Written by JHPNYC   

"Atheists are Better for Politics than Believers. Here's Why," appearing in The Guardian as written by Ms. Polly Toynbee, reflects the same type of prejudiced mischaracterizations and aversion to diverse opinions of which she accuses those who embrace religion.

Although I've traveled to the U.K. numerous times, I write as an American observer from across the pond more familiar with American believers and non-believers. Our countries do, however, share a trend in having government outsource certain community services to NGOs, including faith-based organizations. Having volunteered in some of those organizations while maintaining a progressive political posture enables me to report anecdotally that in my experience there appear to be more people of faith than atheists volunteering to help their fellow citizens. Perhaps some social scientists could survey volunteers who work in community service organizations to identify their religious belief or non-belief. I suspect they would find far more volunteers who do believe in God than those who do not. Indeed, if Ms. Toynbee would step-back from her animus toward believers and take a look at how many organizations that serve the neediest in our societies have been organized and operated by those who believe in God, as compared to how many have been established and run by atheists, she would learn a useful lesson.

More troubling is that when Ms. Toynbee writes, "The Abrahamic faiths, with their disgust for sex and women," she paints with a misleadingly broad brush that distorts the factual record and demonstrates limited intellectual curiosity about the actual teachings and practices of each of the three distinct monotheistic faiths. I can only speak on behalf of my Christian faith in assuring Ms. Toynbee and her readers that Christianity holds women to be of equal value as men. Indeed, in stark contrast to the prevailing practices of the culture at the time, Christ taught men to love and care for their wives as much as they did themselves. And with regard to sex, the Bible shared by Christians and Jews alike celebrates sex between husband and wife, not just for its procreative potential but also to fulfill the human need for intimacy and to enjoy one another's bodies within a relationship of trust and commitment.

Where humanity - believers and non-believers alike - has not lived up to these teachings, it is not the fault of religion, but of the stubbornness of our minds to think differently and the resistance of our hearts to change behavior. Ms. Toynbee would be amazed, even encouraged, were she to visit many of our churches to find men and women living happily and with profound mutual respect as they lead Christian inspired lives.

While it is true that Christianity teaches that the taking of one's life is wrong, it does so not for selfish reasons but because of an existential understanding that each person, whether or not he or she has come to realize it, is endowed with a soul of eternal value which can be harmed by the deliberate terminating of one's bodily existence. The teaching is driven by care, not callousness. No one wishes suffering on anyone and everyone recognizes that some clearly suffer more than others. It’s a mystery and any sane person prefers to embrace the enjoyment of life and do without its pain. But despite our best therapies, the residual suffering that we are unable to relieve, or must endure, serves as a frustratingly sad but no less valuable opportunity to appreciate the complex dichotomy of life’s joy and misery, pleasure and pain, good and bad. Since we can’t completely avoid suffering, we must respond to it in ways that respect the suffering person as well as the person’s suffering - for there is value in both as gift, the former obviously so, the latter a mysterious sharing in the suffering of humanity's Savior who welcomes us to eternity.

Naturally, we should offer to those who suffer our attentive presence, sustaining nutrition, physical comfort and effective pain relief. But we also should go further by being careful to not unintentionally engender the feeling that those who suffer have become a burden. Suffering is enough without the mental torment of feeling that they or we are less deserving of care. It’s a slippery slope of relativism we tread upon when we craft rationales to justify terminating someone’s life. Without a consistent principle of life, today’s well-intentioned exceptions can become tomorrow’s base expectations.

But what about the argument made by believers, no less than by atheists like Ms. Toynbee, about respecting someone’s wish to die with dignity? From my humble understanding of Christian thought, since oxygen, water and nutrition are necessary to sustain human life from conception to death, their provision and acceptance are inherently dignified and natural. To deny them is cruel; to refuse them is self-destructive. But highly sophisticated medical interventions are a different matter. Although we are morally obliged to offer them if available, no one is morally obligated to accept them. As stewards of our own lives, we have a choice, one that is preferably made before judgment is influenced by pain, medications or coma. Our making this choice would wisely acknowledge life’s limitations no less than its greatness, would provide guidance to those entrusted with our medical care, and would save our families the anguish of having to decide what level of intervention we would want for ourselves as we approach our bodily deaths. In looking at life naturally conceived, and seeing its corollary in death naturally entered, all of us, irrespective of one's faith or lack thereof, accepts sustaining nutrition but can, with a consistent principle of life, make the highly personal decision whether to accept complex medical intervention.

When Ms. Toynbee writes that "Wise atheists make no moral claims, seeing good and bad randomly spread among humanity regardless of faith," she is correct that one's belief, or lack thereof, does not provide for good or protect from bad. But her seeing "good and bad" is by its very nature an acknowledgement of morality. She admits as much when she writes that humans "do have a hardwired moral sense." But she undermines her argument by implying that morality's source is "ancient texts" and it conveyance "frightened into us artificially," neither of which is true. Christians believe that humans are born with moral souls, independent of texts or teachings.

If Ms. Toynbee were to loosen her religious embrace of atheism and more carefully study history, she would recognize that one can neither prove, nor disprove, God’s existence. Over the course of human history, learned thinkers have attempted to marshal a wide variety of arguments for and against believing in the existence of God. None of them have been sufficient. Which leaves us with the opportunity to let our minds imagine and our souls embrace what virtually every human being who's ever lived has hoped for - that God does really exist. Not, as Ms. Toynbee writes, to "stunt and infantalise the imagination," but to examine the compelling arguments for and against belief in divinity as a basis for allowing the imaginative part of our humanity to explore possibilities.

Ms. Toynbee concludes her essay by writing that humanists are "certain that our destiny rests in our own hands." I wouldn't be so certain. If your destiny indeed rests in your own hands, please explain how your own hands were responsible for the genesis of your destiny.

As a politically progressive American Democratic voter, I am not alone in Christianity informing my sense of social justice. Ms. Toynbee may be surprised, pleasantly so, to learn about a body of work known as Catholic social justice which bases its care and concern for the least among us upon religious beliefs put into practice. Not the least of those beliefs is a respect for freedom of faith or of no faith at all. That's why lots of Catholics, as well as many other like-minded Christians, play a hugely constructive role in our politics, in our communities and in our larger society.

Rather than advancing false stereotypes that mischaracterize believers and foster the prejudice which she complains is directed at atheists, Ms. Toynbee may wish to more carefully consider distinguishing what believers of each distinct religion actually believe. Although opinions on complex issues within our respective cultures may differ, atheists and believers alike should be able to agreeably disagree without distorting each others' beliefs and values. Just as humanists have at times played a useful role in challenging unquestioned prevailing attitudes, so have believers been profoundly influential in turning primitive communities into civilized societies.

By JHPNYC, New York City

17 December 2012