After turning in my final application for graduate school last Thursday, a few friends and I went to a bar to celebrate. Fifteen minutes into my first drink, a buddy of mine showed me what had popped up on his Facebook feed: the Vanity Fair obituary for Christopher Hitchens. All of us, ardent atheist or not, had been influenced by his work, and the next hour was draped with shock and melancholy. But it wasn’t long until the night turned from sadness to celebration—of his work, of his life, and of his memory.  We spent the night and early morning drinking, laughing, and watching classic videos of Hitch in his honor.

Hitchens wasn’t right about everything, but he was a heavyweight and a hero. The world became a worse place last Thursday night.

So good night, sweet prince. You’ll be missed.

Vlad Chituc is a senior at Yale University, studying Psychology and Philosophy with an interest in how we form beliefs (particularly moral and religious), and an interest in metaphysics and moral philosophy on the side. He has served as the Community Service Coordinator and President of the Secular Student Alliance at Yale (formerly the Yale Humanist Society), during which he participated in the Inter-Religious Leaders Council and worked closely with the Yale Chaplain’s Office to foster relationships with liberal member s of the Yale religious community. In his spare time, Vlad enjoys listening to hipster bullshit and writing sarcastic articles and music reviews for the Yale Herald.

This week, I was shocked to discover that I sort of agreed with PZ Myers about something. I figured that constituted some kind of faitheist existential crisis, so I did what all good atheists do when a thought of some kind enters their heads: I decided to blog about it.

If we need a Nones-Pope, I vote for Randall Munroe.

Last Sunday, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Eric Weiner entitled, “Americans: Undecided About God?” In the piece, Weiner discusses “the nation’s fastest-growing religious demographic,” commonly known as “the Nones, the roughly 12 percent of people who say they have no religious affiliation at all” when they respond to the sort of surveys that ask people about such things. (Having never been asked to respond to one of these fabled surveys, I sometimes question their existence while sitting alone in my room eating ramen and feeling unloved. I rather suspect somebody just makes up the numbers and changes them every now and then to keep people on their toes.)

As you can probably guess, the Nones are not a very homogenous bunch. As PZ Myers correctly pointed out in his response, “none” is the “broad catch-all category” for anybody who doesn’t fit neatly into a different box, so it’s hard to generalize usefully about them as a group. But that doesn’t stop Eric Weiner, the self-appointed spokesperson for Nones everywhere!

According to Weiner, Pope of the Nones, “We Nones may not believe in God, but we hope to one day.” To this claim, PZ and I both responded, “WHY?” More importantly, PZ and I were both immediately reminded of the same xkcd comic, pictured left. Fortunately for my interfaith cred, that’s about where the similarities stop. (I mean, except for that whole thing where PZ and I are both atheists. But that almost seems insignificant compared to all the topics we disagree vehemently about. See, Eric Weiner? The non-religious, even when you narrow it down to atheists, are a pretty diverse bunch.)

Weiner asserts that “a growing number of Americans are running from organized religion, but by no means running from God.” He backs up this claim by pointing to another survey indicating that “just 7 percent of [the Nones] describe themselves as atheists.” The op-ed lacks citations – as op-eds are wont to do – but Weiner attributes this number to “a survey by Trinity College.” A friend of mine usefully tracked down the summary report of what she believes is the study Weiner is referring to: the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008, conducted by Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar of Trinity College in Hartford, CT.

I haven’t read the whole report, but after skimming it, it seems to tell a pretty different story from Weiner’s. By this survey’s count, the Nones constituted 15.0% of the U.S. population in 2008. But just 0.7% of the population identifies as atheist, and only 0.9% as agnostic. So who are the 13.4% of the population who are Nones but neither atheists nor agnostics? Is more than one in eight Americans an Eric Weiner, drifting from religion to religion, cult to cult, dabbling in Eastern mysticism and Western orthodoxy, waiting for the “Steve Jobs of religion” to come along and end their spiritual ennui?

No. The names people identify with don’t always match up with their actual beliefs in the ways we’d expect. When asked the (sort of) question, “Regarding the existence of God, do you think…?,” 2.3% of those surveyed responded “There is no such thing.” 4.3% said “There is no way to know,” and 5.7% said “I’m not sure.” What that says to me is that 2.3% of Americans are actually atheists, but less than a third of them are willing to identify as such. Similarly, somewhere between 4% and 10% of the U.S. population is agnostic (depending on how strictly you want to define that term), but the majority of those won’t admit it.

It’s not surprising that many people who don’t believe in God are afraid or otherwise unwilling to brand themselves atheists in a country where atheists are routinely vilified, discriminated against, and feared. Weiner should take such issues into account before dismissing the apparently small numbers of self-identified atheists within the Nones. Moreover, Weiner believes that many people “are reluctant to claim a religious affiliation because they don’t want the political one that comes along with it,” but doesn’t consider the possibility that there may be plenty of non-religious Americans who resist the term “atheist” because they don’t want to be lumped in with the New Atheists, for whatever reason.

Moreover, Weiner ignores a vital shortcoming of the Trinity study: it overlooks the fact that people might identify with more than one label. For example, many people believe it is entirely possible to be both Jewish and atheist – Greg Epstein is even ordained as a Humanist Rabbi. I also know at least one person who identifies as a Catholic-Hindu, at least one Buddhist-Episcopalian, at least one Wiccan-Jew, and at least one Omnist who aspires to believe in the truth of all religions; I know a woman who prays to both the Virgin Mary and Isis, and a man who’s about 70% agnostic and 30% Scientologist; and somebody once asked me if it’s possible to be a Christian Humanist.

Belief categories are not solid boxes with firm walls. They are fluid, mixable, mutable, and always deeply personal. Ignoring their fluidity, and discounting the experiences of everyone who has found themselves between categories, is both disrespectful and unrealistic. Being between categories is not necessarily a sign of drifting or waffling. Somebody can be very happily and firmly situated in a hybrid zone. While I sympathize with the Trinity researchers regarding the difficulty of capturing the true complexity of Americans’ beliefs, we must recognize the limitations of our current measurement techniques and adjust our conclusions accordingly.

In sum, Weiner is overly hasty to conclude that 10-15% of Americans are awaiting the “Steve Jobs of religion” to invent “a new way of being religious” so they can feel like they belong. First of all, Weiner breaks the cardinal rule of interfaith: Thou shalt not speak for an entire belief system or demographic, but only from thine own experience. I’m constantly reminding Christians and Hindus and such of this rule in the context of interfaith dialogue, but it’s almost a worse offense in Weiner’s case because he’s claiming to speak for the entire grab-bag of miscellaneous leftovers that is the Nones. Bad form, sir.

Weiner assumes that all the Nones – or at least a majority – are, like him, adrift between unsatisfactory religious labels, waiting for something better to come along. This overlooks the immense diversity of beliefs that a single person can hold. Many Nones might have very strong and very specific beliefs, drawn from a variety of religious and/or non-religious traditions, and might feel that “no religion” better characterizes their unique position than lumping themselves in with one label or another.

Finally, plenty of the Nones are quite comfortably settled on the “No” side of the God Question, and need not “hope” for anything different, thank-you-very-much. I’m already tired of hearing from religious fundamentalists that people who believe in God are better or more complete human beings than those who don’t; the last thing I need is to hear my fellow Nones join in. Et tu, Weiner?

I can’t speak for all the Nones, or even all the comfortably atheist Nones, but I can tell you that I personally don’t want “a Steve Jobs of religion” to invent “a new way of being religious.” What I think we need is a new way of being non-religious. Many Americans believe without belonging, but we need a place to belong without believing. Weiner fantasizes about “a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment.” It sounds like what Weiner really wants is a religious community without the religion; he only envisions a “religious space” because that’s the only kind of space we’ve been taught to think can house the kind of community he wants.

But I’ve been lucky enough to find just such a space, without the religious baggage that Weiner fears: the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. Many Steve Jobses of non-religion – like Greg Epstein, Chris Stedman, James Croft, and Walker Bristol, just to name a few – are already thinking up new ways to be non-religious without being anti-religious. If this is something that excites you, check out the recently launched website of the Humanist Community Project. Weiner might not realize it, but I think this could be exactly what he’s looking for: a place to ask big questions within a supportive community; a place to be thoughtful and philosophical without being religious; a place to be good without God.

Chelsea Link is a senior at Harvard University, studying History and Science with a focus in the history of medicine, and minoring in Mind/Brain/Behavior. She is the Vice President of Outreach of the Harvard Secular Society, and the former President of the Harvard College Interfaith Council. She also writes for the Harvard Brain and volunteers with the Be the Match bone marrow donor registry. She likes to cook while pretending she’s on Top Chef (hasty breakfast? more like Quickfire Challenge!), adores word games of all kinds (and was once the President of the illustrious Harvard College Crossword Society), and tends to kill the mood at parties by unnecessarily reciting Shakespeare. This summer she interned at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. You can ask her what she’s doing after graduation, but she’ll give you a different answer every time.

