T

hough there is some debate about the 
origins of the word “religion,” I am par-
tial to the sense derived from the Latin 

religare (“to bind” or “to fasten”). The image 
suggests that religion involves connection and 
commitment — connection to something out-
side of yourself and, through the act of connec-
tion, sincere commitment to certain practices 
and beliefs. 

Religion, of course, encompasses more 

than this single definition can capture. There 
is a multiplicity of religious experience in our 
world, and thousands of variations of religious 
life outside the dominant religions of Christi-
anity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Juda-
ism. Religion is a near-universal facet of hu-
man experience and a matter of both intense 
spiritual and emotional interest for individuals. 
It is a subject of infinite scope, and yet each of 
us occupies only a single point within its vast 
domain. It is therefore with great humility that 
I approach the topic, acknowledging the singu-
larity of my perspective within this labyrinth of 
presuppositions about what religion really is.

Even as someone who lacks belief in a God 

or gods, my perspective on religion is a matter of 
sustained reflection, albeit from a different ap-
proach than that of believers. Atheists must nav-
igate a predominantly religious world, a fact that 
produces as much variation within atheist life 
as it does within religious life. And though I am 
an atheist out of honesty to myself, the anxieties 
of life and frequent plunges into cynicism stem-
ming from religious detachment have foamed 
within me and produced a question I must ad-
dress: Would I be better off believing in God?

From the moment I understood myself to 

be an atheist, the temptation to religion has 
constantly lurked beneath my awareness, oc-
casionally elevating itself in fits of indignation. 
For this, the benign presence of religion was 
instrumental.

For instance, even though I had a secular 

upbringing, religion was always in the back-
ground. For kindergarten, I went to a Montes-
sori school — a type of school premised on har-
nessing the natural curiosity of children in the 
basement of an Episcopal church. Though I 
never met him, my great-grandfather, an Angli-
can priest in central England, would have been 
proud to see his great-grandson in the Ameri-
can equivalent of his denomination.

For elementary school, I went to a local 

public school in my home city of Washing-
ton, D.C., which is basically as secular as you 
can get. The school officials strictly followed 
the First Amendment ban on school-spon-
sored religion; we never said the Pledge of 
Allegiance, which posits the U.S. as “one na-
tion under God,” nor did we have religiously-
tinged Christmas assemblies. There was no 
stigma attached to religion, but I did have a 

sense growing up that religion was something 
for the private, not the public sphere.

It was during middle school that I began 

to have some more exposure to religion in 
the way of bar- and bat-mitzvahs, the coming 
of age ritual in Judaism. Throughout seventh 
grade, I went to more than a dozen of these cel-
ebrations for friends, which meant I visited the 
local temple at least as many times as my local 
Episcopal church. This was not my first time 
hearing Hebrew, however. For a while, both of 
my next-door neighbors were Jewish. On oc-
casion, my little brother and I would be invited 
to one of their houses for Friday-night Shabbat 
dinner, where we would listen to the blessings.

Throughout high school, I continued to 

learn about religion in my English and his-
tory courses. While we didn’t have a religious 
education specifically, we did read the Gospel 
of Mark and some extracts from the Old Testa-
ment of the Bible in tenth-grade English class. 
I also picked up things here and there from 
texts with major religious themes, especially 
Gothic novels and stories like those of Charles 
Dickens, William Faulkner and Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, as well as Toni Morrison’s novels, 
including “Beloved,” and “Song of Solomon.”

Nearing the end of my senior year, however, 

I was still not an avowed atheist. The existence 
of God felt like a remote possibility, but the 
question itself never bothered me — at least, 
not like it does now.

More than anything else, it was my first en-

counter with philosophy at the age of 17 that 
presented me with the life and language of 
atheism.

Just a few weeks before my high school 

graduation, I read Albert Camus’s “The Strang-
er” for the first time. The ideas within the text 
leaped out and spoke to me with an urgency I 
had never experienced before. As I held it in 
my hands, the book had the simultaneous aura 
of a precious gem and a great burning flame 
that threatened to swallow me up. For me, it 
was an atheist revelation.

The concept at the heart of “The Stranger” 

is the “absurdity” of human existence. The ab-
surd does not refer to an innate irrationality 
of human nature; rather, it expresses the con-
tradiction of humanity’s search for meaning 
in a universe where there is none to be found 
through the faculties of science, logic, reason 
and faith. Meursault, the understated protag-
onist of “The Stranger,” arrives at an under-
standing of the absurd at the end of the novel. 
His reaction of revolt, rather than despair, 
against this absurd condition presented to me 
the most paradoxical yet attractive aspect of 
Camusian thought.

It follows from Camus’s skepticism that re-

ligion cannot serve as a source of meaning. Ac-
cording to Camus, clinging onto objective truth 

and divine authority is an expression of defeat, 
of caving into the absurdity of existence by de-
nying it. In his view, the Christian hope for a life 
in heaven is a deep error because of its diminu-
tion of existence on Earth. 
W

hile the constant reminder of the 
meaningless of existence can lead 
to disparate ideas, to me, existen-

tialism represented a radical, life-affirming 
philosophy — an approach to existence that 
sparked my imagination and invited me to re-
flect on my place in an infinite universe.

In my raptures, however, there was a certain 

part of Camus’s thought that I did not take to 
heart; because theistic religion has served for 
centuries as the principal well of meaning and 
purpose, it is still deeply ingrained in the social 
and spiritual life of millions. Overzealous athe-
ists threaten to run the well dry for the sake 
of affirming a philosophical truth, causing a 
drought of global proportions and the spiritual 
suffocation of the entire religious world.

