Petra Klug, University of Bremen

Keywords: anti-atheism, relational approaches, discrimination of atheists, United States, blasphemy, apostasy

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In recent years, the study of nonreligion has experienced significant growth. Following the novel works of scholars such as Colin Campbell, Lois Lee, and Johannes Quack, much research in this field has explored how the nonreligious relate to religion. But what about the other way around? How does religion relate to the nonreligious or to atheism? In this article, I will argue that religion has always defined itself through its demarcation from those who believe differently or not at all. Based on my book Anti-Atheist Nation (Routledge, 2023), I show that, in the US-American context, atheists are the ultimate outsiders, suffering from prejudice, discrimination, and scapegoating.  

At least in monotheism, religion relies on drawing a boundary between a righteous in-group and an unrighteous out-group. This demarcation is already established in the sacred texts: Despite its teachings of love and kindness, the Bible contains passages that express animosity towards individuals deemed as God’s adversaries. Psalm 139: 19–24, for example, explicitly incites hatred: “O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.” The New Testament in Ephesians 4:17–19 describes the nonreligious—or Gentiles in Biblical language—as “darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart,” and it depicts them as insensitive, licentious, and “greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” The Quran describes the fate of the nonbelievers, or kuffar in Arabic, as a painful torment. According to Sura 4:56, “those who reject Our revelations” shall be sent to the fire to burn. “When their skins have been burned away, We shall replace them with new ones so that they may continue to feel the pain.”

For the religiously orthodox, the out-group includes everybody who deviates from their narrow dogma. But in religiously pluralistic settings, such as those in most liberal societies, atheists are often considered the ultimate outsiders to the religious in-group.^[i] This is visible already in the language we use. The term atheism, from the Greek ‘a-‘ (without) and ‘theos’ (god), means godlessness. In ancient times, it was also used to describe wickedness. However, what is more intriguing than its negative connotation is that the term itself is formed as a negation: the prefix ‘a-‘ denotes a lack or denial. Thus, the word atheism alone characterizes the phenomenon as a deviation from the norm, simultaneously defining theism as normative. This grammatical structure is mirrored in the terms infidelity, impiety, and irreverence, which are negations of fidelity, piety, and reverence, dis- or unbelief, which negate belief, as well as in irreligion, which indicates a lack or neglect of religion. And this might even be reproduced in the term nonreligion although it was introduced explicitly as a more neutral alternative.

So far there has been little systematic attention to this phenomenon, which is best described as anti-atheism. Anti-atheism is a disdain for people who do not believe in God.^[ii] It targets not only actual atheists, i.e., people who consider themselves godless, but also those accused of godlessness because they adhere to a different religion.^[iii] Thus, anti-atheism is potentially directed against everyone. Furthermore, it can refer to both belief and the non-observance of religious norms in practice. Since religion manifests and reproduces power structures, anti-atheism also intersects with other forms of discrimination, such as racism and patriarchal gender norms.^[iv]

Anti-atheism leads to persecution and discrimination against atheists worldwide. Some Islamic states even treat apostasy and blasphemy as a capital offense. In states that do not enforce such laws, fanatic believers sometimes punish atheists and those perceived to hurt religious feelings. But the persecution of atheism and blasphemy has also been a part of Christian countries, from the killing of other nations as heathens and pagans, the persecution of heretics, dissenters and so on.

Even the United States, which prides itself for its religious freedom, was established as an anti-atheist nation. This has led to the discrimination, exclusion, and demonization of atheists and other groups accused of godlessness, such as Native Americans, religious dissenters, Catholics, Jews, so-called witches, freethinkers, secularists, scientists, abolitionists, women’s rights advocates, communists, homosexuals, hippies, people who seek or provide abortions, humanists and so on. And since Pat Robertson’s book New World Order^[v] and Qanon, there are also specifically anti-atheist conspiracy theories. They depict atheists and secularists as powerful, hidden forces who persecute Christians, eradicate religious influence and want to govern the entire world.

But what, then, prompts this inclination toward fostering such division? Among the over 90 individuals and groups from different religious backgrounds I interviewed in California and the American South, I observed a tendency in which all the good things in the world are attributed to divine influence, while the bad things must originate from nonreligion. This resulted in a strict binary perspective: allegiance is either to divine will or, by default, to malevolence. This sharp division was first critically examined by Ludwig Feuerbach in the 19th century. He noted that believers project all their positive traits onto God, failing to recognize this projection. This externalization inversely casts perceived negative traits onto humans in general and the nonreligious in particular, branding them as morally corrupt, selfish, greedy, hardhearted, dishonest, vindictive, and prone to follow their sexual desires: as already symbolized by the doctrine of original sin.

The dilemma of reconciling a good, omnipotent, and omniscient deity with the presence of evil in the world—the classical problem of theodicy—persists. My interviewees often rationalized evil as part of God’s plan. So, as Karl Marx has already claimed, religion functions as “consolation and justification” of a world that cannot be justified. A common coping mechanism for the perceived withdrawal of divine favor, such as in the face of calamity, is to attribute blame to a scapegoat, a concept dating back to the Hebrew Bible’s idea of a collective covenant with God. In contemporary times, this blame is often cast upon atheists and secularists, accused of removing God from public life and education, thus inviting divine retribution.

This perspective is deeply entrenched in the psychocultural fabric of patriarchal societies, where, as Sigmund Freud observed, the concept of a monotheistic God is modeled on the paternal figure, offering protection and guidance in a world fraught with uncertainties. Atheism, by challenging this divine protectorate, becomes a threat not just to individual belief but to the societal order underpinned by such an authoritarian system.

My interviews also suggested that suppressed wishes and desires of the highly religious are projected onto atheists. Oftentimes, when believers fail to live up to their own restrictive religious norms, this failure is projected onto atheists, who are then portrayed as devoid of any kind of morality and accused of all kinds of atrocities, including murder. This leads to discrimination of atheists and exclusion even within their families. Many atheists therefore choose to remain in the closet.

So the persistence of anti-atheism not only shows the challenges faced by atheists in asserting equal rights, it also highlights the responsibility of religious studies scholars to analyze the ways in which atheism and secularism have been marginalized in academic discourse.

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Dr. Petra Klug is an Assistant Professor at the University of Bremen, Germany, and has served as a Guest Professor for the Critical Theory of Society at Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, Germany. She is the author of “Anti-Atheist Nation: Religion and Secularism in the United States,” published by Routledge in 2023. Her work focuses on religion, nonreligion, gender relations, human rights, climate change, and Critical Theory.

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References

[i] Petra Klug, Anti-Atheist Nation: Religion and Secularism in the United States (New York, London: Routledge, 2023), 9.

[ii] Kenneth Sheppard, Anti-Atheism in Early Modern England 1580–1720: The Atheist Answered and His Error Confuted (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2015), 4.

[iii] Martin E. Marty, The Infidel: Freethought and American Religion (Whitefish: Literary Licensing, 2012 [1961]).

[iv] Petra Klug, Anti-Atheist Nation: Religion and Secularism in the United States (New York, London: Routledge, 2023), 2.

[v] Pat Robertson, (1991). The new world order: It will change the way you live. Dallas: World Publishing.

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