Vlad Chituc’s column, When Atheists Get It Wrong, is intended to critically examine bad claims and arguments, not to tear down their author or damage atheism writ large, but to critically assess those arguments and positions to build up better, more accurate ones, in order to promote a stronger atheist movement. As a reminder, the views of this blog post do not necessarily represent those of Chris Stedman, the other NPS panelists, or any of the organizations with which they affiliate.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the atheist movement can turn into a petty crowd that’s particularly prone to infighting. This year alone, we’ve been at each other’s throats about elevator etiquette, responding to sexism, gelato, and now most recently, poorly written rants from higher-ups in American Atheists and responses thereof. (I won’t link to any of the offending material. Either you know what I’m talking about or should feel lucky that you don’t.)

These criticisms we throw at one another bother me. For those waiting to prematurely call out “concern troll,” I’m not going talk about our tone or subject matter. And I’m not bothered by disagreement or strongly worded blog posts. That’s fine. Open marketplace of ideas and all that.

I’m not going to shoot platitudes about how there are people behind these blog posts. I’m not going to play the sappy humanist and wax poetically about the intrinsic value and dignity of everyone (I’ll leave that to Chris). I’m not even going to tell you not to be a dick.

I’m just asking we apply our own standards for sound beliefs to our beliefs about one another.

For some reason I don’t quite understand, it looks like JT Eberhardt has a grudge against Chris Stedman, and it’s come out in another blog post. Before I get started, I should mention that Chris started NonProphet Status, he’s hip as fuck, and he’s a friend of mine. I’d like to think these bias only how strongly I feel about this, and not necessarily my judgment on these issues.

I don’t particularly want to talk about the substance of JT’s post, because frankly there isn’t a whole lot to address and the charges he throws at Chris just don’t apply.  If you want a rebuttal, my friend Conrad addressed the specifics of the post much better than I could have anyway.

But the post is showing a trend that bothers me. JT first took a dig at Chris a few months ago. JT says, practically out of nowhere, that “[t]here are people in the world like Chris Stedman who think the way to get religious people to like us is to watch the intellectual poison in others and do nothing (or even nurture it).” Just in case you were wondering, Chris doesn’t think that, and if anyone wants to maintain that he does, please link to a quote supporting as much in the comments.

JT, in justifying his dig, made another post about a week later. Since I’m trying to be as transparent as possible in this post, JT and I got into a bit of a tiff after he posted this. I mentioned on a mutual friend’s link to the post, that no where in the few thousands of words that he wrote, did he do anything to justify his claim that the entire post was built on: that Chris holds religious beliefs to be above criticism.

Again, Chris doesn’t think this. He’s never done anything to suggest that he thinks this. And again, if there are quotes or links that imply otherwise, please help me change my mind.

This latest post of JT’s only continues the trend. He titles his post “Defending Horrors to Build Bridges.” It’s cute, but I don’t see anything in the post, or in what Chris has written, that entails defending any horrors.

My request is simple: if you’re going to make a claim about what people believe, back it up. I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to ask. Middle school students can do this when writing English papers; we grown adults can do it when addressing one another on the internet. If hearsay doesn’t stand for historical accounts of Jesus, it shouldn’t stand to condemn anyone.

JT talks a lot about reason with a capital r. I’ve never found the concept particularly useful or even meaningful, but how would someone listening to Reason make claims about Chris? How would someone listening to Reason react to what JT has said? Should we listen to caricatures and unjustified claims, or take Chris’ writing at face value?

JT’s most recent post has gotten some attention, a lot of it negative. This doesn’t much surprise me, because I see it as little more than unjustified bullying and character assassination.

But mere hours later, a non-sequitor dig at Chris appeared on PZ Myers’ blog, in a post about calling out pseudoscience in medicine (something I’m delighted to see). PZ says, again, out of nowhere:

What is it with these woomeisters? Christopher Maloney,Burzynski, it’s a sure sign that you’re dealing with a delusional dingleberry when their reflex response to any criticism is to go running to the lawyers or start harrassing people’s employers to silence those who dare to question their methods (I’ve been hearing similar things about Chris Stedman lately, which doesn’t surprise me).

I’m hesitant to speculate, but PZ and JT blog at the same website. If the implication in PZ’s unfounded dig, the new heading at the top of JT’s post distancing his views from the SSA, as well as a comment JT left on Conrad’s post above, saying “I know I promised a response. I will regrettably be unable to render one,” is that Chris is going to somehow be held responsible for silencing JT, then I’m going to need a better reason to believe it than hearsay and dogmatism at its worst.

