Margot Carmichael Lester posts a letter at MSN’s section on Dating & Personals:
My faith was shaken after Hurricane Katrina destroyed my neighborhood. At first, the guy I’m dating was understanding, but now, months later, he’s getting frustrated. We had been attending services together, but I’ve stopped going. And he’s very upset by that. It’s putting a strain on us. I really like him and don’t want to stop seeing him, but he says he can’t date someone who doesn’t believe. What should I do?
Quite a few people have their faith shaken in the wake of disasters like hurricane Katrina and I’m sure this isn’t the first time columnists like Margot have received letters like this. The question is, do they treat people who have lost their faith with the same respect as those who have faith? Notice that this person says that her boyfriend can’t date someone who “doesn’t believe,” suggesting that she has lost her faith entirely and either is an atheist or thinks that she might be one now.
Experiencing a crisis of faith is pretty normal. It happens to many people over the course of their lives; some experience it many times. That’s because faith is an ongoing process. And at times we are challenged to the point where we feel faith is lost. It’s not. But it may need active attention in order to be restored. Having a supportive partner in this journey can be very helpful. Having a partner who doesn’t accept you as you go through this process is unworkable.
It’s reasonable to point out that when a person is questioning their faith — or any basic beliefs, in fact — it’s better to be with someone who supports that process rather than someone who doesn’t support it. Margot makes a couple of serious mistakes, however. First, she assumes that the person is only experiencing a “crisis of faith” rather than that they have lost it completely. Either is arguably possible, but it’s wrong to tailor her advice to just one of those possibilities.
Then she compounds her error by claiming that even when a person feels that their faith is lost, it’s not really lost. How can she claim such a thing? If this were true, then it would never be possible for a person to go from being a theist to an atheist — yet we have innumerable example of just this occurring. Is Margot one of those arrogant theists who claim that there are no “true” atheists, just people in denial? What she writes is certainly consistent with such a position — and it’s not very consistent with accepting that someone can, indeed, stop believing in gods.
Unfortunately, it gets even worse. Margot says that the writer should ask herself five questions, including “How can I go about restoring my faith?” and recommends the advice:
Make an effort to find your faith again. Not so you can get this guy back, but so you can get back something that has long been important to you. It may take time and some false starts, but be open to it and be patient.
What’s wrong with this? Simple: the letter writer didn’t ask for advice on how to restore her faith. In fact, she didn’t give any indication that she consider her loss of faith to be a bad thing. It’s possible that she does, of course. That’s not unusual. Therefore, it would be reasonable for Margot to include something on this — to say something like “if you are looking to restore your faith, you can try...”
However, if Margot respected atheism and atheists she would also allow for the fact that the letter writer is comfortable with her loss of faith and isn’t interested in becoming a theist again (at least right now). In that case, appropriate advice would be phrased along the lines of “if you are comfortable where you are now and don’t want to go back, but would still like to keep your boyfriend, you can try....”
Why didn’t she do this? Adding it all together, it really looks like Margot Lester doesn’t think very much of atheists and atheism. She doesn’t appear to think that a person can lose their theism and religion to become an irreligious atheist. She doesn’t appear to think that someone would be comfortable with this and lack a desire to return. She writes an advice column answering “faith-based dating questions,” but she is also effectively evangelizing her religious beliefs by dismissing those who don’t think like her. This doesn’t strike me as mature, moral, or fair.
You should consider writing to Margot Lester and telling her — politely — what you think.
Understanding Atheism & Atheists:
- Atheism 101
- What is Atheism?
- Defining Atheism
- Is Atheism a Religion?
- Who Are Atheists?
- Why Don't Atheists Believe in God?
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- Atheism Myths
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morality has no basis without religion, thus most criminals are not religious. people have problems with atheists because they are more likely to condone immorality or atempt to persuade others into apostasy. religion is neccisary for democracy and law to prevail. In addition this Margot seens perfectly reasonable and it sounded as though the writer did very much want to restore her faith; she did ask for advice on how to restore her faith. She did not apear to be actively evangelizing or to dismiss anything. I do not believe baseless slandering is mature, moral, or fair
Prove it.
Actually, atheists comprise a lower percentage of prison inmates than they do the rest of the population.
Prove it.
Prove it.
How about your baseless slandering above of atheists? You effectively describe atheists as immoral and unable to support democracy or law — yet you obviously provide no basis for these assertions.
This is just one example of what I like to call “naive arrogance”, a phenomenon that seems to afflict fundamentalists more than any other group. It is also the sort of thing that many atheists find so irritating about fundamentalists. You drop baseless accusations at your leisure, then proceed to act as if they are proven true without actually citing evidence, and finally complain about other people who do this very same thing to you and call it unfair. All this in the very same post! Wow.
Here are some VERIFIABLE facts you can look up on atheist morality versus fundamentalist, born again Christian morality:
Prison inmates according to Texas Dept of Justice as of 1999 (www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html)
Out of 131,316 inmates, 22% are “unknown”, which merely includes atheists and agnostics as well as those who didn’t care to answer. The rest claimed to have a religious faith. And this isn’t in the more liberal Northeast, I might add.
Here’s another one:
Divorce (www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm)
Born again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists/Agnostics 21%
So much for the holy sanctity of marriage among Christians versus atheists as well. I wonder how gays and lesbians would stack up — oh wait, right wing politicians are too busy slandering them as we speak to give them the right to marry or even adopt children. Sorry.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones…
Christians often like to say that they have an absolute morality, and that non-believers have a relative morality (horror of horrors!). The truth is that Christians have a relative morality, too. They pick and choose what moral teachings in their Bible to follow. I doubt if many Christians think that those who work on the Sabbath should be executed, altho the Bible mandates it. A few think that gays should be executed, but most are against that, too. Most Christians are against slavery, but even Jesus had recommendations about beating and killing slaves (Luke 12:42-48). The Christian Bible, its god, and its savior all fail the morality test.
I think the lesson here is that if you don’t want to be admonished to keep your faith, don’t seek advice from someone who specializes in answering “faith based dating questions.” Instead, seek advice from someone who answers “reality based dating questions.”
As I have said time and time again, morality is NOT a Christian monopoly!
In your last paragraph, you wrote the phrase “lose their faith”. Perhaps a better phrase could be “gain insight” or (more neutral) “change beliefs”. “Losing” implies something “lost” (like losing your wallet). Many people don’t want to “lose” things. So the “lose” phraseology biases many readers’ thinking in favor of religion, without evidence supplied.