Indeed, in American society, where the right to “believe and disbelieve” is strictly guaranteed by the 1 st Amendment, non-believers only represent a small minority – about 5% – of the population. Therefore, this seemingly paradoxical and intriguing situation invites a deeper study of the status and perception of atheists, not only in contemporary American society, but also more generally in the history of the United States, in order to better understand how and why non-believers have come to be such a disliked minority, thought of by some as legitimate “outsiders”. John Locke argued that non-believers could not be accepted as legitimate members of the political community, since “promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist”, while Voltaire similarly refused to tolerate unbelievers, arguing that their lack of belief in God was a threat to society. Yet, in today’s United States, such a popular distrust towards atheism seems at first sight surprising. PlatoandThomas of Aquinasboth pleaded for the banishment – if not for the execution – of those who overtly refused to recognize a deity.The Enlightenment philosophers often considered unbelief as one of the exceptions to the religious tolerance they defended. As they do not consider themselves accountable to any higher power and do not believe in divine punishment after life, atheists have been stigmatized and rejected as immoral in various times and places. The distrust towards atheism is of course not uncommon in history. Therefore, it appears that in today’s United States non-believers are a disliked minority, one that occupies – at least symbolically – a marginal place within American society. Indeed, two surveys from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Lifeshow for instance that atheists are the only (ir)religious group that regularly gathers a majority of negative opinion. In 2007, more than half of the respondents (53%) had an unfavorable perception of atheists (35% for Muslims and 27% for Mormons). His assertion may appear exaggerated and provocative, but looking at various polls on public opinion and religion in the United States, it seems that Americans’ general perception of non-believers confirms to some extent Huntington’s analysis. The Harvard political scientist explained that the United States was historically a nation of “Christians” and “believers”, and that therefore atheists could « legitimately see themselves as strangers » in American society. ” Such was the title of an article written by Samuel Huntington and published in the Wall Street Journal in 2004. “Atheists are outsiders in the United States. It further demonstrates that the historical “otherness” of the atheist tends to indicate that religion has functioned as one of the “moral boundaries” of a certain American “imagined community”, perceived as an essential warranty of both individual virtue and “good citizenship” and as a basic attribute of the American “self”. Starting from the assumption that atheists have always tended to be a distrusted minority in the United States, this essay seeks more precisely to explain how and why not to believe in God came to be regarded through the centuries not only as a moral and social deviance, but also as essentially “un-American” behavior. Through the analysis of the status and perception of atheists in American history, from the colonial times to the beginning of the 21 st century, this article explores the importance of religion in the structuring of Americans’ national and civic imaginaries. Is religion a fixed, impassable boundary, or is it permeable and and expandable? The Puritans by Edgar Burgundy / Gallery Oldham
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |