30 Days: Atheist/Christian review
It’s been awhile since I first made note of a 30 Days episode featuring an atheist living in a Christian household. The atheist in question happens to be a member of the Society for Open Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMA) named Brenda Frei.
I’d wanted to catch the episode when it first aired, but apparently I didn’t get the FX channel. Fortunately, Brenda was able to get several copies of the DVD for us to check out and will be giving a talk on her experiences as well as some of the stuff that wound up on the cutting room floor at our next meeting.
So I grabbed a copy and am finally sitting down to watch it. I’ll add my notes here as I go:
Right off the bat, at their first supper, Brenda points out that both she and her husband used to be Christians. I notice the host family didn’t respond to this. So I get the feeling it just went over their heads and was filtered out. This is pretty common and there’s a widespread belief that the only reason people are atheist is because they’ve never been exposed to Jesus before.
On day three, the host family takes Brenda to their church. And what sort of language do the friendly Christians use? Militaristic of course. “Prayer is for the accomplishment of a wartime mission. We have been enlisted into the Lord’s army.”
As Brenda points out, the mission is clearly to spread their message to the whole world. As she rightly points out, “It’s not a message of acceptance and tolerance.”
Day six is Bible Study time. One of the questions Brenda asks is if they’re “100% sure” they’re going to heaven. Two people chime in quickly with absolute assurance. Only one woman is honest enough to admit that, since no one has gone to heaven and come back, that it’s truly a matter of faith. Or dare I say it, “Just a theory.”?
From there, it’s the good old “You wouldn’t understand since you’re not a Christian” argument. So Brenda informs everyone that she was a Christian for over 20 years and raised that way. Uh oh. Looks like they actually got someone that might know what they’re talking about! Quick! Attack the lack of holy texts! Start psychoanalyzing and asking what happened to make her hate God! The look on these people’s faces says it all. They’re scared and angry. As one lady leaves, she remarks, “I wouldn’t want to be you.”
By the second week, it looks like, at the very least, the wife in the host family is starting to realize that Brenda is more than just an atheist; She’s also a mother.
Cut to a scene of the producer asking random people on the street what they think of atheists:
“I think they need help.”
“In my honest opinion I think that’s very shallow.”
“I have judgments about it. I think it’s narrow minded.”
“Communism. Russians. Progressives. Leftists…”
Looks like they’re just affirming what we already know: America doesn’t like Atheists. In fact, the very next clip they show, it refers to the study done by the University of Minnesota in which it was shown that atheists are the most distrusted minority group in all of America.
Day 9, and Brenda gets to turn the tables and take the Christian family to an atheist meeting. No. It’s not held in a forest and there’s no naked dancing (even Fox FX isn’t that risqué). It looks like the group that they attended made it very clear that atheists are discriminated against. The group has been denied tax-exempt status three times because the “believe in one fewer gods than every other church in Texas.”
The husband of the host family said he was “appalled” given that one of the central tenants of Christianity is “love thy neighbor”, not, “love thy Christian neighbor. And he actually did something I wasn’t expecting: He apologized on behalf of all Christians.
Yet for all the progress, he still couldn’t see why “In God We Trust” was offensive. When questioned how he would have felt should money be emblazoned with “there is no God”, he refused to even consider the possibility, eventually resorting to “If it bothers you, move.”
The next scene covered a bit of the controversy over religious symbols on public land. I’ve already blogged about the Mt. Soledad cross, but the items in question here, were white crosses raised in Utah in honor of policemen killed in the line of duty. A court case was filed nearly 8 years ago, but is still pending trial.
Day 15 rolls around and Brenda gets to hit the airwaves on a local Christian radio show. As usual, the first question is along the lines of “How can you have morals without believing in God?”
The radio host then asks her if she’s a “Naturalist.” Brenda says she believes in natural laws, so she supposes so. And guess what the host family’s husband’s response is: “I guess that backs up to some sort of… you know… evolution.”
