A Church/Temple for Atheists - Now that's a godless congregation and a great idea

Atheist Sunday Assembly branches out in first wave of expansion

London's godless congregation to launch satellite assemblies in other UK cities and as far afield as New York and Sydney

• Esther Addley
• The Guardian, Saturday 14 September 2013

Sanderson Jones (holding mic) and Pippa Evans (with guitar) with congregants at the Sunday Assembly in Islington, north London. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

It started, as a number of the world's great religions have done, with a small group of friends and a persuasive idea: why should atheists miss out on all the good things churches have to offer? What would happen if they set up a "godless congregation" that met to celebrate life, with no hope of the hereafter?

Eight months after their first meeting in a deconsecrated church in north London, the founders of the Sunday Assembly have their answer: on Sunday they will announce the formation of satellite congregations in more than 20 cities across Britain and the world, the first wave of an expansion that they believe could see 40 atheist churches springing up by the year and as many as 1,000 worldwide within a decade.

From Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol and Dublin, to New York, San Diego and Vancouver, toPerth, Melbourne and Sydney, groups of non-believers will be getting together to form their own monthly Sunday Assemblies, with the movement's founders – the standup comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans – visiting the fledgling congregations in what they are calling, only partly in jest, a "global missionary tour".

Though he always suspected he was not the only one to regret that his lack of faith excluded him from a church-style community, Jones admits to being a little bewildered by the speed and scale at which his idea has caught on. "When I had the idea for this, I always thought if it was something I would like to go to in London then it was something other people would like to go to in other places.

"The one thing that we didn't take into account was the power of the internet, and I think even more than that, the fact that there is obviously a latent need for this kind of thing. People have always congregated around things that they believe in. I think people are going to look back at the fact that it didn't happen as the oddity, not this part."

Satellite assemblies will agree to the central charter of Jones and Evans's original gathering – which still meets monthly in central London – and Jones expects them, initially at least, to stick to a similar format, in which a "host" leads several hundred congregants through songs, moments of contemplation and a sermon-like (but secular) talk.

"If we do it in London and there are 400 people who come, that's brilliant, but if we find a way to help hundreds of people to set one up then we can have a bigger impact than we could ever dream of," says Jones. Their vision, he says, is "a godless gathering in every town, city or village that wants one".

Stuart Balkham is one of a small group of Brighton unbelievers who next weekend will hold their inaugural assembly – the theme is beginnings – in a disused church in Hove.

He and his partner went to the London gathering where, he says, "there was just something that clicked". Part of the appeal was the style of non-worship: "It's unashamedly copying a familiar Church of England format, so it's part of the collective consciousness."

Balkham says he has envied churches the sense of community they can offer, and thinks atheists can learn from the social good that many churches do. "It's naive to deny that there's a lot of good that comes out of organised religion, and I think helping in the community is another thing that Sunday Assemblies should be aspiring to unashamedly copy."

Nick Spencer, research director of Theos, a thinktank looking at religion's role in society, says the growth of the movement may appear striking but it is not necessarily new. "This contemporary idea of people who are not religious but wanting to maintain some kind of church-like existence has got form. We've been here before."

Spencer, who will publish a book next year on the history of atheism, sees echoes of the late 19th century, when hundreds of "ethical unions" were founded in response to the growing atheism of the times. The movement, he says, similarly concentrated on good works and community around a recognisably church-like liturgy, but petered out within a generation or two.

"The reason for that was because you need more than an absence to keep you together. You need a firm common purpose. What you can see in these modern-day atheist churches is people united by a felt absence of community. I suspect what brings them together is a real desire for community when in a modern, urbanised individualised city like London you can often feel very alone. That creates a lot of camaraderie, but the challenge then becomes, what actually unites us?"

Jones says he is alive to criticism that the assemblies appeal to a limited demographic – young, professional and overwhelmingly white – but says: "I don't there's anything that's inherently elite about people getting together to sing songs and think about themselves and improve their community. But we can't wait to see people doing it in all manner of different places in all manner of different ways, that appeal to all manner of different people."

