Running head: GODLESS DEVIANT

Godless Deviant: Living in a Religious Society without God

Heather Vincent

The University of Akron

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Abstract

In a society dominated by monotheistic ideologies, being atheist, agnostic, or secular

nonreligious earns an individual a stigmatized label. The historical defaming of people whom

lack faith in some form of dogmatic religiosity has carried over into the modern era. The media

and popular culture dehumanizes and incriminates those who identify as irreligious as amoral

and politically illegitimate. Although there are numerous studies, articles, and a few

documentaries dedicated to the struggle between religious and non-religious existence, less have

been about the deviant status of atheism and secularism, particularly within a society thats

predominately religious such as in America, where Christianity is the dominate force but where

at least a sense of spirituality is expected, if not required. In this paper, via a social

constructionism approach I will convey the results of several such articles and studies about the

deviant status of atheism and how it is augmented by a history of impervious religious influence

on American society and politics, as well as inlay personal experience and observation.
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Godless Deviant: Living in a Religious Society without God

If you are from the United States, it is well known to you that the country prides itself on

proclaiming that it was founded upon the freedom of religious expression. However, if one takes

the time to ask any current or former student within the American school system, they could tell

you that the narrative on secularism and/or atheism in American history is a lean one, or rather,

simply nonexistent. This is due in large part to the overwhelming success of the Christian

establishments penning power over the informal and formal censorship of history and over the

myths and traditions of atheism and secularism in America. In the media there is occasionally a

story covering an often lucrative and hotly debated installment of the 10 Commandments in the

fronts of Court Houses or other establishments of law and political prominence. It stems from the

stance that morality is born from the acceptance of a supernatural omnipresent authority - that

the fear of omnificent retribution or aim for omnipotent reward is what guides people to moral

integrity and leads to unadulterated justice but as Sherkat succinctly understated, not all desire

religious good (2008). However, atheism predates Christianity and is likely as ancient as the

belief in a god or gods itself. Just as antediluvian is the prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory

behavior towards atheists, as the term atheist originated as a label for ones enemies (Bramlett,

2012). The general consensus of the American public regarding atheism and atheists themselves

is a clear indication of the stigmatized deviant status that they endure within these religiously

geared cultural confines. In this paper I will examine the history of atheism in America, how and

where non-religious individuals experience discrimination, and how this may evolve over time.

The reaction towards atheists has been an enduring form of indexing political and social

tolerance among Americans. Polls especially are an effective way to get a snapshot of these

attitudes. For example, some 40% of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center reported
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negative views towards atheists (2014), higher than any other religious minority group such as

Muslims, Jews, and conservative Christians as well as towards marginalized immigrant or

ethnic groups (Hispanic, Asian, and African Americans), or towards sexual minorities. The

general ethos in the United States is to approach atheism with antipathy; it is conceived as a

boundary marking issue, in that in American culture, a good society is a religiously

cultivated one (Edgell, Gerteis, & Hartmann, 2006). Atheism thus exists in opposition to the

general American notion of what is or is not culturally acceptable of who is and who is not

one of us.

This consensus may translate to actions which marginalize those who identify as atheist

in their daily lives. Edgell et al. found that Americans report they would be least accepting of

their son or daughter marrying an atheist compared to an individual from another religious group

(2006). Additionally, out of all the other religious groups, 53% of Americans reported they would

be least likely to vote for an atheist in a Presidential election (McCarthy, 2015). These examples

are just a taste of the numerous ways in which research suggests that there is significant bias that

manifests itself into experiences of discrimination, as atheists (compared to those who report as

simply non-religious) report higher levels of discrimination at places of employment, education,

within the legal system and their community, as well numerous other social settings (Brewster,

Hammer, Sawyer, Eklund, & Palamar, 2012, Cragum, Kosmin, Keysar, Hammer, & Nielsen,

2012).

