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First revealed in 2012, Chris Stedman’s Faitheist was a part of a wave of reactions to what got here to be known as the “New Atheist” motion of the mid-2000s. New Atheists provided a condescending, defiant, and triumphalist imaginative and prescient of atheism’s future—typically drawing on new scientific developments that they giddily hauled on stage to “disprove” faith. However Stedman and others remodeled atheism in not solely substance, however fashion. This new wave of atheist authors (known as “comfortable atheists” by anthropologist Matthew Engelke) was youthful, extra numerous, and extra desirous about constructing bridges than arming the border between the non secular and the secular.
Stedman’s contribution was to talk from the angle not solely of a brand new era, however of a queer ex-evangelical who had spent a number of years in interfaith activism and humanist chaplaincy. And like many in our era, a lot of Stedman’s private and mental formation happened on-line. Each the lead-up and the explosive response to Faitheist had been no exception. Even earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, this set the stage for Stedman’s growing fascination with the prospect of growing a philosophy of the web—a way of life on-line higher. This grew to become his follow-up guide IRL, launched in 2020, with a second version—together with new commentary on our digital lives throughout COVID—out now.
I interviewed Stedman about atheism in America, our extraordinarily on-line lives, and the ten years since Faitheist. Our dialog has been edited for size and readability.
Connections between Faitheist and IRL
Donovan Schaefer: I’m persistently in awe of your voice while you’re writing, your present for taking very atypical issues and making them intimate and insightful. After I consider books which might be within the autobiographical style, typically they’re about thrilling, uncommon experiences that folks have. Along with your books it’s like I’m studying you speaking about conversations that you simply’ve had with your mates.
One of many issues that I’m desirous about is the connection between these two main books that you simply’ve written. Faitheist was a name for a brand new style of atheist writing and movement-building, one which emphasised the moral and community-forming points of atheism slightly than its polemical dimensions. We’re on the ten-year anniversary of the publication of Faitheist and it appears to me after I run the numbers that there are about 7 years between the start of your writing Faitheist, and the start of you writing IRL. So, I wished to ask you: what do you see as the connection between these books? How do you see Faitheist main into IRL? Or do you see a pointy break between them?
Chris Stedman: Faitheist had a sophisticated reception when it got here out—there have been some atheists who took problem with its arguments—however general, it introduced so many good issues and other people into my life, and I’m actually grateful for that. Nonetheless, after just a few years of the guide being out, I discovered myself feeling like I might solely be that man—the queer atheist who advocates for atheist participation in interfaith dialogue. And, after all, you recognize, I’ve at all times been desirous about extra than simply that.
About 5 years after Faitheist got here out, I went by means of quite a lot of adjustments in my life, personally and professionally. However I wasn’t positive how a lot of that I might discuss on-line; I felt restricted when it comes to what I might or ought to share, and stress to be a great consultant for the concepts that I used to be desirous about. If I stated one thing snarky, would it not replicate poorly on my group or concepts? So I started to really feel this stress between the total vary of who I’m, and this sense that I ought to simply concentrate on this one space on-line. This led me to start out reflecting on how we current and assemble ourselves in digital area, which finally led to IRL.
In different phrases, on a sensible degree there’s a bridge from Faitheist to IRL, as a result of every thing that adopted Faitheist—the general public picture I had, and the way it each related me to others and made me really feel boxed in—made me desirous about exploring how the web shapes our sense of who we’re. However that’s type of the easy reply. Extra centrally, I truly assume Faitheist and IRL discover the identical sorts of questions.
I’ve at all times been within the tales we inform ourselves about who we’re, and in the place our concepts about what issues to us come from. I can hint that curiosity all the way in which again to a few of the tales I inform in Faitheist, about why I grew to become a Christian as an adolescent and why I continued to wrestle with faith even after I left the religion. The questions that impressed my curiosity in faith—who am I? why do human beings do the issues we do? what’s my duty to the world round me?—are additionally a few of the animating questions driving IRL. Questions like, how can we perceive who we’re, in mild of our relationship to others? How are we formed by the tales we inherit about who we’re purported to be, in addition to those we write for ourselves as we come to grasp who we actually are?
I consider you as soon as wrote of Faitheist as a memoir of interconnected closets, LGBTQ and atheist. The story of popping out of a closet, whereas after all completely different in every case, is finally one in all rejecting the narratives you’ve inherited about who you’re purported to be, and forging your personal story. My aim with each Faitheist and IRL has been to have a look at these massive cultural narratives we inherit round faith and the web, examine them a bit extra intently from a lot of angles, and invite individuals to think about that perhaps we must always inform a special story about them.