In the meantime, a few members of the London congregation have already started thinking about setting up a free school guided by Sunday Assembly principles, raising the prospect, as Jones notes, "of Christians one day lying about being atheists to get their children into school".

The Sunday Assembly missionary tour

October Tuesday 22nd, Edinburgh; Wednesday 23rd, Glasgow; Thursday 24th, Brighton; Friday 25th, Bristol; Saturday 26th, Oxford; Sunday 27th, Cambridge; Monday 28th, Milton Keynes; Tuesday 29th, Leeds; Wednesday 30th, Manchester.

November Friday 1st, Dublin; Monday 4th, New York; Tuesday 5th, Harvard; Wednesday 6th, Washington DC; Friday 8th, Chicago; Saturday 9th, San Diego; Sunday 10th, Los Angeles; Monday 11th, Silicon Valley; Wednesday 13th, Vancouver; Sunday 17th, Perth; Wednesday 20th, Adelaide; Thursday 21st, Melbourne; Friday 22nd,Brisbane; Sunday 24th, Sydney; Saturday 30th, Crystal Palace.

To be right on intellectual matters is of limited importance and interest to the outside world.

I'm an atheist but … I won't try to deconvert anyone

New atheism won't tolerate the freedom to believe in God. But life's far more interesting if we admit we might be wrong, right?

Philosopher and 'new atheist' Daniel Dennett speaking at the Hay Festival. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

Last week I interviewed the philosopher Daniel Dennett about new atheism, (the interview will be up on this site soon). I haven't got the tape myself, so I can't swear to the verbatim accuracy of the quotes I remember, but at one stage I said something to the effect that new atheism seems to me to reproduce all the habits that made religion obnoxious, like heresy hunting. He asked what I meant, and I gave the example of "atheists but", a species of which he is particularly disdainful. They are the people who will say to him and his fellow zealots "I am an atheist, but I don't go along with your campaign." I'm one of them.

He accused me of a kind of intellectual snobbery – of believing that I am clever and brave and strong enough to understand that there is no God, but that this is a discovery too shattering for the common people who should be left in the comfort of their ignorance.

This was indeed the classic position of the anti-religious philosophers of the enlightenment. It is what Voltaire believed, and Gibbon, and Hume. So it's not as if you have to be an idiot to think that atheism is medicine too strong for most people. And when you see the relish with which some atheists dismiss their opponents as "morons" you might even suppose that even some atheists are attracted by the idea that they are of necessity cleverer than believers.

But that's not in fact my position at all. The reason that I don't go around trying to deconvert all my Christian friends is that they know the arguments against a belief in God so very much better than I do. I can entertain the possibility that Christianity is true. They have to take it seriously. I don't believe I ought to love my neighbour, however much patience and humility this takes. I know that prayers go unanswered: they know their own prayers do.

I am not the person who has to bury the tramps, to comfort the parents whose children have died, or to read the Bible in the hope that it will yield meaning. I don't even have to believe that the Holy Spirit works through the college of cardinals or General Synod, so that their deliberations are in some way connected with the redemption of the world.

Only the last of those duties is a mark of moral or intellectual weakness. In fact, since I like my friends to be admirable, which often means cleverer and nicer than I am, my Christian friends don't seem to me stupid or cowardly. I know lots of Christians who are both, of course. But that's true of atheists and Muslims as well.

There is a general point here about the inadequacy of all theological opinions. The "but" in "atheists but" is a mark of humility, to be worn with pride. To be right on intellectual matters is of limited importance and interest to the outside world. Assuming – rashly – that you are an intellectual, it is very much easier to be right about ideas than to work out their implications and act on them in real life. But that's the bit that matters more, if only because failure to act on your own beliefs involves lying to yourself, and this will over time corrupt the capacity for thought.

The "but" is a way of saying that the times when we are right are mostly less interesting than the times when we are wrong. They certainly demand our attention less. It's a way of saying that we might be wrong, and actually meaning it. It's a demand to try to listen to what the other person means, rather than dismiss what they say just because it makes no sense.

