7. Comment #387501 by Richard Dawkins

Thinking about this, may I suggest that the Convert's Corner gets its' own heading, say between Community and Action...

I realize it's an extremely small step, but making other's stories a bit more accessible might help gather courage for the 'undercover atheist' or recovering religionists...

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39. Comment #387813 by hungarianelephant on June 15, 2009 at 9:44 am

16. Comment #387521 by phil rimmer

As to the US, I am less sure. Though widely travelled there I find American religious leaders much more eager to organize others into doing the pastoral care bit. Suitable career choices for them might be business man, politician or terrorist.....

Are you suggesting moral equivalence between the four professions? Just so we know.

A colleague once described an American CEO we had met as "Ian Paisley with PowerPoint". If that doesn't induce mild panic in right thinking people, then I'd guess that not even Santi's bleakness will.

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40. Comment #387816 by Gregg Townsend on June 15, 2009 at 10:09 am

I like the idea of these support groups mentioned in the article and have even considered starting one in my area, but I'm suspicious of where it can lead. I’m worried about advice being dispensed by unqualified people with an axe to grind. In the article, it talks about people gathering to commiserate about religion in their lives. While that can be therapeutic at times, I’d personally like to see a redirection of focus to a positive solution based support.

I have no coherent thoughts on Richard’s post #7, so I won’t go there.

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41. Comment #387820 by Indian Joe on June 15, 2009 at 10:24 am

Isn't all this a bit too namby-pamby? Counselling for Recovering Religionists? Is religion a medical condition, like alcoholism, to recover from? Children give up their comfort blankets over time -- they grow up. I think we give the faith-heads too much credit if we assume that it causes some kind of neurological trauma to sleep in on Sundays and take down the 'Jesus Saves' poster from the bedroom wall.

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42. Comment #387821 by rod-the-farmer on June 15, 2009 at 10:27 am

I wholly support Layla Nasreddin re her suggestion about supporting muslim women who want to change their lives.

A second suggestion that might not require a great deal of retraining for clergy who leave the faith....have them work as counselors at hospitals, retirement homes etc. They probably already have good listening skills, and could well offer comfort to the sick and elderly. No particular faith is required.

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43. Comment #387828 by root2squared on June 15, 2009 at 10:57 am

21. Comment #387526 by mordacious1

I agree. These are that last people I'd help financially. Most of them have spent the better part of their lives swindling people. At least in the US, the priests have no need of money.

I remember visiting a pastor's office in a small church in South Carolina where you have a church every few blocks. I was working for my grad school and I had to install some computers in his office.

You could smell the money in there! Very posh and expensive looking. It was disturbing to me that this charlatan had these kind of resources at his disposal whereas my adviser in grad school with 2 PhDs, one of them from MIT, had to work hard for funding.

If they have secretly lost faith and are still preaching then they really have no sympathy from me.

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44. Comment #387832 by Rodger T on June 15, 2009 at 11:07 am

Maybe RD.net could fund one of these.

An expert on extreme religion wants to see a spiritual emergency centre established.

An expert on extreme religion wants to see a spiritual emergency centre established.

It comes after five family members have been found guilty of the manslaughter of 22-year-old Janet Moses during an exorcism ceremony at a Wainuiomata house.

Massey University Religious Studies expert Heather Kavan says such experiences are common in indigenous cultures around the world, because they are more in tune to spiritual realms through their links with the land. She says such cases all have specific things in common.

"There was the distinctive lion roaring and witness after witness talked about a distinctive look in the victim's eyes when she appeared to be possessed. And that has been noted across the world."

She says those involved appeared to have been in a state of mind where the brain has a heightened focus, but the "stop and think" process is diminished.

"What these people are experiencing are different dimensions or altered states of consciousness, but they phrase it within their terminology in terms of spirits and things like that."

Ms Kavan says it would have been a powerful and intense experience for those who were there, and something outsiders find difficult to understand. She believes future similar cases could be prevented if people had a spiritual centre to turn to in an emergency.

Edit, they waterboarded this poor girl until she drowned.
Imagine what it takes to hold a person down while you drown them on a table.

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45. Comment #387836 by clodhopper on June 15, 2009 at 11:23 am

Santi: I also wondered if this review might be yours? Do Tell.

Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (The Terry Lectures Series)
by Terry Eagleton

Literary critic Terry Eagleton, who is, insofar as I can tell, an atheist himself, nevertheless engages in a nuanced take-down of some of the pretenses associated with contemporary atheism. And he focuses in particular on the two most articulate writers within the neo-atheist movement---Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. For purposes of convenience (since Dawkins and Hitchens, in numerous instances, offer similar arguments) Eagleton amusingly conflates their names into a singular entity that he calls "Ditchkins."

Eagleton sees the neo-atheist movement as a reaction to the resurgence of Islamic and Christian fundamentalism after 9-11, and he sees that reaction as largely obtuse, both intellectually and psychologically. Eagleton, for example, sees real value in the Bible, and in the story of Jesus in particular, and what it can teach us about life and social change. Eagleton's readings of the Ten Commandments and the story of Jesus were especially dazzling, and illustrated his point that one needn't throw the religious/mythic babies out with the fundamentalist bathwater.