Politics and the Web
DS: Each Faitheist and IRL are actually in regards to the transformation of our political and private lives by means of our growing immersion on this planet the web constructed. What do you see as the connection between the web and the present political local weather?
CS: There’s quite a lot of alarmism in regards to the web proper now. A lot of it’s justified, or not less than well-placed, however I additionally assume we even have much more energy in our on-line lives than it typically looks like we do.
There was, for instance, this eight-year longitudinal research out of Brigham Younger College that tracked individuals’s on-line experiences, which discovered that two individuals can spend the identical period of time on-line and have essentially completely different experiences. It got here down as to whether or not somebody was being intentional in regards to the wants they had been attempting to fulfill once they logged on.
Nonetheless, whereas we are able to turn out to be extra intentional about what we’re utilizing the web for, we’re swimming upstream in the meanwhile, as a result of what looks like public area is definitely personal area. Our social web is run by personal firms that finally function in a approach that’s designed to maximise revenue. Because of this, their algorithms enhance no matter drives essentially the most engagement. They don’t care if it’s constructive or detrimental. So, if it’s simpler to seize consideration and maintain individuals on-line by elevating content material that polarizes and angers, that preys on our fears and insecurities and human vulnerabilities, then that’s the stuff that can rise to the highest. Lots of misinformation and polarization balloons because of how these platforms function.
One of many issues that I targeted on fairly a bit whereas writing IRL is that many people have walked away from numerous sorts of establishments—like non secular establishments, clearly, as my principal curiosity, however I feel that is true when it comes to a lot of our political establishments and others as nicely—or had been by no means part of them within the first place. We are actually attempting to fulfill the wants these establishments have typically met for individuals on our personal. We see ourselves, in a approach, as rejecting the scripts of establishments altogether—perhaps even rejecting scripts, interval—and discovering our personal approach. However actually most of us are literally simply type of changing these scripts with different ones. And on-line, that script is pushed by capital.
Nonetheless, whereas I feel that there’s a lot to be rightfully involved about, I additionally don’t assume the destiny of the web is ready.
In our networks of relationships, we have now robust ties—the individuals you’re closest to, typically our greatest associates or household, in case you have that form of relationship with household. These are individuals with whom we’ll be in contact it doesn’t matter what expertise is out there to us. However most of {our relationships} aren’t like that. Most are weak ties, or individuals who we encounter at one level in our lives after which go our separate methods. With out the web, you may not have stored in contact with most of those individuals. However due to social media, they will keep in our orbits now. And it seems weak ties typically have completely different views than our shut ties, who’re more likely to see the world the way in which we do. So weak ties can put views we’d not in any other case come throughout—horizon-expanding views—on our radar in a approach shut ties typically can’t.
There’s quite a lot of discuss how we silo ourselves on-line, in regards to the polarizing results of those platforms, and people are actually essential conversations. However the web additionally will help us encounter views and develop relationships with individuals who have experiences which might be completely different from our personal, who we in any other case may not encounter—which was an enormous a part of what I argued for in Faitheist when explaining why I feel atheists ought to take part in interfaith dialogue. That horizon-expanding potential definitely has been an enormous a part of my expertise on-line. However once more, I do assume we’re swimming upstream with the platforms as they exist proper now.
DS: To comply with up on that, in IRL you discuss social media platforms as company entities. You make the argument that revenue motive produces an general poisonous atmosphere on social media as a result of poisonous politics drive clicks. I used to be getting a break up display impact in my head after I learn that, and a part of my mind was nodding alongside enthusiastically, whereas one other half was skeptical. So I wished to push again on that. An instance that involves thoughts, and that we’re seeing in additional media discussions immediately, is the historical past of fascist actions. Fascist actions are extremely efficient at taking public area and utilizing these public areas as amplifiers for fascist political initiatives. Mussolini, who invented fascism, had an workplace overlooking the Piazza Venezia in central Rome—an enormous public sq.. And he had a balcony put in on his workplace in entrance of this colossal nationalist monument. His addresses to the Italian individuals on this public area from that balcony had been an extremely essential a part of the story of how fascism guidelines. However he wasn’t utilizing personal area for that; he was utilizing public area.
So we regularly hear this declare that it’s the revenue motive of Fb and Twitter as personal firms that results in their seize by the politics of division and violence. However I’m undecided that holds weight traditionally. Social media elevates issues which might be getting quite a lot of reactions, however they’d just do as nicely if the issues that had been getting reactions had been simply photos of kittens and Dwell Chuckle Love memes. The platforms are impartial. It’s the person base that’s driving polarization. That’s coming from these of us who’re circulating polarizing digital content material. So, is it doable that the issue isn’t the firms? Isn’t it actually us?
