Forty-four years ago this month, Baltimore activist Madalyn Murray O?Hair had her landmark school scripture case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court ? and won.
School-sponsored Bible reading in the classroom was ruled unconstitutional and banned. That created a firestorm of dissent by religious groups that burns to this day, and ? because O?Hair went on to found the high-profile American Atheists ? likely created more atheists.
“Atheismis, in my mind, a statement ? not a belief ? which holds a lack of belief in a particular supreme being, deity or abstract person,” said Jeff Wismer, a member of Beltway Atheists and former Maryknoll Order seminary student.
Now a confirmed rationalist, Wismer said he is happier as an atheist than he ever was as a believer. He claims his liberating lack of belief in the “safety nets” of divine judgment, an afterlife and a received life purpose better enable him to embrace all humanity.
He does allow, however, for a secular kind of faith, recognizing the everyday activity of self-trust and even feelings of transcendence ? though to him they are just emotions and not evidence of spirit ? experienced in love and meditation. And he holds ? while claiming that one?s purpose in life is entirely self-determined ? the quasi-belief that “healthy” social norms are a useful moral code for people.
UMBC student Scott Levitt, a member of the atheist group Rational Response, also believes ? while claiming to accept only those things that are scientifically verifiable ? that certain social norms are an acceptable basis for morality, given scripture?s often conflicted message.
“I believe in evolution,” he stated, admitting he doesn?t totally understand the universe?s origins, “but I?m pretty sure it wasn?t God.”
All of which raises questions about avowed atheists ? over 1 million strong in the United States, according to the latest American Religious Identification Study in 2000 ? really being secular believers, while canonizing pure reason and ignoring a welter of nonrational life aspects to the contrary.
“Falling in love is a very common, human experience that even atheists have,” Father Martin Burnham, a Bel Air parish priest, noted on the subject, “that they can?t measure. And yet it?s used as a defining moment in so many people?s lives.”