Eagleton is also an unreconstructed Marxist, which I think is a rather dubious intellectual position itself. Nevertheless, it gives him a vantage for making sharp and astute critiques of Ditchkins's complacency with regard to the role that capitalism and Modernism have played in creating a world of religious fundamentalist reactionaries. Eagleton sees fundamentalism as the West's psychological shadow---and points us to Euripides's Bakkhai as a play we would do well to study. In that play, King Pentheus treats Dionysus, who inhabits the borders of his realm, with enormous arrogance and without self-critical awareness, and the result is his own destruction. In this part of the book, Eagleton is rehashing material that he dealt with in more detail in a previous book ("Holy Terror").

Eagleton's book is strongest in its first half. The first chapter was especially thought provoking, for in it Eagleton offered a brilliant aesthetic defense of God's existence that could (almost) make me a believer. Eagleton's argument is a reversal of Liebnitz-like utility, in which God must do everything perfectly---and this must be "the best of all possible worlds." To the contrary, Eagleton suggests that God may have made the universe for a very different purpose. The universe may be (if we are to attribute it to God) a contingent art project, utterly inefficient and without utility---an act of freedom, not necessity. This, of course, has its own problems, but Eagleton has offered a clever retort to traditional theodicy.

Why did Eagleton write this book? If I may engage in a bit of armchair psychoanalysis, I think it is because Eagleton perceives the universal acid of reductionist rationalism heading his way. It's coming after religion now, but it's coming after poetry, literature, and Marxism later. In other words, Eagleton's book is, at one level at least, a battle against an obtuse utilitarianism which sees the price of everything and the value of nothing. I saw Eagleton's (perhaps unconscious) motive leaping from page 34 of his book, in which he wrote: "That a great deal of [religion] is indeed repulsive . . . is not a bone of contention between us. But I speak here partly in defense of my own forebears, against the charge that the creed to which they dedicated their lives is worthless and void."

In some sense, this book is Eagleton (as a Marxist critic) fighting for his own life---defending the importance of nuance and measured judgment against the crassest forms of reductionist cynicism---and making a case for the value of some form of hope for POETIC JUSTICE in the future.

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46. Comment #387837 by clodhopper on June 15, 2009 at 11:28 am

Sorry folks - wrong thread.

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47. Comment #387930 by wndrwll84 on June 15, 2009 at 3:48 pm

This is fantastic. I hope to see more groups like this. I was raised Southern Baptist, so I understand the need.

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48. Comment #388097 by ficklefiend on June 16, 2009 at 7:24 am

I think it's a great idea. There are scholarships based on all sorts of criteria, it's a well used system. I also like the fact that it's a really positive goal, to help people who feel stuck.

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49. Comment #388337 by Richard Dawkins on June 17, 2009 at 2:12 am

wholly support Layla Nasreddin re her suggestion about supporting muslim women who want to change their lives.

Yes, it is a good idea. We should think about how to do it. Maybe, in Britain at least, through the admirable Council of Ex-Muslims. Meanwhile, look up their website and support them in any way you can:
http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/

Richard

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50. Comment #388453 by darrelray on June 17, 2009 at 7:33 am

Thanks for all the comments on our article on Recovering from Religion (RR). This is Darrel Ray, founder of RR. We are seeing a huge amount of interest in this idea. After reading many of the comments, I thought I might address a few, though not all, and maybe not the most important.

First the idea that this is somehow dangerous because it is not run by professionals. This assumes that lay people are not competent to help one another. Alcoholics Anonymous has got on for decades on this model. Most of the people who are attending our meetings would not see themselves as needing professional help, they just want someone to talk and share concerns with. It is easy to think that this is a religion bashing group, but we try and stay away from that kind of thing and focus on the ideas and principles we publish on our website www.recoveringreligionists.com.

Second, Dr. Dawkins initiated the "out" campaign some time back. We see this as an extension of that idea. In fact, the very existence of this group has facilitated many people to "come out." I have received many emails from people who tell me they have decided to join our group and come out now that they feel there is possible social support for them. In America, leaving religion can be fraught with emotional and psychological consequences. We want to help people find their way through those problems. If you read the "considerations" page on our website, you will see a great list of issues that most people face when they leave religion.

Third, I formed the organization because it appeared that people needed a path out of religion that provided some social support. People go to church for social support, leaving religion takes that away. If there is social support for those who leave, more will probably leave! That is my theory anyway.

Fourth, support for clergy to leave is an interesting idea, I know of two former clergy who have attended our meetings. They seemed to be very satisfied with what they experienced in the meeting. They came back anyway. I like Dr. Dawkins idea that sponsoring a clergyperson to help them get out would garner a good deal of publicity and we could put them to work helping us organize RR while they are rehabilitating.

Fifth, and most important, I see many freethinkers and atheists who want to help people in some tangible way. Marching in protests or giving money to legal funds is all well and good, but many of us want to contribute in some first hand way. By becoming a facilitator for Recovering from Religion you can contribute in a very personal and gratifying way. The stories we hear in the meetings and the catharsis that comes so often from sharing and listening to people who have been closeted for years, is heart warming.

Finally, we are seeking facilitators throughout the world. If you are interested, read our principles and purpose and contact me directly from the website. I can help you get started and give you some good start up advice. It is not hard to start and develop a group. You will find it quite rewarding once you see how grateful people are to have a safe place to express themselves and hear from other people.

Thanks again for all your comments and interest. I hope you will consider participating or a the least, forward the article and concept on to someone who might.

Darrel

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