CS: Oh, completely. I imply, I feel if there’s a core argument to IRL—and, you recognize, I actually tried whereas writing it to not by chance create a polemic with a very robust stance on the web, as a result of I feel the web is so extremely complicated—however I feel if there’s a central argument, it’s that I’m pushing again on this concept that on-line life isn’t actual life, an concept that I feel could be very pernicious and refined. And one of many massive penalties of this mind-set—that on-line life isn’t actual, or is much less actual; that it “doesn’t rely”—is that it creates a approach for us to disassociate ourselves from the issues that we are saying and do on-line. You hear lots of people say, “Oh, I might by no means try this in actual life, it’s simply the web.” And I feel one of many penalties of that has been that the way in which individuals take into consideration the web provides them the sense they don’t must be as accountable for the issues they are saying or do on-line. I believe one of many causes that line of pondering has caught on is as a result of, you recognize, if we see issues that make us uncomfortable about ourselves in our on-line actions, then holding this mindset generally is a approach to disown these issues and say, “Effectively, that’s not actually me.” And I feel there’s a type of escalating impact to that—that is like after we discuss on-line radicalization and the pathways into extra radical on-line areas. It typically begins with making jokes on this one discussion board, after which that leads you to this different discussion board, and earlier than you recognize it, you’re abruptly concerned on this group you’d by no means have imagined your self becoming a member of just a few years earlier.
All of that is to say, the web is one thing that we as human beings created. Something that exists on-line is one thing that we’ve dropped at the web. So there’s nothing on-line that isn’t actual. All the things that we are saying or do on-line is a mirrored image of who we’re. And if we see issues on-line which might be ugly or horrifying, these are reflections of who we’re as human beings. In some methods, pinning every thing on the platforms that we created generally is a approach of dodging blame.
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I feel it’s essential to speak in regards to the position of the platforms preying on and exacerbating a few of our human vulnerabilities, which is an argument I construct towards on the finish of IRL, however placing all of the blame on our expertise—which, once more, is one thing that we created—generally is a form of evasion from taking a look at what it’s in human nature that expertise merely shines a light-weight on.
It truly jogs my memory of a line of pondering I might see in on-line New Atheist areas, in conversations about faith. Lots of people would argue that with out faith we wouldn’t have this drawback or that drawback—as if faith isn’t an expression of human pondering, human impulses. One of many issues that has felt very weird to look at over the previous few years is profession atheists who would wield arguments like that in opposition to faith—who would focus so much on homophobia in non secular areas, for instance, utilizing it as this type of weapon in opposition to faith, to say, “Take a look at what faith does”—transfer from utilizing these issues as a form of cudgel in opposition to faith to partaking in homophobia themselves as atheists, and altering their goal from faith to “social justice warriors.” It’s been fascinating, as a result of it exhibits that their understanding of faith was a very flawed one. It wasn’t rooted in a real curiosity about how faith operates, nor a real sense of empathy for people who’ve been damage by homophobia, sexism, or racism in faith. They simply wished to make use of it as a tool to argue in opposition to faith.
Atheism on the Web
DOS: That units up the subsequent query I wish to ask you. One of many issues I discovered actually fascinating about IRL was your level that the rise in “nones,” or individuals with no non secular affiliation—whether or not they’re atheists, agnostics, or nothing-in-particulars—didn’t begin with the rise of the New Atheist motion within the 2000s, however truly started within the early nineties. And also you make the suggestion that the web itself is among the elements that has formed the panorama of unbelief within the US. Might you say extra about that?
CS: I bear in mind after I was extra concerned in organized motion atheism, there was quite a lot of discuss in regards to the rise of the “nones,” and it was nearly at all times referenced as a form of victory for atheism. “Look, faith is declining! Nonreligion is on the rise!” There have been lots of people seeking to take credit score for that—to say it was due to the rise of New Atheism and these atheist polemics. However what I feel is so attention-grabbing is that in case you take a look at the information, you truly see that, sure, there’s been this explosion when it comes to the quantity of people that don’t declare a non secular affiliation. However the development of people that say they’re atheists has been comparatively fairly small. In the meantime, charges of self-reported perception in God or the next energy, or engagement in what we’d contemplate to be non secular practices, like prayer, have remained actually excessive among the many nonreligious. So it appears fairly apparent on its face that it actually hasn’t been this rise of non-belief. Clearly, perception is part of it, however that’s not the central story.