I also failed to appreciate the gravity of 

losing faith upon my first few readings of the 
19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. 
In “The Gay Science,” Nietzsche writes of a 
madman running into town with a lantern in 
broad daylight shouting, “I seek God! I seek 
God!” The scene is ridiculous, though the ap-
parent humor is a veil for the seriousness of Ni-
etzsche’s infamous announcement that “God 
is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed 
him.”

The “Parable of The Madman at first gave 

me great reassurance as a young atheist. I 
found the notion of the death of God ecstatic, 
its articulation courageous on the part of its 
author. I thought the death of God signified 
liberation from religious fundamentalism, holy 
wars and the caprice of religious influence in 
politics. In other words, I believed the death of 
God constitutes freedom, and freedom is the 
most sublime condition of humanity. However, 
to my detriment, I ignored the less satisfying 
part: “How shall we, the murderers of all mur-
ders, comfort ourselves?”

***
Why would atheists need to comfort our-

selves? What, after all, is the danger of breaking 
the ties that link us to God?

In my experience, disconnection works on 

several broad levels. First, there is the discon-
nection from a higher power, a source of objec-
tive meaning that offers to resolve much inner 
conflict. Second, there is the disconnection from 
a religious community, that sentiment that one 
has the support of people of shared values and 
beliefs. Third, there is the disconnection from 
religious tradition, the passing down of religious 
teachings and practices across centuries and po-
tentially across continents.

The apparent importance of religion, its 

widespread visibility and its embedding in so-
ciety can thus create feelings of alienation in 
those who have never been a part of religious 
life. I am not proposing that atheists lack the 
same moral faculties as those who base their 
ethics from scripture or oral teachings. There 
is, however, a fundamental relationship be-
tween faith and self-affirmation. And in mo-
ments of distress and self-doubt, the surety of 
religious life and the support of the religious 
community suddenly presents itself as an at-
tractive alternative.

The moment of crisis for an atheist, then, 

differs from the crisis of faith that menaces 
the believer. The believer remains tethered to 
God, community and tradition throughout this 
crisis, whereas the atheist, generally speaking, 
does not have recourse to the support of these 
mooring posts.

Some atheists search for comfort in the 

company of other atheists in an institutional 
setting. Self-described secular congregations, 
such as the Sunday Assembly, offer atheists a 
chance to connect in a setting reminiscent of 
the religious temples they may have left be-
hind. Similarly, online forums or discussion 
boards like r/Atheism launch unbelievers into 
the digital sphere, where sensitive discussions 
about religion can be protected with the prom-
ise of online anonymity, or the confidence that 
comes from the belief that things said on the In-
ternet have fewer consequences than things said 
with the undulating breath of one’s own voice.

However, despite atheists having strong 

views on religion, the prospect of promoting 
atheism as a universal alternative to religion in 
these settings has seemed awkward to me, like 
some form of proselytization. Anything resem-
bling Atheist Church leaps out as a dangerous 
contradiction, a slippery slope to be avoided 
at all costs. Most believers, Christians for in-
stance, are linked by a set of positive beliefs 
about God, religious observance and ethical 
mores. Though there are always exceptions, 
Christians by definition will agree that Jesus of 
Nazareth was the son of God, the Messiah, and 
that certain events — His death, descent into 
Hell, resurrection and Second Coming — are of 
either historical, literal or metaphorical truth.

There is, however, no doctrine of atheism, 

historical or otherwise. Instead, there is an ab-
sence of doctrine — an intentional embrace of 
nothingness — that is central to atheist identity. 
In my view, attempts to formalize atheism into 
institutions often represent an attempt to incar-
nate this nothingness. Even if the intention is to 
provide a meeting place for people of like minds, 
such positive establishments of atheism run the 
risk of reaching the height of contradiction.

Yes, there are compelling political reasons 

for atheists to organize themselves as a group; 
for instance, to combat state-sponsored estab-
lishment of religion in public schools. Howev-
er, detaching oneself from God can also mean a 
detachment from convictions based on objec-
tive truth, including one’s own.

And still, moments of solidarity between 

atheists are important. These moments render 
explicit an unavowed feeling for non-believers: 
that the absence of belief presents challenges 
of its own, yet these challenges can be met with 
the certainty that one has been authentic with 
oneself. The central realizations of atheism may 
be apoint of no return; even if belief returns to 
the soul, there might always remain the perma-
nently awakened spirit of doubt in the mind.

Finding community as an atheist is possible, 

too, for outside of religion there are abundant 
opportunities for engaging with others. To ac-
cept the abstraction of metaphysical solitude 
opens the world to new possibilities of con-
nection. The relationship with God may be 
attractive because of the magnitude of God’s 
love. The everlasting forgiveness and peace 
one hopes to receive in the afterlife are cause 
for worship and celebration here on Earth. But 
I have been content to find these sentiments in 
the relationships I have with people, places and 
sources of solace in literature, poetry and art; 
music, nature, cold lakes and warm sand.

Working throughout the challenges of athe-

ist life has not been straightforward. The ab-
sence of belief, however, leaves space for other 
modes of connection, and I have hardly been 
alone on my path. If not religion itself, the bind-
ing spirit of religare has tied me to certain peo-
ple and passions I feel I cannot live without. As 
an atheist, it is the ironic necessity of fastening 
these bindings that represents the price of free-
dom. Despite its challenges, it is a freedom I 
never want to give up.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
statement

Atheism and disconnection

BY ALEXANDER SATOLA, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

ILLUSTRATION BY KATHERINE LEE

Wednesday, March 3, 2021 — 11