Every now and then I hear someone say ‘I’m not religious, I make my own mind up’, or ‘I’m not religious, I follow my own moral code’. Their beliefs may be fairly indistinguishable from those of their friends, family and neighbours, but nevertheless, they’re not religious, so they consider themselves to be de facto freethinkers.
I’ve even had people say that it must be nice for me not to have to spend all that time working out what to think and do. The assumption seems to be that anyone with a religious faith has handed their brain over for someone else to do their thinking. It’s a little annoying, but to be fair, most people have little contact with actual believers, so it may be understandable that their idea of a Christian is made of straw. But I didn’t expect the Unitarian Universalist Humanist Association to resort to such a lazy stereotype, since their denominational life brings them into constant contact with religious liberals. And yet they have done just that with what they are calling their ‘Freethinker Friendly Program’.
This is a certification system, through which UU churches across the USA are supposed to reassure potential attendees that they are inclusive towards Non-Theists. Of course, this is a good thing. Unitarianism is religiously pluralistic, so the language and forms of worship we use should take this into account. But why in the world/God’s name call this a ‘Freethinker Friendly Program’? Don’t they see how insulting this is? Obviously not.
The language surrounding the program is a little confusing: Humanists are encouraging churches to be ‘Freethinker Friendly’ by being inclusive towards Non-Theists. That’s three words for one type of person, and they don’t all have the same meaning. Humanism and Non-Theism do not always overlap, and Freethinker is certainly not synonymous with Humanism, Non-Theism or any worldview for that matter, including Christianity.
It’s the equating of the adjective ‘Freethinker’ with Humanists or Non-Theists that is the real problem. Because whatever the opposite of freethinker is, it’s pretty clear that it’s not a compliment.
Of course, there will be UU Humanists who have come from restrictive Christian backgrounds. If they had escaped from this into a community of pure atheism it would be unsurprising that they continue to think of Christianity as a matter of unthinking obedience. But they have joined a pluralist movement. The UUA is full of religious liberals who are the exact opposite of the fundamentalist robots that their ‘humanist = freethinker’ designation implies. Why would they join a movement that they thought was full of people who aren’t freethinkers? Many UU Christians and Jews will have themselves escaped from a rigidly dogmatic upbringing. Don’t UU Christians and Humanists talk to each other?
Perhaps the UUHA’s mistake indicates that they, like many others, are struggling to accept how much the world has changed in the last fifty years. Some Christians talk as though their faith were as influential as it was before world war two, and strangely, some humanists go along with this.
I suppose it’s a comforting illusion for us all. Christians can pretend they still matter, and Humanists can pretend they’re still a courageous and radical minority. But, we all know deep down that the West is now overwhelmingly secular. The USA is something of an exception, but it’s starting to catch up with Europe and the rest of the Anglosphere. There is no state sponsored religious brainwashing, religion survives, but in most Western states it is the preserve of a counter-cultural minority. To be non-religious in such countries is usually neither exceptional nor courageous, it’s the default position.
There was a time when the whole population became Christain through a form of social osmosis. This continued long after the Enlightenment, from which Humanism came into being, so becoming a Humanist between the eighteenth and the latter half of the twentieth century was not for the fainthearted. If we were still living in that era it might make sense to equate Humanism with freethinking, but times have changed so much, and the osmosis works in the opposite direction these days.
Another hard to swallow truth is that our religious beliefs, or lack of them, are, in the vast majority of cases, not something we choose. They are the result of the smooth sociological processes through which most of us absorb the beliefs and attitudes of others. This is a process that sociologists call Socialization and it applies to nearly everyone, whether Atheist, Agnostic, Spiritual not Religious, Non-Theist or Theist.
Growing up we experience different forms of socialization known as Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Socialization. Sometimes these forces pull us in different directions, as, for example, when someone realises that most people at school don’t believe the same things as their family. As our primary, secondary and tertiary sources of socialization differ we experience an internal conflict, which is resolved when we either side with one source of socialization, or, which is more usual, develop an outlook that is a blend of the different worldviews we have been socialized into.
Not every sociological theory is copper bottomed, but this one is. It’s a fact: belief is transmitted through social processes, which most of us yield to unconsciously. The overwhelming majority of people absorb their beliefs from others without any rigorous intellectual analysis. This may be an unpalatable fact, but it is still a fact.
And yet freethinkers do exist, because not everyone’s beliefs are those they have been socialized into. But genuine freethinkers are rare.
If you become a Humanist while growing up in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan that’s probably as much as I need to know to think of you as a freethinker. And if you grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family in the buckle of the US Bible belt then you’d have to be something of a freethinker to become a Humanist. But becoming a Humanist in the West is on the whole a case of simply absorbing the worldview of your family, friends, teachers, wider community and nation. This is not a bad thing but neither is it especially remarkable or brave.
My definition of a freethinker is someone who resists the overpowering effects of socialization. Young Iranians, Saudis, or North Koreans who become Christians certainly deserve to be saluted as the freest and bravest of freethinkers. As are Saudis or Iranians who put everything in jeopardy by becoming Humanists. But the USA now has many Christians and Humanists who are not Freethinkers, and it has some Christians and Humanists who are. And speak this in a whisper: you may need to be something of a Freethinker to become a Christian in the UK these days.
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