So what’s it? I feel it’s the transfer away from establishments.
Individuals who depart faith or had been by no means a part of it nonetheless want group and that means. However as an alternative of seeking to establishments for these items, they’re doing them in a DIY style, which I feel is why we’ve seen an increase in curiosity in issues like astrology, or an growing quantity of people that contemplate themselves to be religiously-hybrid and drawing from a number of knowledge sources. That’s far more what’s occurring than a rejection of spiritual perception, which was an enormous a part of the New Atheist line for years.
And, once more, I feel the web has one thing to do with this. After I was youthful and the web wasn’t as a lot part of my life, I wished an area the place I might discover massive existential questions, and I discovered it in a church. However there have been every kind of detrimental issues that got here together with that, and I feel lots of people are actually in a position to make use of the web to discover those self same issues that introduced me into church with out having to navigate a few of the detrimental stuff that may include being part of an establishment like that.
That being stated, I do assume these establishments can lock us into uncomfortable conversations typically in methods that may be actually highly effective or constructive. Whereas on-line we do have the liberty to simply click on away—which once more, I feel, particularly for marginalized individuals could be actually essential, but in addition, I feel there’s something misplaced there.
All of that is to say that I feel the New Atheist story obtained it incorrect.
Lots of these people have moved on of their targets—faith continues to be within the combine for them, however for a lot of it doesn’t even appear to be the primary focus anymore. You see somebody like Richard Dawkins, who actually made a reputation for himself as this anti-religious stalwart, who has actually shifted. I noticed a tweet from him a pair years in the past, I feel, the place he was principally making enjoyable of people that had been offended by others saying “Merry Christmas.” He was mocking efforts to be, as he noticed it, overly inclusive across the holidays. Which could be very a lot a Fox Information form of line. And it’s been so attention-grabbing to see somebody like Dawkins begin with being so anti-Christianity and shifting to defending it, out of what looks like nothing greater than a need to be contrarian.
Actually, I feel in case you take a look at the motivations beneath the floor, New Atheism wasn’t truly about faith in any respect—it was extra about eager to really feel morally superior to non secular individuals. That’s partly why I wrote this piece for VICE again in 2018, impressed by white supremacist Richard Spencer opening up about being an atheist, and the atheist motion not pushing again on that or actually saying something about it in any respect. I wished to spotlight a few of the troubling developments in organized atheism. Not simply the demographic overlap—the next proportion of individuals concerned in alt proper and white supremacist actions are atheist or agnostic—however the cultural one, too. There’s this tradition in motion atheism that sees atheism as the final word transgression, and atheists as being the final true defenders of free thought and irreverence. The final word truth-tellers and contrarians, for whom shattering taboos is a very powerful factor. So it’s not stunning to me that their contrarianism has shifted its focus from faith to “liberal norms” regarding sexuality, race, and gender.
Atheism and the Alt-Proper
DOS: One of many issues I discover so highly effective about Faitheist is how prescient it’s. You noticed the writing on the wall, that tendencies inside New Atheism—Islamophobia, tradition conflict conservatism, a form of gleeful ethical fight—had been festering, and will probably result in sympathy with fascist actions, together with, paradoxically, white Christian nationalism itself.
I don’t wish to bundle all New Atheism collectively, since there’s already quite a lot of inside division throughout the group we now affiliate with that time period, however there was a transparent tendency to, as Enlightenment liberalism at all times does, current itself as progressive whereas additionally nurturing a darkish, even violent edge. I feel what you foresaw, the entanglement of New Atheism and white nationalism within the subsequent decade, has been borne out. What’s much more attention-grabbing is that we’re now seeing a coalescence between secular nationalism, together with secular white nationalism, and white Christian nationalism—alliances which might be being solid between individuals who determine as atheists however are constructing political coalitions with believers. What do you make of all that?
CS: I bear in mind when Faitheist got here out, there was quite a lot of intense pushback on my proposal that atheists accomplice with non secular believers round shared values. Quick ahead to immediately: quite a lot of those self same critics are allying themselves with white Christian nationalists.
After I was first getting concerned in motion atheism, one of many issues that I resisted most—and one of many issues that I discovered myself writing and talking about most—was the presence of Islamophobia throughout the atheist motion. One of many first atheist conferences I attended was an American Atheists nationwide conference, and at one level a bunch carried out a track known as “Again of their Burkas Once more.” I feel it was, on the floor, supposed to be a critique of when ladies are pressured to put on burqas in opposition to their will. However actually the track ended up making these ladies the butt of the joke. And the jeers from the viewers simply made me ailing. It didn’t really feel like an expression of solidarity with individuals who expertise repression within the title of faith. It felt like a approach for everybody within the room, the vast majority of whom had been white, to really feel superior. Like they had been too sensible to fall for such silly concepts.