It is, in short, a rejection of all the values of online argument so it really can't be wrong. Discuss.

Religion for Atheists

Just because you're an atheist doesn't make you rational

Once you make it your primary aim to refute the existence of God, you miss what's really fundamental

Mark Steel

Thursday, 29 December 2011

Having followed the latest debate about religion, I'd say the conclusion is obvious that the only thing as disturbing as the religious is the modern atheist. I'd noticed this before, after I was slightly critical of Richard Dawkins and received piles of fuming replies, that made me think that what his followers would like is to scientifically create an eternity in laboratory conditions so that they could burn me there for all of it.

It's not the rationality that's alarming, it's the smugness. Instead of trying to understand religion, if the modern atheist met a peasant in a village in Namibia, he'd shriek: "Of course, GOD didn't create light, it's a mixture of waves and particles you idiot, it's OBVIOUS."

The connection between the religious and the modern atheist was illustrated after the death of Christopher Hitchens, when it was reported that "tributes were led by Tony Blair". I know you can't dictate who leads your tributes, and it's probable that when Blair's press office suggested that he made one to someone who'd passed on, he said: "Oh, which dictator I used to go on holiday with has died NOW?"

But the commendation was partly Hitchens's fault. Because the difference between the modern atheist and the Enlightenment thinkers who fought the church in the 18th century is that back then they didn't make opposition to religion itself their driving ideology. They opposed the lack of democracy justified by the idea that a king was God's envoy on earth, and they wished for a rational understanding of the solar system, rather than one based on an order ordained by God that matched the view that everyone in society was born into a fixed status.

But once you make it your primary aim to refute the existence of God, you can miss what's really fundamental. For example, the ex-canon of St Paul's, presumably a believer unless he managed to fudge the issue in the interview, was on the radio this week expressing why he resigned in support of the protesters outside his old cathedral. He spoke with inspiring compassion, but was interrupted by an atheist who declared the Christian project is doomed because we're scientifically programmed to look after ourselves at the expense of anyone else. So the only humane rational scientific thought to have was "GO Christian, GO, Big up for the Jesus posse."

Similarly, Hitchens appears to have become obsessed with defying religion, so made himself one of the most enthusiastic supporters for a war he saw as being against the craziness of Islam. But the war wasn't about God or Allah, it was about more earthly matters, which the people conducting that war understood. And, as that war became predictably disastrous, they were grateful for whatever support they could find. And so a man dedicated to disproving GOD was praised in his death by the soppiest, sickliest, most, irrational, hypocritical Christian of them all.

So the only thing I know for certain is that I would become a Christian, if I could just get round the fact that there is no GOD.

Modern Indian Spirituality

I am quite sure ladies and gentlemen, that in this august assembly nobody would envy my position at this moment. Speaking after such a charismatic and formidable personality like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is like coming out of the pavilion to play after Tendulkar has made a sparkling century. But in some weak moment I had committed myself.

There are certain things that I would like to make very clear at the very outset. Dont get carried away by my name Javed Akhtar. I am not revealing a secret, I am saying something that I have said many times, in writing or on TV, in publicI am an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And obviously I dont believe in spirituality of some kind. Some kind!

Another thing. I am not standing here to criticize, analyze, or attack this gentleman who is sitting here. We have a very pleasant, civilized relation. I have always found him to be an extremely courteous person.

One is talking about an idea, an attitude, a mindset. Not any individual. I must tell you that when Rajeev opened this session, for a moment I felt that I have come to the wrong place. Because, if we are discussing the philosophy of Krishan and Gautam and Kabir, Vivekanand, then I have nothing to say. I can sit down right now. I am not here to discuss a glorious past of which I suppose every Indian is proud, and rightly so. I am here to
discuss a dubious present.