Chris has assured me he’s done no such thing. So if it’s hearsay on both sides, I think we all know where the default position falls. I don’t see how someone who values Reason and beliefs based on evidence could take such a claim seriously, let alone make as serious an accusation like PZ has.

So allow me to publicly and formally ask PZ to either retract his statement and apologize, or provide some evidence to back up his claim.

And full disclosure: Months ago, I complained to the SSA about JT. Not because of anything to do with Chris, let alone what Chris has asked me to do, but because I believe JT represents the organization poorly and hurts their mission. When JT and I got in a disagreement on facebook, he responded to me, a student leader the group he works for represents, with a “fuck you.” Chris is on the SSA’s speakers bureau, and I know a lot of groups are fans of his work. I don’t find it surprising at all that when JT makes unsubstantiated attacks on Chris, and thus those who identify with Chris’ positions, it draws complaints.

So maybe let’s try to be a little more careful about the claims we make to and about one another. Let’s not slander fellow atheists (or anyone else) just because we happen to disagree. The first step to productive debate is accurately and charitably interpreting the other’s position, and as far as I can see, we’ve been failing at it miserably. Skeptics and freethinkers can do better.

EDIT: Since writing, it looks like JT has confirmed in a comment on PZ’s post that PZ’s claim is unfounded. I think an apology and public retraction from both parties is in order, but especially PZ. Secondhand information from a blog administrator is not grounds for a serious accusation. My broader point about holding to standards of evidence for the claims we make still holds, I think.

JT still holds, though that “It is instead one of his fans who has orchestrated the complaints, and I have my suspicions who, but it was not Chris.” It seems absurd to me still to tie this to Chris, but if JT is sure that one of his fans “orchestrated” anything, I’d love some evidence to back it up.

EDIT #2: PZ offers something of a response.

Vlad Chituc is a senior at Yale University, studying Psychology and Philosophy with an interest in how we form beliefs (particularly moral and religious), and an interest in metaphysics and moral philosophy on the side. He has served as the Community Service Coordinator and President of the Secular Student Alliance at Yale (formerly the Yale Humanist Society), during which he participated in the Inter-Religious Leaders Council and worked closely with the Yale Chaplain’s Office to foster relationships with liberal member s of the Yale religious community. In his spare time, Vlad enjoys listening to hipster bullshit and writing sarcastic articles and music reviews for the Yale Herald.

The Catholic League recently launched a campaign entitled “Adopt an Atheist,” for which they encourage their members to contact members of American Atheists with an email to show them that they “may come to understand that they were Christian all along.” The following is an open letter that Timothy Pate wrote to the Catholic League in regards to their project.

The following post was cross-posted from An Elephant in the Room, An Atheist in the Church

To Whom It May Concern -

The Catholic League's "Adopt an Atheist" campaign

My name is Timothy Pate, and I am an atheist. I learned today of your “Adopt an Atheist” campaign, and I would like to submit myself as a candidate for adoption into your program. I noticed that there are no American Atheist representatives in Colorado (which is how you are generating a list of atheists to contact), so I would like to volunteer myself to be part of your efforts.

I am an atheist focused on interfaith relationships, so I think that it is important to open the doors for conversation between atheists and theists to build toward a more positive, accepting future. If you choose to ‘adopt’ me, I will not be attacking you or your faith – I only want to give you the chance to explain why this campaign is important to you and what it means for your beliefs.

I am in no way attempting to lampoon your campaign. I genuinely would like to go through the experience of being adopted, as I believe that it is a unique opportunity for us both to gain knowledge regarding the other person’s worldview. Please take this proposal seriously.

If you are a member of the Catholic League living in Colorado or know somebody of that status, please email me at tmpate.csu@gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best, and season’s greetings,

Tim Pate

Tim Pate is the President of Colorado State University’s secular student organization, Leaders in Free Thought, and creator of the interfaith blog, An Elephant in the Room, An Atheist in the Church. He is the sole atheist in the interfaith group, Multi-Faith Partners Roundtable. He is an undergraduate public relations student at CSU; a writer for Public Relations Student Society of America’s newsletter, PRogress; the Public Relations Coordinator for Ability Club (an organization for disabled students); and a member of the Campus Feminist Alliance. To enhance your internet experience, follow him on Twitter: @timmytop.

Atheist in Church is Tim’s way of advocating for the interfaith movement. Each week, Tim attends at least one religious service, at which he assesses the message of service and discusses with various members and leaders the importance of including atheists in the interfaith conversation. This column is intended to convey the experiences he has at these various places of faith.