I skilled one thing like this personally, too. Lots of the criticism I obtained from different atheists was couched in language that felt emasculating and even homophobic. Like after I went on Fox Information, I noticed quite a lot of atheists bemoaning that look as a result of I made atheists seem like “freaks,” primarily as a result of they thought I look and sound homosexual. I might hear atheists in a single breath say “take a look at all of the hurt faith does to LGBTQ individuals” after which name me “wimpy” or “weak” within the different. It simply made their considerations about homophobia in faith really feel empty. Particularly after I knew so many spiritual individuals combating in opposition to the anti-LGBTQ biases each inside and outdoors of their very own communities.
Similar to my associates who belong to non secular communities that perpetuate homophobia, who really feel a way of duty to talk out in opposition to it and to refuse to be complicit, I’ve felt a way of duty as an atheist to talk out in opposition to issues I’ve seen in my group. Clearly, the racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and sexism which have been main points inside organized atheist communities aren’t inherent to atheism. However they do undermine the New Atheist argument that they’re inherent to faith.
One of many largest issues that New Atheist attitudes have created amongst individuals concerned in motion atheism is this concept that they’re in some way inoculated from the kinds of issues they affiliate faith as being accountable for—issues like homophobia and sexism. “I can’t presumably be homophobic as a result of I’m not non secular. That’s a non secular factor.” It hampers their skill to be self-critical, to be interested in how cultural forces might have influenced their very own biases. This was, I feel, the most important irony I encountered in motion atheism—that there appeared to be a lot resistance to the thought of turning the skepticism that so many individuals within the motion championed inward and being skeptical of ourselves, of our personal methods of pondering, of our personal concepts.
I feel that resistance to being self-skeptical—which once more shouldn’t be an atheist drawback, however a human one—is a part of why white nationalism has taken root in motion atheism. Clearly, it was at all times there, however this can be a part of why it was allowed to go un-interrogated by a variety of individuals for thus lengthy, except for activists who’ve been talking out about it for years solely to be marginalized.
One other factor I’ve thought of repeatedly is that, within the wake of New Atheism’s rise, there was this effort to erase a few of the boundaries between atheism and secular humanism, a nontheistic moral perspective on learn how to dwell one’s life. The American Humanist Affiliation, which I’m a member of and have labored with for years, gave Richard Dawkins the Humanist of the Yr award, for instance—although they really rescinded it not too long ago, to some controversy, over his remarks on trans individuals. Richard Dawkins identifies as a humanist, however do a few of his phrases and actions align with humanism? I don’t assume so.
I bear in mind going to humanist conferences and seeing the identical slate of audio system I might see at an American Atheists convention. Folks like David Silverman, who was on the time the pinnacle of American Atheists, had been actually pushing for everybody—together with humanists—to simply use the phrase atheist as an alternative, as in the event that they had been synonyms. And all of those organizations appeared to be far more targeted on critiquing non secular concepts than on selling humanist ones.
One of many issues I argued in Faitheist was that the atheist motion was spending approach an excessive amount of time specializing in the place it disagrees with non secular concepts, and never almost sufficient time providing an alternate. And I feel the watering down of humanism performed a job on this dynamic. Take Richard Spencer. I can take a look at Richard Spencer’s interview the place he talks about atheism and humanism, and evaluate these claims in opposition to the racist concepts he promotes and the violent approach he strikes by means of the world. I can evaluate his worldview in opposition to humanism and say “this doesn’t line up.” However I can’t say he’s not an atheist. Reaffirming the moral facet of humanism will assist to guarantee that nontheism stays firmly on the facet of antiracist politics.
Donovan Schaefer is an assistant professor within the Division of Non secular Research on the College of Pennsylvania. He’s the writer, most not too long ago, of Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin (Duke College Press, 2022).
Chris Stedman is author, activist, and professor who teaches within the Division of Faith and Philosophy at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s the writer of IRL: Discovering Our Actual Selves in a Digital World and Faitheist: How an Atheist Discovered Frequent Floor with the Non secular, in addition to the author and host of Unread, named probably the greatest podcasts of 2021 by the Guardian, Vulture, HuffPost, Mashable, and the CBC, and honored by the 2022 Webby Awards. Beforehand the founding director of the Yale Humanist Group, he additionally served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard College.
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Concerned with extra on this subject? Try episode 30 of the Revealer Podcast: “Atheists in America.”
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