Yesterday the New York Times put out an article discussing the African-American, Atheist community, a small group in comparison to the staggering numbers of self-proclaimed Christians.
African-Americans are remarkably religious even for a country known for its faithfulness, as the United States is. According to the Pew Forum 2008 United States Religious Landscape Survey, 88 percent of African-Americans believe in God with absolute certainty, compared with 71 percent of the total population, with more than half attending religious services at least once a week.
The article, dubbed The Unbelievers, went on to talk to people about the issues they’ve faced since “coming out” to their families as people who don’t believe in God.
Credit: Ellen Weinstein, NYTimes
As a Christian myself, I found the entire article very interesting and truthful because in many ways, one of the few things that holds African-Americans together is our religion. You can’t look at any mainstream media development that doesn’t have some sort of nod to our religious upbringing. It’s almost impossible to see a big budget movie, with main characters that are black, that doesn’t have a church scene (generally southern Baptist) or at least one discussion about God and how important He is in our lives…unless it’s a movie about how we’re from the hood…but I digress.
I’ve found in my dating life that the closer I get to the unbelieving side of things, the more likely it is that the person I’m dating is white. Generally, I don’t start up conversations with, “So how do you feel about God?” so there really isn’t a way to gauge someone’s religious beliefs until you spend more time with them. I’ve found that there are some egregious stereotypes about atheists that they’re all cold, calculating, evil people who don’t understand love or grace which is absolutely false. I’ve made a few friends that are some of the most loving people (certainly more than some of my Christian friends) that have no desire to have anything to do with God or any other religious deity.
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has
Back to the dating thing though…earlier this year, I met a young black man. He was intelligent, sweet, caring, passionate about what he loved, and driven. Add a great smile and a wonderful personality and you’d think that I’d struck gold. Then we had what I’ve deemed “the talk,” where he told me that he was an Atheist. At first, I thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal…but it was.
As I’ve grown, I’ve found that there are certain things that I want out of a relationship and I am not into the business of dating someone just to date someone. I’d rather keep things on a friendship basis if I don’t see more coming out of it and the more Mr. A and I spoke, the more our differences came out. On top of that, when we would discuss social issues, things would always swing towards religion and how the problem with America is our dedication to being a “godly nation.” Those conversations didn’t end well. I’d be upset and annoyed, desperate for some time to cool off before I’d want to speak to him again.
Personally, I don’t like debating my beliefs, and as I started to make more decisions that would put me, in my mind, closer to where I wanted to be with God, the more offended I would be when it came to talks with him. While he respected what I thought, I got the sense that he didn’t really care too much for the restrictions it would put on him–so we parted ways from a romantic perspective, though we are still friends now. Not to my surprise he forwarded the article to me with a note about how “the struggle is real.”
And he’s right.
With one-half of a percent of African-Americans identifying themselves as Atheists, compared with 1.6 percent of the total population, he is a minority within a minority, as the New York Times put it…and more likely than not, it’ll stay that way for a while. As a group, African-Americans cling to their religion and have done it for so long, it’s hard to imagine it being any other way.
Related articles
- African-American Atheists (nytimes.com)
- Black Atheists Dare to ‘Come Out’ (newser.com)
- 10 Myths Many Religious People Hold About Atheists, Debunked (alternet.org)
a young black woman. 