This post has been cross-posted from An Elephant in the Room, An Atheist in the Church and adapted for Non Prophet Status.

Our greatest potential for learning lies not within our comfort zone, but beyond it – and luckily for atheists in America, we are nearly always occupying that realm beyond complete contentment. In a country that is so predominantly religious, atheists often find themselves in situations of exclusion; whether self-inflicted or imposed. In order for the interfaith movement to grow within the atheist community, atheists must embrace their minority status and immerse themselves in a culture heavily rooted in faith.

An Elephant in the Room, An Atheist in the Church is my attempt at stepping away from what makes me comfortable and discovering the benefits of journeying through a community in which many people think I do not belong. This week, I intentionally dived into two separate instances where I was the noticeable misfit; and as you might expect, I grew from the experiences.

Benefits of going to church - free doughnuts!

As part of my college coursework, I am enrolled in a class dedicated to exploring our creativity. As the class has drawn closer to a climax, we were all instructed to present the class with a demonstration of our creative passion. What else could I talk about but my gravitation towards the efforts of interfaith activism?

Standing in front of a class is difficult as it is – telling a class, which we can assume is predominantly Christian, that you are an atheist is terrifying. The looks that I received from my peers were indicative of a wide spectrum of acceptance, but the general attitude of the class shifted gradually to an increased understanding of my motives as the speech progressed. The question and answer session afterwards consisted of insightful inquiries, but it completely lacked disparaging remarks regarding my atheism.

Even more gratifying were the discussions held privately with students after the class was over. A few expressed appreciation for an atheist reaching out to the believing community; one or two invited me to join them at church; and one student came to confess her own atheism and to discuss the importance of atheists abstaining from ignorance in regards to religion.

Which is obviously one benefit of my project…

And thus I walked into the Catholic church on Sunday and knew that I would be out of my comfort zone (what with all the standing and sitting and rituals with which I was not acquainted). I have been to a handful of Masses in my entire life, and it has always been interesting to see the history of the church interwoven into its services.

As I had expected, the traditions during the service were routine for regular attendees, but difficult for the lone atheist in the church. A close Catholic friend accompanied me to the service, and she was kind enough to guide me through the service by example.

Observant church-goers usually can spot me as an unusual participant on Sunday mornings, likely due to the fact that I don’t pray or sing. However, my sore-thumbedness is exceptionally more apparent at services where Communion is taken. As the crowds rose from their seats and lined up for the bread and wine, I stayed sitting, awkwardly trying to stay out of the way of the congregation as they passed me to receive Communion.

As I said, learning the history of the church and why certain rituals are significant is a task that I find interesting and important for atheists. Throughout the service, my friend Evie taught me various things about how the services normally were conducted and why. For example (and you’ll recognize this tradition if you’ve ever attended a Catholic or Lutheran service), there are times of prayer by the minister that require responses from the congregation. The exact words that the people of the church are instructed to speak are dictated by a higher governing power of the church. For whatever reason, the Catholic church decided that certain words within the responses needed to be tweaked. What was the reasoning behind this decision? What beliefs does it reflect of the church as a whole? These are questions that believers and non-believers should try to answer so that we can understand why such a large portion of the population acts the way it does.

Attending church with a friend is one of the most basic ways that atheists can get involved in the interfaith conversation. Studies like this one indicate that college students are less likely to believe in Hell because they don’t like the idea that a majority in their diverse group of friends could be destined to eternal punishment. It then makes sense for atheists to cultivate relationships with their religious peers, because the reduction in the belief in Hell leads to a further decrease in extremist behavior fueled by this belief.

Isolating ourselves from the largely religious world is not beneficial to any goal of increasing understanding among humans. The benefits of replacing ignorance with outreach is great, in that it provides us with knowledge and experience outside of our comfort zones, and it leads to a culture of people willing to accept differences and abandon hate in favor of loving their friends. Therefore, I will continue to be the elephant in the room.

Tim Pate is the President of Colorado State University’s secular student organization, Leaders in Free Thought, and creator of the interfaith blog, An Elephant in the Room, An Atheist in the Church. He is the sole atheist in the interfaith group, Multi-Faith Partners Roundtable. He is an undergraduate public relations student at CSU; a writer for Public Relations Student Society of America’s newsletter, PRogress; the Public Relations Coordinator for Ability Club (an organization for disabled students); and a member of the Campus Feminist Alliance. To enhance your internet experience, follow him on Twitter: @timmytop.