When she gets home, he starts asking her that, since they know what she doesn’t believe in, he wants to know what she does believe in. Her response: “Natural laws, and love, hope and peace, and all those terms.” I’m not sure why, but she shakes his head as if horrified. Is he, as a Christian, so short sighted thanks to his faith that he can’t accept love, hope, and peace? Perhaps he did buy into the “God’s Army” bit from earlier in the show.
So what’s the topic of the next bible study? Origins of course! The first person to speak seems to imply that he doesn’t have a problem with the Big Bang, but, since he doesn’t know where that energy came from, so he assumes God did it. As I pointed out in my earlier post on Big Bang misconceptions, I feel this is a perfectly sound theological position to take. If we don’t know, then I certainly can’t say that that isn’t God. However, it’s still a “God of the Gaps” argument.
But not to let an open-minded Christian actually make them look good, the host husband starts using the creationist talking points with made up words like micro vs. macro evolution. Oh, and did you hear those silly evolutionists think man came from a monkey?
On day 22, Brenda’s family gets to come over for a bit. To celebrate, the host takes them to a “Third Day” concert; a Christian rock group. Perhaps if I ever get a Christian to come stay with me, I should take them to a Slayer concert…
The next day, it’s off to church with the family. Afterwards, a chat with the adults. Brenda’s husband describes the experience of finally ending the emotional struggle of pretending to believe something that you just don’t as freeing. The host wife accepts this and realizes that it’s the same experience she feels with God. But when she says that she can’t denounce their atheists beliefs, man, there’s another priceless look on the face of her husband.
Cut away to the husband, yet again, trying to imply that, without God, there’s no way Brenda can teach her children any sort of morals. This guy’s about as thick as a lead brick.
By the last Bible study, the host wife sticks up for Brenda pointing out that she does feel it’s possible to live a moral life apart from God.
On the last day, the host husband is all smiles. Is he perhaps happy to see her go? Can’t say for sure, but I really liked Brenda’s parting gift of an azalea bush that they planted together. I hope it bloomed for them as well.
The next SOMA meeting is on Thursday, October 19, so if you’re around, stop by and hear Brenda’s personal narrative. If you miss it, I’ll be posting my summary.
I’d wanted to catch the episode when it first aired, but apparently I didn’t get the FX channel. Fortunately, Brenda was able to get several copies of the DVD for us to check out and will be giving a talk on her experiences as well as some of the stuff that wound up on the cutting room floor at our next meeting.
So I grabbed a copy and am finally sitting down to watch it. I’ll add my notes here as I go:
Right off the bat, at their first supper, Brenda points out that both she and her husband used to be Christians. I notice the host family didn’t respond to this. So I get the feeling it just went over their heads and was filtered out. This is pretty common and there’s a widespread belief that the only reason people are atheist is because they’ve never been exposed to Jesus before.
On day three, the host family takes Brenda to their church. And what sort of language do the friendly Christians use? Militaristic of course. “Prayer is for the accomplishment of a wartime mission. We have been enlisted into the Lord’s army.”
As Brenda points out, the mission is clearly to spread their message to the whole world. As she rightly points out, “It’s not a message of acceptance and tolerance.”
Day six is Bible Study time. One of the questions Brenda asks is if they’re “100% sure” they’re going to heaven. Two people chime in quickly with absolute assurance. Only one woman is honest enough to admit that, since no one has gone to heaven and come back, that it’s truly a matter of faith. Or dare I say it, “Just a theory.”?
From there, it’s the good old “You wouldn’t understand since you’re not a Christian” argument. So Brenda informs everyone that she was a Christian for over 20 years and raised that way. Uh oh. Looks like they actually got someone that might know what they’re talking about! Quick! Attack the lack of holy texts! Start psychoanalyzing and asking what happened to make her hate God! The look on these people’s faces says it all. They’re scared and angry. As one lady leaves, she remarks, “I wouldn’t want to be you.”
By the second week, it looks like, at the very least, the wife in the host family is starting to realize that Brenda is more than just an atheist; She’s also a mother.
Cut to a scene of the producer asking random people on the street what they think of atheists:
“I think they need help.”
