National Review, February 6, 2002

On Good Friday, when others were in church, I visited an atheists' convention. Choosing to hold the gathering—the 28th National Convention of the American Atheists—over the Easter weekend was, their president explained, not much more than a matter of favorable hotel rates. Ellen Johnson smiled as she said this: It was not a claim that a skeptic would expect anyone to believe. So America's infidels gathered in their doubters' redoubt, a nondescript Hyatt on the grounds of Boston's Logan airport, transformed for a few days into a heretic Vatican. Around 250 souls (maybe that's not the word) had turned up for the fun, typically bright, somewhat eccentric sorts, often with the style sense of faculty members at a failing community college. Guys, shoulder-length hair does not work with bald on top. Oddballs? Well, the affable man sitting next to me did spend a surprising amount of time busily crossing out the word "God" from his dollar bills. Cranks? Judging by the pamphlets on display outside the main auditorium, quite possibly, although, to be fair, I did not witness anyone actually picking up a copy of The Unpleasant Personality of Jesus Christ.

It was not, it has to be said, a conservative crowd. Mentioning George W. Bush in a speech was better for jeers than for cheers. I did run into one likable rightist. “National Review, eh? There aren't many of us here." Not that it worried him. As a nonbeliever from the South, be was used to being in a minority', and he was enjoying the opportunity' for a little secular chitchat. Why the atheists? Well, the humanists were "just too touchy-feely." He had a point. Apart from one appalling moment when a hunched-shouldered woman whimpered that she was "afraid," there was none of the mush-'n'-gush that so often mars public gatherings nowadays. Refreshingly, too, there was little talk of "the children," although the enthusiasm that greeted the recital of an essay on school prayer by the young daughter (she's against) of an atheist from Alabama (so's he) had more than a touch of the Laura Bush about it.

That isn't to say that emotion was not on display. This was not a gathering very typical of the roughly 10 percent of all Americans who have no religious faith (a larger group than Jews, Muslims, Lutherans, or many others). For the most part, such secular folk keep their concerns to themselves. They are, spiritually speaking, part of the Leave Us Alone coalition, indifferent to theological controversy and free from transcendental torment. The Hyatt's heathens were made of more awkward, angrier stuff.

Given their background, that's not surprising. American Atheists is the organization (it has fewer than 5,000 members) founded by the "most hated woman in America," Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whose litigation brought an end to organized school prayer. She was a famously confrontational character, and even today her successors are a touch irritable. Contrary to rumor, there are no horns on their heads, but watch out for the chips on their shoulders. These are the Wahhabis of atheism, disbelief's true believers. Oppressed by their sense of oppression, they also show signs of succumbing to the temptation of that most pernicious of contemporary cults, the cult of the victim.

There were tales of social anxiety, embarrassment, and snubs, regrettable certainly, but hardly the Inquisition. In listening to the anguished protests against trivial slights, it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was a group that had lost all sense of proportion. On September 11, the United States was subjected to murderous assault at the hands of religious extremists. In addition to the carnage, bin Laden's war represents an attack at the ideological and spiritual level: It is a challenge to the West and to its enlightenment. Hog-tied by the pieties of multiculturalism and constrained by a perceived need to appease Muslim "allies," this country has proved incapable of mounting an intellectually effective response. If ever there was a moment for a clear, sensible leadership from supporters of the secular, it is now.

Judging by their convention, however, this is not something that we can expect anytime soon from America's atheist activists. In discussing the aftermath of 9/11, the convention's focus rested not on Islamic fundamentalism but on safer, stupider topics, grotesque in their self-indulgence and irritating in their irrelevance; the iniquity of "God Bless America" (the G-word is, apparently, a problem in a national song) and government's supposedly disgraceful role in the use of religion to comfort a wounded nation. The overthrow (by the reviled George W. Bush, no less) of a real theocracy, that of the Taliban, barely rated a mention. In their obsession with wicked old Christianity, these atheists seemed to be lost in yesterday's struggle. They were ready to fight the Kaiser, but it is Hitler who is now in town.

There were, it was true, a couple of lectures that dealt with the threat from Islamic extremism. The first, on "holy terror," had the merit of making the point that there was a need to defend and to promote Western culture, a rare assertion in contemporary America. The second was a talk by "Ibn Warraq" (prudently, he uses a pseudonym), the author of Why I Am Not a Muslim, a book with a title and theme echoing that of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian.

Brought up a Muslim on the Indian subcontinent, Mr. Warraq is a slightly old-fashioned figure, a shabbily genteel man with more than a hint of India's mid-20th-century intelligentsia about him. His talk (blunt in language and sharp in logic) was a fascinating analysis both of the roots of Islam and of its association with today's religious violence. How accurate it was, I'm not expert enough to judge, but it is worth remembering that Lord Russell never had to conceal his real name. Certainly, in its analytical and textual rigor, Ibn Warraq's lecture was a considerable improvement on the patronizing sugarcoating that usually passes for discussion of Islam, the "religion of peace."

Revealingly, though, the time dedicated to these two talks was no greater than that allocated for slapstick: a presentation on religious kitsch ("Bibleman" has, appropriately enough, so far as skeptics are concerned, to be seen to be believed) and a guide to some of the more demented Christian websites. Both these lectures were amusing enough, but the emphasis placed on them suggested an audience more comfortable with taking cheap shots than concentrating on what really matters. A talk on the cloning controversy revealed the same flaw. The opportunity for serious argument was lost in the course of an endless joke involving foreskins, nuns, and a hermaphroditic divinity. The joke wasn't funny and, in the context of a convention of atheism, was about as shocking as a striptease in a brothel.

It was also a wasted opportunity, but perhaps this was at least partly inevitable. Any convention, unless choreographed by Elizabeth Dole, is bound to include some partisan entertainment to rally the troops. Nevertheless it was a shame. There is a need for a more frank discussion about those areas where the dictates of religion and the requirements of science come into conflict, but such a happy moment seems a long way off. After all, even debates between faiths are off-limits these days, deemed too tricky for our era of moral relativism and exquisite PC sensitivity. The virtue of good judgment has been turned into the vice of "judgmentalism," and we live with the result: an era of religious hucksters and New Age nonsense, a time of woolly thinking when no distinction is made between the writings of St. Augustine and the babblings of some two-bit West Coast Wiccan.

Could atheism be an antidote? You do not have to be a nonbeliever to see that its theoretically rational philosophical method could play a part in restoring notions of reason and objectivity to a society that regards both with suspicion. It the Boston atheists are any indication, however, you do have to be an optimist to think that this could happen. Fundamentalism, it was obvious that weekend, does not depend on a god.

Still, here were times when the convention showed what could be. There was Mr. Warraq's talk, for instance, and, perhaps most striking of all, a lecture by Michael Cuneo, a professor from New York City, an expert on delusions of devilry, and those who prey upon it. In an amusing presentation, he spoke of ceremonies that combine the best of The Exorcist with the worst of Elmer Gantry. This was skepticism at its good-humored, informative best, an inspiration, one would think, to the Hyatt's godless horde. But there was one small irony.

Prof. Cuneo teaches at Fordham, a Jesuit university, and, yes, he's a Catholic.