To get to the bottom of where the stigmatized status of non-religiosity originated, one

must delve into the written off underbelly of American history. America has been the home of

countless nonbelievers, all facing unabashed persecution from theists for eras. Regardless of the

origin of the attacks, states-sponsored scapegoating or reactionary populist hysteria, the theme of
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socially defined deviant minority suppression is repetitive. The targets could be nonwhites, non-

conformists, intellectuals, socialists, or scientists but atheists and those accused of atheism

have found themselves imprisoned, ostracized, and in extreme cases, exterminated. A resounding

example of this disdain for atheists within the theistically dominated American culture can be

found just 30 years ago. In 1987, then President George H. W. Bush was presented a question

about the state of civil rights for atheists proclaiming his own unofficial doctrine, he retorted,

I dont know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered

patriots. This is one nation under God. Marginalization of atheists has stood the test of time. It

has been socially acceptable where other types of prejudice are increasingly reproached,

especially in the past 60 years. The accusation of atheism has more resembled a criminal charge

than a description of ones belief, as the label was misused synonymously in early 20th century

America to coincide with communist and terrorist. However, true atheists were as common

as unicorns in Colonial America, although accusations of disbelieve were hardly hindered and

hardly less pejorative (Zuckerman, 2009). Over time, the limited spectrum of acceptable

religious expression suggests that then and even now there are often dire consequences of such

assertions.

In colonial times, Christian European Americans were once the minority in a land of non-

Christian Natives. Even the slightest deviation from Christian denominational orthodoxy often

resulted in the denouncing cries of atheism, and more oft than not Native Americans were

regarded as infidels, heathens and savages, devoid of the moral preeminence that Christian

dogma granted the European settlers. This designation served the English well in their quest to

convert or subjugate native (and African) populations, as the charge of atheism became a

rationalization for the denial of basic human rights (Zuckerman, 2009).

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The bones of the history of religion, secularism, and atheism in America can be found in

the near universal acceptance of New Englands role in the founding of America. The ahistorical

account posits that the colonization of the eastern seaboard of America was driven by religious

ideologies. It is enacted in the public sphere by reiterating the Thanksgiving story, imbued with a

sense of divine intentionality, putting the forefront of American history starkly on the shoulders

of Puritan New England. The autumn festival feast that took place in 1621 between the English

separatists from the Church of England and the local Wampanoaq Natives was a singular event.

For the next 200 years the tradition remained informally rooted in that area of Massachusetts and

it wasnt until the mid-nineteenth century did Americans entertain the notion that this regional

New England tradition should become a national holiday. Abraham Lincoln designated the

national day of thanksgiving in November, following the Union Armys victory in Gettysburg

and with confidence that the Confederacy would rejoin the Union, thusly attempting to unite a

war torn nation under a unifying myth that presumed God had chosen and blessed America

despite the 620,000 killed during the Civil War. It wasnt until the bombing of Pearl Harbor did

Franklin Delano Roosevelt decide to make the informal and often unrecognized holiday

permanent, manipulating the history to create a sense of American social unity in times of crisis.

No doubt the result has been the perpetuation of the myth of Americas New England origins,

thus highlighting the regions religiosity (Zuckerman, 2009). Although the New England account

is an anomaly in the colonial development of the Americas, it still dominates the discourse. The

empowerment of religious forces to shape of our history, which is both divorced from fact and

geography, has been the consequence which frames the false and imaginative views of the

motives of our founders and the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

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Few things are as vehemently debated as the presumed beliefs of the Founding Fathers.

However, the American political system intentionally and systematically strays from religious

orthodoxy, but not because the principal founders of the constitutional government were atheists

but rather because they were Deists. Prominent founders Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and

Madison were prone to applying religious social control pragmatically, rejecting supernaturalism

but kept to the notion of it as a practical controlling force in society. They did not believe in a

supreme being who suspended natural law, answered prayers, or magically procreated with

virgins but rather they believed in an unobtrusive creator of the universe who paid scant

attention to earths inhabitants. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence

and third U.S. President, was the most secular and perhaps most influential. He left a hefty paper

trail that denounced demoralizing dogmas of Calvin and instead favored natural religion based

on reason and charitable human interaction. He mocked Christian canon, orthodoxy and

superstition. Bashed the Trinity, Protestantism, and mocked the apostles of the Christian myth.