India Today has invited me and I have come here to talk of spirituality today. Lets not be confused by this word spirituality, you can find two people with the same name and they can be totally different people. Ram Charit Manas was written by Tulsidas. And the television film has been made by Ramanand Sagar. Ramayan is common but I dont think it would be very wise to club Tulsidas with Ramanand Sagar. I remember, when he had written Ramcharit Manas, he had faced a kind of a social boycott. How could he write a holy book in such a language like Avadhi? Sometimes I wonder fundamentalists of all hues and all colors, religions and communitie show how similar they are. In 1798, a gentleman called Shah Abdul Qadir, in this very city, for the first time translated Quran in Urdu, and all the ulemas of that time gave fatwa against him that how could he translate this holy book in such a heathen language.

When Tulsi wrote Ramcharit Manas and he was boycotted, I remember a chowpai that he had written.

*Dhut kaho abdhut kaho rajput kaho ki julawa kohu*
*Kohu ki beti se beta na biahab, kohu ki jaat bigaar na chahu*
*Mang ke khaibo, mehjid ma raihbo, lebe ka ek na debe ka dohu*

Ramanand Sagar, when he made his television serial, he made millions. I am not undermining him, but obviously he is much lower in the rung. I will give you another example. Perhaps it would be more direct and more appropriate. Gautam came out of a palace and went into wilderness to find the truth. But nowadays we see, the modern age gurus, come out of the wilderness and wind up in the palaces. They are moving in the opposite direction. We cant talk of them in the same breath. So let us not hide behind names which are dear and respectable for every Indian.

When I was invited to give this talk, I felt that yes, I am an atheist, try to be a rationalist in any given situation, Maybe thats why I have been called. But suddenly I have realized that there is another quality that I share with Modern Age gurus. I work in films. We have lot in common. Both of us, sell dreams, both of us create illusions, both of us create icons, but with a difference. After three hours we put a placard 'the end'. Go back to reality. They dont.

So ladies and gentlemen, let me make it very clear that I have come to talk of this spirituality that has a supermarket in the world. Arms, drugs and spirituality these are the three big businesses in the world. But in arms and drugs you really have to do something, give something. Thats the difference. Here you dont have to give anything.

In this supermarket you get instant Nirvana, Moksha by mail, a crash course in self realization, cosmic consciousness in four easy lessons. This supermarket has its chain all over the world, where the restless elite buy spiritual fast food. I am talking about this spirituality.

Plato in his dialogues has said many a wise thing, and one of them is before starting any discussion decide on the meanings of words. Let us tryto decide on the meaning of this word spirituality. Does it mean love for mankind that transcends all religion, caste, creed, race? Is that so? Then I have no problem. Except that I call it humanity. Does it mean love of plants, trees, mountains, oceans, rivers, animals? The non-human world? If that is so, again I have no problem at all. Except that I call it environmental consciousness. Does spirituality mean heartfelt regard for social institutions like marriage, parenthood, fine arts, judiciary, freedom of expression. I have no problem again sir, how can I disagree here? I call it civil responsibility. Does spirituality mean going into your own world trying to understand the meaning of your own life? Who can object on that? I call it self-introspection, self assessment. Does spirituality mean Yoga? Thanks to Patanjali, who has given us the details of Yoga, *Yam, Yatam, aasan, pranayam*We may do it under any name, but if we are doing pranayam, wonderful. I call it health-care. Physical fitness.

Now is it a matter of only semantics. If all this is spirituality, then what is the discussion. All these words that I have used are extremely respectable and totally acceptable words. There is nothing abstract or intangible about them. So why stick to this word spirituality? What is there in spirituality that has not been covered by all these words? Is there something? If that is so then what is that?