“In my honest opinion I think that’s very shallow.”
“I have judgments about it. I think it’s narrow minded.”
“Communism. Russians. Progressives. Leftists…”
Looks like they’re just affirming what we already know: America doesn’t like Atheists. In fact, the very next clip they show, it refers to the study done by the University of Minnesota in which it was shown that atheists are the most distrusted minority group in all of America.
Day 9, and Brenda gets to turn the tables and take the Christian family to an atheist meeting. No. It’s not held in a forest and there’s no naked dancing (even Fox FX isn’t that risqué). It looks like the group that they attended made it very clear that atheists are discriminated against. The group has been denied tax-exempt status three times because the “believe in one fewer gods than every other church in Texas.”
The husband of the host family said he was “appalled” given that one of the central tenants of Christianity is “love thy neighbor”, not, “love thy Christian neighbor. And he actually did something I wasn’t expecting: He apologized on behalf of all Christians.
Yet for all the progress, he still couldn’t see why “In God We Trust” was offensive. When questioned how he would have felt should money be emblazoned with “there is no God”, he refused to even consider the possibility, eventually resorting to “If it bothers you, move.”
The next scene covered a bit of the controversy over religious symbols on public land. I’ve already blogged about the Mt. Soledad cross, but the items in question here, were white crosses raised in Utah in honor of policemen killed in the line of duty. A court case was filed nearly 8 years ago, but is still pending trial.
Day 15 rolls around and Brenda gets to hit the airwaves on a local Christian radio show. As usual, the first question is along the lines of “How can you have morals without believing in God?”
The radio host then asks her if she’s a “Naturalist.” Brenda says she believes in natural laws, so she supposes so. And guess what the host family’s husband’s response is: “I guess that backs up to some sort of… you know… evolution.”
When she gets home, he starts asking her that, since they know what she doesn’t believe in, he wants to know what she does believe in. Her response: “Natural laws, and love, hope and peace, and all those terms.” I’m not sure why, but she shakes his head as if horrified. Is he, as a Christian, so short sighted thanks to his faith that he can’t accept love, hope, and peace? Perhaps he did buy into the “God’s Army” bit from earlier in the show.
So what’s the topic of the next bible study? Origins of course! The first person to speak seems to imply that he doesn’t have a problem with the Big Bang, but, since he doesn’t know where that energy came from, so he assumes God did it. As I pointed out in my earlier post on Big Bang misconceptions, I feel this is a perfectly sound theological position to take. If we don’t know, then I certainly can’t say that that isn’t God. However, it’s still a “God of the Gaps” argument.
But not to let an open-minded Christian actually make them look good, the host husband starts using the creationist talking points with made up words like micro vs. macro evolution. Oh, and did you hear those silly evolutionists think man came from a monkey?
On day 22, Brenda’s family gets to come over for a bit. To celebrate, the host takes them to a “Third Day” concert; a Christian rock group. Perhaps if I ever get a Christian to come stay with me, I should take them to a Slayer concert…
The next day, it’s off to church with the family. Afterwards, a chat with the adults. Brenda’s husband describes the experience of finally ending the emotional struggle of pretending to believe something that you just don’t as freeing. The host wife accepts this and realizes that it’s the same experience she feels with God. But when she says that she can’t denounce their atheists beliefs, man, there’s another priceless look on the face of her husband.
Cut away to the husband, yet again, trying to imply that, without God, there’s no way Brenda can teach her children any sort of morals. This guy’s about as thick as a lead brick.
By the last Bible study, the host wife sticks up for Brenda pointing out that she does feel it’s possible to live a moral life apart from God.
On the last day, the host husband is all smiles. Is he perhaps happy to see her go? Can’t say for sure, but I really liked Brenda’s parting gift of an azalea bush that they planted together. I hope it bloomed for them as well.
The next SOMA meeting is on Thursday, October 19, so if you’re around, stop by and hear Brenda’s personal narrative. If you miss it, I’ll be posting my summary.