He aligned himself with pre-Christian Greeks like Epicurus, believing in the existence of a god

but insisted that divine beings all but ignored humanity. Despite his disparagement with many

aspects of organized religion, his most lasting achievement comes from his efforts to reduce the

influence of clerics on the state and limit the states authority on matters of faith: Separation of

Church and State. Thus, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or

prohibiting the free exercise thereof, the founders did not assume that the government and its

people would be of Christian mind and origin (Cady, 2009).

Other prominent historical figures were brought down by the accusations of atheism,

such as Thomas Paine, who was the most prolific writer of the revolutionary period. He penned

Common Sense, becoming among the first to argue against slavery, cruelty to animals, for
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womens rights, and the first to pen the name United States of America. A pamphlet at the time

that sold 500,000 copies in the 1770s, Common Sense granted Paine the ability to galvanize

support for the American Revolution among a previously ambivalent population. His

contributions to the founding of his coined United States of America were universally recognized

at the time. His essential services to this country during times of crisis were acknowledged by

Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe. By the 20th century, the historical account of

Paine became virtually remanded to the sewers of history. His influences became aberrant and

far from the accolades of Presidents past, as Teddy Roosevelt referred to Paine as a filthy little

atheist, as his later works made him an adversary of an ever growing Christian populous, since

his works mocked the notion of the belief in biblical fables and disputed the central tenets of

Christianity in defense of a natural religion that departed from the supernaturalism of

Christianity.

Rather than creating a godly country based on ancient Hebrew Laws, the most

influential founders (Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Paine, and Madison) all defy easy

religious categorization, and by many contemporary Americans, their collective views would be

regarded as blasphemous at best. Their impact paved the foundations for American disbelief, but

despite that, much of the secular narrative has been lost since the first few generations of the 19th

century. However, one such example of the early republics secularism can be taken from the

Treaty of Tripoli, as signed by John Adams and ratified by the United States Senate (Skerkat,

2008):

As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the

Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the law,

religion or tranquility of Musselmen; and as the states neve have entered into any
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war or act of hostility against any Mohometan nation, it is declared by the parties

that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever produce an interruption of

harmony existing between two countries.

Despite the 19th century being wrought with social upheaval and landmark shifts over the

role of religion within the public and personal sphere, atheists and other non-religious individuals

had made great strides within the public domain. Courts experienced cases for strict separation of

church and state as well as opposing Bible verse recital within public schools which opened the

doors to greater atheistic expression. Madalyn Murray OHair also launched a bold new

organization called the American Atheist Association in 1963 and initiated the end to sanctioned

Christian Prayer in public schools. Her organization saw some subsequent success with a cable

television program and a large number of mailing list subscribers, but the marginalization of

nonbelievers was not over. The religious influence over the countrys blueprint still ran deep, as

antimodern fundamentalism made its way into the academic realm and northern congregations.

Most major denominations split along liberal and conservative lines and in many ways this new

religious expression reflected an emphasis on personal salvation, belief in the inerrancy of the

Bible, and distrust for progressivism. This served as a powerful counterbalance against the trend

of nonbelievers.

In the 1950s, the dubbed Godless Communism was taking hold. The Cold War saw the

birth of renewed antievolutionism, as the Godlessness threat endangered what Americans

considered innate to their identity. During WW1, the U.S. had officially battled communism, and

after the beginning of the atomic age, America saw the rise of McCarthyism and the fall of open

dialogue for American atheists. The Red Scare made a solid link between the dreaded

communism and atheism in the American mind. Adhering to liberal or secular principles was
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deemed suspect and thus Under God was inserted into the flag salute and In God We Trust

was written on American currency. Paranoia led to a test of patriotic applicability by demanding

allegiance to the American Christian God (Zuckerman, 2009).

Today irreligiosity in the United States has peaked at around 15 percent (or as high as 23

percent in some studies) of people claiming none for their religious preference a rather large

climb from just 3 percent during the 1950s and 60s (Brewster et al., 2012). In fact, its found

that in one generation, the number has quadrupled and now nearly one in five Americans (or 10

percent) do not believe in God, and 9 percent say they are not sure, meaning that about 60

million Americans are nontheists in some way, shape, or form (Zuckerman, 2009). With

numbers such as these, its of particular interest for social scientists to examine how atheism

and/or nonreligious affiliation intersects with, is influenced by, or rather, how it influences other

aspects of the social domain.

