Why Would An Atheist Go To Church?
As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up attending Unitarian-Universalist churches. One of the questions I’m often asked is “What kind of a church would an atheist go to?” Despite the fact that I haven’t regularly attended services in the last ten years, I usually feel the need to defend the church. Unfortunately, my explanations usually fall apart after “It’s possible to feel enlightened without being subservient to a diety…” I guess part of the reason is that while I understand the reason atheists would go to church, I’m not at all compelled to go myself.
As a way of helping explain things a bit better, I suggest reading this sermon by the former youth director of my church. Since the sermon is about how he went from atheist to believer, it only addresses the question posed above in a roundabout way. Nevertheless, it makes for a very interesting read, especially in comparison to the millions of stories out there about guys who “found salvation at the bottom of a bottle”. This bit in particular does a great job of describing my problems with the Christian God (for lack of a better term) :
Perhaps the reason I couldn’t abide the notion of God all those years was because it was someone else’s notion of God – and a dangerous, idolatrous notion at that.The perverted picture of God that I so naturally recoiled against for much of my life goes way, way back. It began, so to speak, “in the beginning.” To my mind, it can be traced to one crucial verse in the Old Testament . . . and to the thinking that inspired that verse . . . as well as to the thinking that has since been engendered by that verse. My copy of Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 26, reads: “And God said, let us make humanity in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the earth.”
As debatable as the common translation of that passage is, I think most of us could agree that its two central ideas – the idea that God and human beings somehow uniquely resemble each other, and the idea that human beings should dominate the earth – these two ideas have shaped our culture for thousands of years, and continue to have enormous power over it, even today. This particular world-view can be implicated in most of the great tragedies of human history – wars and genocide, nationalism and racism, and the nuclear proliferation and environmental degradation that today threaten our very existence.
Such thinking, I believe, is precisely what we need salvation from; such thinking, in fact, is what made me an atheist for much of my life.
As this post winds down, lemme just share a sample exchange that I’ve had numerous times during conversations on this topic :
Christian : So if you’re not worshiping anything, why do you have to go to church?Unitarian-Universalist : We’ll there’s a lot to be said for congregating with others who share your beliefs.
X-ian : So isn’t it just a club then?
UU : Well, no more than your church. After all, you can’t tell me you’re wearing your “Sunday best” to impress Jesus. He knows what you look like naked.
In the end, the idea of a church that doesn’t revolve around prayer is too hard a concept for most people to grasp.
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very thoughtful post, thanks
Comment by Erin — June 24, 2004 @ 7:10 am
It can be hard see all the separate roles that religion plays in people’s lives. Churches and religions provide people with philosophy to help understand the world, a community for support and a sense of belonging, advice on life…basically everything from creation to recreation. Non-religous people can find these things as well, just usually not in one package. For people inside a religion, who attribute the benefits of going to church to God or whatever, the secular and (perceived) divine benefits of church going are not easily separated. The UU church is handy for people of no other religion to do the familiar church thing without compromising their beliefs.
But the problem of separating Religion from the function of religions in society has dangerous manifestations in politcs. The existence of extremist Islamic terrorists does not necessarily mean that Islam the religion breeds extremist terrorists. There are religous extremist terrorists from many different religions and there are extremist terrorists who are motivated by non-religious beliefs.
Fanatics of all stripes embrace whatever pre-existing beliefs are convenient to their recruitment base, and use or pervert them to justify their actions and unify their membership. Religion may play a role for Al-Qaeda and the KKK that is similar to the purpose that anti-government conspiracy theories play for militia groups or anti-semitism played for the Nazis.
I suppose the point is that a person’s motivations and values cannot be fully deduced from their association with a religion or belief system. The assumption that an atheist would find no value in a church is one thing. Assuming that terrorists have no souls is quite another.
Comment by Nick — June 24, 2004 @ 9:56 am
I suppose it’s nit-picking but a more appropriate analogy in the comment about extremist Islamic groups (namely Al Qaeda), would be to compare them to the Fundamentalist Christians that populate our country. The ones who are willing to kill in order to save.
And is there a disconnect when someone is “Pro-Life” for the unborn but pro-death penalty for the already born? Talk about hypocrisy.
Comment by David — June 24, 2004 @ 12:25 pm
Why Would an Atheist go to Church?
I’m submitting this as “Blog Entry of the X”. Capriciously and at no defined interval I’ll go through all of the sites that I link to from my site and pick my favorite blog entry. Then I’ll feature it here.
Greg at I’m submitting this as “Blog Entry of the X”. Capriciously and at no defined interval I’ll go through all of the sites that I link to from my site and pick my favorite blog entry. Then I’ll feature it here.
Greg at
Trackback by That Good Night — June 24, 2004 @ 7:45 pm
Q: Why would an atheist go to church?
A: Why do people go to zoos?
Comment by Mark Spittle — June 25, 2004 @ 5:20 am
Thanks so much for the post. I am myself an atheist (sometimes struggling with what that means) and was raised having never really attended church. My great uncle went to a Unitarian-Universalist church and he was a great person. I think there are some really amazing aspects of religion and I would hate to think that being a non-believer would keep me from all the art, architecture, community, ritual, music, etc. that is part of “church”.
Comment by Alex — June 25, 2004 @ 11:01 am