Labels: atheism, Brenda Frei, TV
posted by Jon Voisey at 8:22 PM
14 Comments:
That was interesting. I wonder if it available to view on youtube?
yeah, it is, I found part of it here: -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jjuY-r4WbA
FX picked pretty much the worst Christians to have a intellectual conversation with. Being a Christian myself, I would not have acted so hard-headed as the man. I recall them being Presbyterians? - someting like that. They worshiped in a mammoth church, that cost millions of dollars with a loud preacher, this is a new and not my idea of the ideal way to worship God. If they put this Lady, the atheist, with someone of her own intellect, the show would have been much better done.
Interesting stuff, and prompted me to sign up here so I can reply (which is un-characteristic of me…). Let me put something out there to think about...doesn't the term "open-minded Atheist" sound like an oxy-moron to anyone else? The obvious parallels are "open-minded Christian" or "open-minded Muslim", or even perhaps "open-minded Republican" and "open-minded Democrat". Since when have such tunnel-vision-based ideologies been associated with open-mindedness?
The idea here being that for anyone to cling to an ideology so blindly and absolutely such as Atheists, Christians, Muslims and politicians, is not only not open-minded, but entirely hypocritical as well. The irony is that both sides of the God/no-God argument often use the same arguments to "prove" their point. The Atheist may say there is no God because there is no empirical evidence to suggest the existence of such an entity, while at the same time the Christian may point to trees, animals and human life and say God must exist, otherwise where did all of this stuff come from?
Then there is all of the "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude. We get bombarded 24/7 with this mindless drivel from all sides of the socio-political-religious spectrum by people who have no other purpose but to dump on those who don't believe the same things they do. Doesn't it get old to anyone? Is there no one out there that can actually project any real objectivity?
Most mainstream religions are based on the same principle tenets...don't kill, don't steal, live by the golden rule, etc. Is it possible for a non-Christian to live by these rules? Of course it is. Does every Christian live by these rules? Hardly. The same can be said for every religion or political ideology, by virtue of free will (whether we got that by divine command or not...).
A woman, who is considered one of the nations top physicists, recently gave an interview to Discover Magazine in which she was asked if she believed in God. To paraphrase, her answer was probably not. Then she said something that has struck me as quite profound, "If you do something for a religious reason, you'll do it because you will be rewarded in the afterlife or in this world. That's not quite as good as something you do for purely generous reasons." Discover Magazine, July 2006, page 53. Her statement rings true for the religious and the non-religious, as well as the rest of mankind.
Finally, to the point, of course an Atheist can live a moral life, but that doesn't make their spiritual choices right or wrong, except to themselves. It is impossible to impose our beliefs on everyone else without being hypocrites, we can merely make the information we have available and let them decide for themselves. Either way, logically and realistically, we won't know who is really right until we see for ourselves the meaning of the universe, and I don't mean merely through faith, as powerful as faith can be...
Man, the christians I've met are so narrow-minded and (excuse my French) assholes. I mean, seriously they just make me want to throw up all of my insides by the bigotry from them. I can't even speak my mind without them wanting to put down or "kill". They are savages. I'm happy being a free-thinker. What sickens me DEEPLY about Christians/Catholics is whenever something bad happens to an Atheist, they blame it on their "faith". What about the people in the 9/11 attacks? Were most not Christians? I detest keeping my thoughts bottled-up inside. No matter what anybody says, we are STILL living in the Dark Ages. Poor Galileo and Sir Bacon.
thinkaboutit: In no way do I consider "open minded" and "atheist" to be mutually exclusive. I don't know any atheist (and I know a lot), that would actively deny empirical evidence for a supernatural diety. We're open minded to the extent that we're awaiting evidence, but not so much that our minds get soggy when it rains.
There is another reason people don't like atheists.
Many of them are arrogant jerks.
I lived in a house at KU for a while where the consensus was definitely "secular", although atheist would be more like it.
The first day, fine.
Then, when they say I was interested in the religious studies program, wariness.
Then, when I admitted I was an actual believer...do you expect me to deny it to get along?...I was decidedly treated worse and worse until I was basically garbage.