Somebody in return can ask me what is my problem with this word. I am asking to change it, leave it, drop it, make it obsolete but why so? I will tell you what is my reservation. If spirituality means all this then there is no discussion. But there is something else which makes me uneasy. In a dictionary, the meaning of spirituality is rooted in a word called spirit. When mankind didnt know whether this earth is round or flat, he had decided that human beings are actually the combination of two things. Body and spirit. Body is temporary, it dies. But the spirit is, shall I say, non-biodegradable. In your body you have a liver and heart and intestines and the brain, but since the brain is a part of the body, and mind lies within the brain, it is inferior because ultimately the brain too shall die with the body, but dont worry, you are not going to die, because you are your spirit, and the spirit has the supreme consciousness that will remain, and whatever problem you have is because you listen to your mind. Stop listening to your mind. Listen to your spirit - the supreme consciousness that knows the cosmic truth. All right. Its not surprising that in Pune there is an ashram and I used to go there. I loved the oratory. On the gate of the lecture hall there was a placard. Leave your shoes and minds here. There are other gurus who dont mind if you carry your shoes. But minds? Sorry!

Now, if you leave your mind what do you do? You need the Guru to find the next station of consciousness. That hides somewhere in the spirit. He has reached the supreme consciousness, he knows the supreme truth. But can he tell you. No sir, he cannot tell you. So can you find out on your own? No sir, you need the guru for that. You need him but he cannot guarantee that you will know the ultimate truth and what is that ultimate truth? What is the cosmic truth? Relating to cosmos? I have really not been able to understand that. The moment we step out of the solar system the first star is Alpha Centuari. It is just four light years away. How do I relate to that!! What do I do!!

So the emperor is wearing robes that only the wise can see. And the emperor is becoming bigger and bigger. And there are more and more wise people who are appreciating the robe.

I used to think that actually spirituality is the second line of defence for the religious people. When they get embarrassed about traditional religion, when it starts looking too down-market, they hide behind this smokescreen of cosmos and super consciousness. But that is not the complete truth. Because the clientele of traditional religion and spirituality is different. You take the map of the world, you start marking places which are extremely religious, within India or outside India, Asia, Latin America, Europe wherever. You will find that wherever there is lot of religion there is lack of human rights. There is repression. Anywhere. Our Marxist friends used to say that religion is the opium of poor masses, the sigh of the oppressed. I dont want to get into that discussion. But spirituality nowadays is definitely the tranquilizer of the rich.


You see that the clientele is well heeled, it is the affluent class. Alright, so the guru gets power, high self esteem, status, wealth (which is not that important), power and lot of wealth too. What does the disciple get? When I looked at them carefully I realized that there are categories and categories of these disciples. Its not a monolith. There are different kinds of followers. Different kinds of disciples. One, who is rich, successful, doing extremely well in his life, making money, gaining property. Now, since he has everything he wants absolution too. So guru tells him - whatever you are doing, is *niskaam karma *you are playing a role, this is all *Maya*, the money that you are making everyday and the property that you are acquiring, you are not emotionally involved with it. You are just playing a role. You come to me because you are in search of eternal truth. Maybe your hands are dirty, but your spirit and soul are pure. And this man, he starts feeling wonderful about himself. For seven days he is exploiting the world, and at the end of the seven days when he goes and sits at the feet of the guru, he feels I am a sensitive person




There is another category. That too comes from the affluent class. But he is not the winner like the first one. You know winning or losing that is also relative. A rickshaw-wallah if he is gambling on the pavement and wins hundred rupees will feel victorious, and if a corporate man makes only 300 million dollars, while his brother is a billionaire, he will feel like a failure. Now, what does this rich failure do? He needs a guru to tell him
who says that you have failed? You have other worlds, you have another vision, you have other sensibility that your brother doesnt have. He thinks that he is successful, wrong. The world is very cruel, you know. The world tells you honestly, no sir, you have got three out of ten. The other person has seven out of ten. Fair. They will treat you that way and they will meet you that way. There he gets compassion. There he plays another game.

Another category. And I will talk about this category not with contempt or with any sense of superiority, not any bitterness, but all the compassion available one that is a very big client of this modern day guru and todays spirituality, is the unhappy rich wife. Here is a person who put all her individuality, aspirations and dreams, and her being at the altar of marriage and in return she got an indifferent husband. Who at the most gave her a couple of children. Who is rather busy with his work, or busy with other women. This woman needs a shoulder. She knows that she is an existential failure. There is nothing to look forward to. She has a vacuous, empty, comfortable yet purposeless life. Its sad, but it is true.

