The Problem of Self-Identity: Atheism Part Two

In one of my posts a while back I quoted a great story told by Isaac Asimov in his autobiography In Joy Still Felt. Asimov, a famous writer of science fiction, was at a s-f convention with Avram Davidson, a very orthodox Jew. Asimov said that during a conversation in which Davidson was “stressing his orthodoxy just a bit too hard” for Asimov’s comfort, Davidson asked Asimov’s stand on religion.

“I’m an atheist.”

“Yes,” said Avram, without batting an eye, “but what kind of atheist? A Baptist atheist, a Hindu atheist? A Seventh-day Adventist atheist?”

I got the idea. “A Jewish atheist,” I said “which means I have to fight the irrational elements in Judaism particularly.” (In Joy Still Felt, pp. 174-175.)

I certainly related to this when I self-identified as an atheist, but I might go a bit farther. The Sagan quote I talked about yesterday got me thinking (in high school) about the issue of what it means to define yourself by what you don't believe. Sagan's point was that the definition of God is very different for different people and that to say you don't believe you must define which God you are saying you don't believe in. I agreed with Sagan that I didn't know of any strong evidence for anything like the God described in the Bible, but if God was simply the sum of the laws of the universe (as Sagan said Spinoza and Einstein asserted) then it would be silly to say I didn't believe in that God. However...

The fact was that I grew up in the heart of the Midwest of the U S of A, and we didn't know any Baruch Spinoza! Now Einstein I knew about (who didn't?) and I had read Relativity and Ideas and Opinions and could relate to what he said about religion (there are some great essays on religion and science in Ideas and Opinions.) But the truth was I wasn't running into Einstein around the neighborhood. When folks in Illinois asked if you believed in God few of them were wondering if I believed in the sum total of the physical laws of the universe. They were asking whether I believed in the fellow (and it was definitely a fellow not a lady) who caused the great flood, performed miracles, rose Jesus from the dead, etc. It was that God in particular that was the God of the time and place I grew up in and it was that God that I was making reference to when I self-identified as an atheist. To have said "yes" to the question "do you believe in God" at that time would have been to say (to them) that I believed in the God that they had in their minds. My choices were to say "no" and self-identify as an atheist, or say "well it depends on what you mean by God," like Sagan did, which would mean having to get into a long discussion explaining what I meant. And really what would the point be? If I described the God of Spinoza and Einstein that I could believe in to them they would just say I was an atheist anyway. Why not just save time and call myself an atheist?

My initial self-identification, therefore, I saw as a rejection of the particular religion and God that I was exposed to as a young fellow in the Midwest. So while the idea that perhaps that definition of God was narrow was planted in my mind by Sagan's comment, it really didn't take hold that it was an important issue until quite a bit later in life. More towards a change in that opinion next time.