Becoming Atheist: Humanism and the Secular West

Description

The Western World is becoming atheist. In the space of three generations churchgoing and religious belief have become alien to millions. We are in the midst of one of humankind’s great cultural changes. How has this happened? Becoming Atheist explores how people of the sixties’ generation have come to live their lives as if there is no God. It tells the life narratives of those from Britain, Western Europe, the United States and Canada who came from Christian, Jewish and other backgrounds to be without faith. Based on interviews with 85 people born in 18 countries, Callum Brown shows how gender, ethnicity and childhood shape how individuals lose religion. This book moves from statistical and broad cultural analysis to use frank, humorous and sometimes harrowing personal testimony. Becoming Atheist exposes people’s role in renegotiating their own identities, and fashioning a secular and humanist culture for the Western world. Cover Contents List of Tables Preface Acknowledgements 1 Introduction One by one Imagining secularization Of numbers and cultures What is the secular? Researching the little imagined atheist 2 Narratives of Belief and Unbelief Oral history and religion The Christian self The fortified religious self Race and ethnicity The feminist liberation narrative Secularization narratives Conclusion 3 The Atheist Child Religion and child development Religious childhoods Growing up faithless Converting the family Childhood disaffection The child atheist ‘What colour is life?’ The youthful maturation of atheism 4 The Silent and Indifferent Atheist Approaching indifference The silence of non-belief The character of indifference Leaving indifference 5 Women, Feminism and Becoming Faithless Narrating the gendered non-religious self ‘It’s really rotten being a woman sometimes’: Trauma and the family ‘To be a person’: Living feminism and the loss of religion The New Age and ‘absolutely no god thing’ Flying through the air 6 Men, Reason and Radicalism Absences and silences Reason – the male prerogative? Leaving the priesthood Reading Deserting dysfunction Trauma Being an atheist man 7 Atheism and Ethnicity The African American The Jews The Muslim The Hindus The whites It’s not for me to judge humanism 8 The Humanist Condition After religion The hesitant atheist Finding the humanist condition Becoming atheist with a heart The transition generation Notes Sources Index