"… and all the non-believers"

I’ve watched Barack Obama’s Inauguration Speech three times. During it I nod my head, fill up with the trademark Obama hope, and then he drops this phrase: “our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers.” The emphasis is his.

I’m a non-believer and in more specific terms, I am termed as a “strong” atheist. So, watching Rick Warren describe our nation’s relationship with god, and Obama swear in on the Lincoln Bible, even listening to Aretha Franklin belt out “God Bless America”, is all a bit awkward. It doesn’t offend me, but at times it seems a bit silly, histrionic at least. Most of all it makes me feel put out.

I don’t like to speak for nonbelievers very much, the category itself is about as descriptive as “none of the above”, but I think we might agree that the more we see government entangled with the god business, the more difficult we find it to buy in. For us, the biggest insult about the entire Iraq War scandal is that Bush said God told him to invade. The rest is infuriating, but divine priority is downright condescending. We really don’t like religion mingling with our state, some nonbelievers even made a law

about it.

There are several reasons given for why, even in a constitutionally secular nation such as ours, religion must be part of the Inauguration ceremony. It is apparently tradition. The prayers and name-dropping of God are designed to be comprehensive (well, exclusive of other countries I guess. Americans are the ones that deserve blessing according to Aretha). Supposedly, we are also a nation based on Judeo-Christian values.

For those who find this last argument central, I’d really like to know how their values differ from secular ones. Other than heaven and hell, and supernatural forces, and quirky dietary habits, in what way does it actually make a person better than a nonbeliever? Are my values meaningless? That hint of superiority is what bothers me the most.

Nonbelievers are de facto not included in a ceremony like the Inauguration. Some people think we don’t even belong in this country.

Bush Senior once said, “I don’t know that atheists should be regarded citizens”.

But none of this because there are so few of us. The nonreligious make up as much as 10 percent of the population, depending how the question is asked (there are polls that come up with as low as 3 percent. It seems to be a very difficult number to get one’s hands around). We’re left out because some believers don’t trust us, or they think we are evil, or that we only exist in the radical fringe. Whatever the case, in democracy, our ideas don’t seem to count.

And yet Obama put his hand out to us. At the same time he let it be known that we were on the team.

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to be excited about this; we’d be able to tell our families and co-workers that we are nonbelievers, and our president wouldn’t hear voices in his head. But we are where we are, so while I’d like to get the prayers out of public ceremonies, and god further out of our schools and off of our money, right now I’ll settle for a leader who recognizes me as a human being.

BRAD KELLY
Guest Opinion

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