However, their minority delegation still puts them at a disadvantage. Brewster et al.

examines how being an atheist relates to the Minority stress theory, which posits that experiences

of prejudice and stigma are highly correlated and may both yield negative outcomes such as

psychological distress and social/interpersonal problems (2012). The authors state that strong

interrelations between discrimination and sigma and the subsequent symptoms highlight a

broader pantheoretical dehumanization, quoting, the denial of human characteristics to others

may occur in everyday contexts and may reflect not only antipathy, but also mundane apathy or

lack of motivation to understand or connect with another person (Moradi, 2013, p. 154). The

experience of minority stress has not been studied in regards to atheists, but examining available

literature may help shine some light on how discrimination against atheists manifests. The
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literature covers three overlapping themes: negative stereotyping, pressure to pass as religious

and directly oppressive experiences (Brewster et al., 2012).

Stereotyping is a powerful form of social control, especially against people who are

marginalized and regarded as deviant. Atheists deviate from the expected social norms and thus

have gathered their fair share of stereotypes over time. Some of these include: Atheists are

amoral and atheists are shameful. The amorality of atheists is one of the more pervasive and

provocative stereotypes. It claims that due to their lack of belief in God/Gods, they lack a moral

compass. A polled populous showed that respondents described people who engage in religious

activities as more friendly, open, and less suspicious relative to atheists, who were described as

more materialistic, culturally elite, and more likely to engage in illegal activities (Edgell et al.,

2006). In order to study this phenomenon of negative perceptions of atheists immorality, a series

of experiments were conducted in that a hypothetical example of an immoral act i.e. animal

cruelty, murder, incest, and cannibalism was presented to a group of mixed religious and

nonreligious respondents. Each immoral act was subsequently considered more likely to be

committed by atheists than any other cultural group options provided even by the atheist

participants themselves. A similar study revealed that distrust is a central factor towards atheist

discrimination, with only people who commit rape being reportedly distrusted to the same degree

as atheists (compared to other traditionally marginalized groups) (Gervais, Sharriff, &

Norenzayan, 2011). However, atheists make up 85 percent of the scientific realm and only 0.07%

of the federal prison population (Arel, 2014).

Atheists also have attempted to avoid discrimination by simply pretending to be religious,

or rather; they hide in a proverbial closet. Atheists are prone to holding a divided self, wherein

they portray two schemas: self-in-public and self-in-private, depending on the scenario.
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Cragum et al. found that self-identifying as an atheist or an agnostic significantly increases the

likelihood of facing discrimination socially, with young religious nones being at higher risk of

experiencing prejudice as a result of their absence of religious affiliation (2012). Consequently,

the pressure to conceal is a universal trait of atheist experience and discrimination, as Dont tell

Grandma is a familiar narrative among non-believers (Brewster, 2012). However, this

concealment sends the message that it is something to be ashamed of, that being atheist is

somehow deviant.

Ultimately, there remains the question of whether or not atheism or presence of

secularism, will become accepted, if not entice positive social and cultural outcomes. In

America, religious diversity has increased over time and tolerance for small or previously

marginalized religious groups have a tendency to also increase as is the case for Catholics in

the 19th century and Jews in the 20th, and this pattern of tolerance for diverse religious identities

will continue. However, the pattern of attitudes towards atheists has not followed the same

historical path, as increasing tolerance for religious diversity may be the basis for solidarity in

American life which has served to darken the lines between believers and nonbelievers in the

collective mines of Americans (Edgell, 2006).

However, the building blocks of the American democracy was a succession of trial and

error, but ultimately, the founders intended for freedom of religion and freedom from religion to

be equally warranted to the American people. The happiest people are found in the most

successful and peaceful democracies in the world which are secular based (Zuckerman, 2009),

and the United States would benefit from taking into considerations the strides and the successes

of such democracies. Americans take pride in the aspects that make them American of all the

freedoms that we relish and that we send men and women to fight for in other parts of the world.
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For all the talk, we often fail to deliver what we portray as the American way to the world in our

own land. It is time to challenge and change history, as other countries have, and to respect what

Thomas Jefferson so fervently advocated: Separation of Church and State.

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