President Obama’s inauguration speech and references to God

I listened to President Obama’s inauguration speech with interest today because I believe myself to be a responsible American citizen. How he frames his next term is important to me and all citizens of the United States and, indeed, to everyone around the world.   But I also listened to his speech to see how often and in what ways he would invoke religion and make references to God.  In short, Obama mentioned God no fewer than five times.  He ended his speech with, “Thank you. God bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America.”

When Obama -or other public speakers in the United States- refer to God they think that they are being inclusive of all believers since the three Abrahamic religions refer to “God” in some form. But what of the large number who are non-theists?  Can you imagine a President or other public speaker knowingly saying something that they know marginalizes, for example, Jewish people?

As a researcher examining the world of atheists for the last five years, I know that his words made a large number of people in the United States uncomfortable.

Here is the relevant question from my most recent survey and the responses:

Which best describes how you feel in public gatherings where religion is invoked (for example when a speaker refers to God or says a prayer)?

From these data I think it is safe to say that the nearly 20% of US citizens who fall in “none” category when it comes to religion were made at least somewhat uncomfortable, many extremely so, by President Obama’s overt religiosity.  How about you?

One of the very first questions in the survey deals with morality:  “How do you view the morality of religious believers as compared to the morality of atheists?”  To date, there have been over 7600 respondents to the survey and over 3300 have added comments after selecting their response to this question.

Here are a few of the comments, the first two of which summarize the sentiments of many others:

• “I feel moral behaviour stands independent of religiosity.”
• “Because bibles says so is a bad answer to a moral question.”
• “My experienced with those who claim to be deeply religious is that they use religion to justify their prejudices and bigotry.”
• “Morality can be understood in terms of the impact of laws/actions on the well-being of others. It must be treated like a field of science. Religious believers are generally not bad people, but faith in the moral teachings of a religious doctrine can lead to immoral behavior.”
• “For the most part, people are just people. However, religion can (and does) give people justification to commit atrocities that a nonreligious person wouldn’t consider.”

The rhetoric surrounding the Newtown tragedy from the religious community has, in large part, both implicitly and explicitly made the argument that we need religion to make us whole, to heal our wounds and, most critically, as a source for moral guidance.  Of all the things that bother many atheists –based on the data from the 2008 survey and these 2012 data- is is the assumption by believers that atheists lack morals.

The literature within evolutionary psychology specifically and more generally from other areas of scientific research indicates that, as Robert Wright titles his 1994 work, just that, we are “The Moral Animal.”  Wright merely extends what Darwin over 100 years earlier had pointed out in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).  Sam Harris in his many books, articles and interviews is perhaps one of the most articulate proponents of this viewpoint and provides a wonderful one-two punch along with Dan Dennett’s offerings.  Interestingly and not coincidentally, they both have a great deal to say about free will as well.

So, here’s a new poll question:

Toward the goal of serving atheists, I invite those that visit this blog to suggest their own questions for the “mini” polls you see throughout this site (and always on the right side of the main page).  Make your  poll question suggestions in the comments  section under this post and I will add those that seem to have broad interest.

There have been spirited and insightful comments responding to the “mea culpa” post regarding gender, and I would be especially interested in seeing someone suggest a poll question that would address one or more of the issues raised there.   Poll question suggestions concerning other themes and issues are welcome as well.

Have at it!

This poll suggested by one of our blog readers: 

Here in the United States we are yet again reeling from another mass killing, this time in an elementary school.  As I click around on Facebook, Twitter and on various blogs and news feeds I find a wide array of responses to the tragedy in Connecticut, some more resonant with my feelings than others.

Two responses of which I took particular note dovetailed in that they both reference a video that has gone viral.  Both Brother Richard and Brian Dalton (Mr. Deity) refer to Bryan Fischer’s reaction which blames schools for “kicking God out.”  He argues that “God is a gentleman and does not go where he is not welcomed and invited.”  I wonder where He was in 1994 in Rwanda. A church filled with nearly 1000 believers was left filled with corpses over three bloody days, sadly only an exclamation point on a 100 day, 800,000 person genocide.  I also wonder was when thousands of young boys were -and, horribly, still are-  being  molested by priests.

The fact that religious “nones” are the fastest growing group in the United States should come as little surprise.  Finding God has indeed become harder and harder for many.  Who would want to worship an omnipotent God who looks passively on massive human misery?

Yes, Friday there was an unthinkably sad event in the US that led to the deaths of 20 young boys and girls, but according to UNICEF “Research and experience show that six million of the almost 11 million children who die each year could be saved by low-tech, evidence-based, cost-effective measures such as vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets and improved family care and breastfeeding practices.”

Doing the math, that means over 16,000 children also died last Friday in what could be called “genocide by neglect.”  Simple question:  why do we ignore 16,000 and at the same time have saturation coverage of 20?  Why will we come to know the names and faces of the victims in suburban Connecticut but rarely if ever learn the stories of the thousands that die each day unnoticed?  How is it that we are taught that we are all equal but act as if some lives are clearly more important than others?

We need a world with fewer guns, more reason and a balanced set of priorities.

How can the atheist movement (to the extent there is one) be more gender inclusive in terms of its public face and its organizational leadership?

I would like to candy coat this by saying “better late than never” but that would be disingenuous.  Or I could blame it on my XY chromosomal makeup, but that would ignore the fact that gender roles -and hence gender-biased behavior- are social constructs.  So I’ll just blame it on being an imperfect researcher (which I most definitely am).

So here goes,

How can the atheist movement (to the extent there is one) be more gender inclusive in terms of its public face and its organizational leadership?

I have been very gratified to see that many, many people are taking the time to answer the open-ended questions on the survey.  Here are just a few:

Survey question:  If you are currently in a “mixed” relationship (one believer and one non-believer), how is this situation a factor?

• She is a non-afiliated believer, and dislikes organized religions, so it’s not so bad for me. Also, there is a lot of common ground we share, culturally, socially and politically. She decided to believe in some kind of god, and she pryas to it and all that, in a personal way; I respect that, even though I can’t share it. On that we have agreed to disagree.
• I think he is secretly an atheist, but he enjoys the cultural, social, and community aspects of his religion.
• I’m going to be ‘saved’ because of my marriage to a believer, according to my husband. Fortunately I have a sense of humor.
• My believer spouse hates atheism and anything that questions God’s existence. I hate keeping my atheism in the closet, but stay in this marriage because I fear our children would be religiously indoctrinated out of spite if we divorced.

The survey results are coming in at a rapid rate, and it is great that so many have spread the word about the survey.  For those who are still passing on information,  please let people know that taking the survey is an investment in time.

The preliminary results of the Poll on this blog site that indicate most people are taking about 20 minutes.