Worse, I actually got scared and had to leave.
So this goes both ways.
You are being disingenous if you feign suprise at this.
I wouldn't pretend to be surprised for a second at that. There are ass holes in every walk of life and religion. The fact that you somehow take a single example and use it to paint a broad stroke is what I find disingenous though.
My roomate is a conservative Christian. I'm a vocal atheist. We're both well aware of eachothers positions and refrain from discussing the subject.
I am a Christian and an amateur astronomer. I don't see any conflicts with the 2. I also have a observing friend who is not a Christian, but we love to look through telescopes. We've become good friends. I really respect him greatly. It's up to him what he wants to do with his life and beliefs. If he wants to know more about my beliefs, that's cool.
Here's the deal. I'm not an angry astronomer and I'm not a angry Christian. It would be great for atheists to lighten up and to not be angry toward those who have a different world view.
Think about this. If someone is truly "open-minded" they will not be angry if I have a different point of view. They will be alright with all points of view. With that said, I can understand frustrations one may have with fundamentalists who need to relax and love others.
Finally, I have to conclude that an a atheist with passionate anger about religion means they are not having a scientific problem, but a philosophical problem. It's scary they are so passionate about something they don't believe that exists. For example, if someone believes in unicorns, that's their business...I'll leave them to their beliefs.
I guess what I'm saying is relax, look at the stars, sip some coffee, and love others. Peace.
I also forgot to say that I'm applying to grad school in physics and astronomy. I also have a Masters of Divinity. As a Christian, I just don't see any problems with having different points of view. I'm different in the fact that I happen to believe in an author behind the physics.
One last suggestion: reading through your blog on some of your experiences...sounds like you've gotten caught up with some fruit cakes. Don't let that make a bad impression on all Christians. Again please be OPEN-MINDED.
clear skies,
Mds
Mds: I suggest you read the first post in this blog in which I highlight the reason the blog is titled "Angry Astronomer". It has nothing to do with a dislike for religion. Rather, it primarily stems from an abuse of science peddled primarily by the religious.
If someone wants to believe in unicorns, I'll leave them to their beliefs too, only in so far as they keep it to themselves and stop trying to undermine how science works and force their beliefs into science classrooms, or try to ignore our constitution and have our government endorse it.
Ugh...That was tough to read. Not only the terrible closed-minded nature of the host family, the husband in particular, But also the stereotypical tone of this blog. You assume because this ignorant family doesn't like atheists that all christians don't like atheists. I see you made an "attempt" to differentiate between open and closed minded christians but i could also sense the obvious resentment of christians as a whole. I have nothing against Atheists, I do believe that many people take religion too literally. There has to be a middle path (lol) where there can be a dialogue. The closed-minded christians offend you, so you figure you have to attack their beliefs. You are acting just like a closed-minded christian. If something hasn't been definitively proven by science and someone attributes it to God, you belittle they're idea and say it's wrong. I hope the host family can become more open-minded, along with you. and i don't think being denied tax exemptions counts as discrimination considering it applies to churches and other organizations that atheists as a whole do not fit in. There can not be a church of Atheism considering the word church means:a body or organization of religious believers and Atheism is not a religion but a philosophy. That is how you present an unbiased idea, you present both sides of an argument and then take a side, but maybe that was not your purpose.
according the format of the show it should have been a christian living in a atheist household. i suppose fox is pro christian ideology so they chose an atheist, no offence to her, that wasnt the best speaker/debater.
also why did the guy who said that creationism isnt even in the same ballpark as evolution only get a few seconds airtime? they shouldve let him speak his mind.
with regard to the anger floating around: i am 'distraught' at the thought of what the adverse effects of christianity has had and may have on a global unified warfree, peaceful soceity in the future. IT IS NOT THE RELIGION TO BE CARRIED FORWARD. a simple a set of morals and values will do, no strings attached.
as for the rest of the arguments, we can talk about it until the cows come home: do you know what cows im talking about?
i try to understand but I still don't, I want to understand to try ti help someone but I just don't get it can someone please help me
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