Then there are other people. Who are suddenly traumatized. They lose a child. The wife dies. The husband dies. Or they lose the property, they lose their business. Something happens that shocks them and they ask why me? So who do they ask? They go to the Guru. And the guru tells him that this is Karma. But there is another world if you follow me. Where there is no pain. Where there is no death. Where there is immortality. Where there is only bliss. He tells all these unhappy souls follow me and I will take you to heaven, to paradise, where there is no pain. I am sorry sir, it is disappointing but true that there is no such paradise. Life will always have a certain quota of pain, of hurts, a possibility of defeats. But they do get some satisfaction.


Somebody may ask me if they are feeling better, if they are getting peace then what is your problem. It reminds me of a story that I have read. Its an old Indian story told by a sage, that a hungry dog finds a dry bone and tries to eat it and in the process bites its own tongue. And the tongue is bleeding and the dog feels that he is getting nourishment from the bone. I feel sad. I dont want them, these adults, to behave like this because I respect them. Drugs and alcohol are also supposed to give mental peace and serenity, but is that kind of piece or serenity desirable or advisable?


The answer is no. Any mental peace that is not anchored in rational thoughts is nothing but self-deception. Any serenity that takes you away from truth is just an illusion a mirage. I know that there is a kind of a security in this which is like the security of a tri-cycle. If you are riding a tri-cycle you cant fall. But adults do not ride tricycles. They ride bi-cycles. They can even fall. It is a part of life.

There is one more kind. Like everybody who is the member of the golf club is not fond of golf. In the same way everybody who is seen in an ashram is not a spiritual person. A film producer who is an ardent follower of a guru, whose ashram is about two hours from Delhi once told me that you must go to my Guru. You will see the whos who of Delhi there. Let me tell you my Guruji is another Chandraswami in the making. Now this is a contact point
for networking. I have great respect for people who are spiritual, or religious, and in spite of this they are good people. And I have a reason. I believe that like every emotion or feeling, you have a limitation.
 
You can see up to a point. And you cant see further. You can hear up to a point, but beyond that you wont be able to register sounds. You can mourn up to a point and then you will get over your mourning. You will feel happy up-to a point and then you will be through with your happiness. Same way, I am sure that you have a certain capacity for nobility also. You can be as noble and no more. Now suppose if we count this capacity for nobility in the average man as ten units, now anybody who goes to pray in a mosque five times is consuming his five units, there anybody who goes to the temple or sits in the feet of the Guru, he is consuming his quota of nobility there. And in a totally non-productive manner. I dont go to pray. I dont pray. If I dont go to any guru, or mosque or temple or church, what do I do with my quota of nobility. I will have to help somebody, feed somebody, give shelter to somebody. People who use their quota in worshipping, praying, adoring religious figures and spiritual figures, in spite of that, if they are left with some nobility, hats off to them.

You may ask me, that if I have this kind of ideas about religious people, why should I show such reverence for Krishan and Kabir and Gautam? You can ask me. Ill tell you why I respect them. These were the great contributors in the human civilization. They were born in different points of time in history, in different situations. But one thing is common in them. They stood up against injustice. They fought for the downtrodden. Whether it was Ravana, or Kansha or the pharaoh or the high priests or the British Samrajya in front of Gandhi or the communal empire of Firoze Tughlaq in the times of Kabir, they stood against that.
 
And what surprises me, and confirms my worst feelings, that today, the enlightened people who know the cosmic truth, none of them stand up against the powers that be. None of them raises his voice against the ruling classes and the privileged classes. Charity, yes, when it is approved and cleared by the establishment and the powers that be. But I want to know which was that guru which took the dalits to those temples which are still closed to them. I want to know which was that guru who stood for the rights of the Adivasis against the thekedaars and contractors. I want to know which was that guru  who spoke about the victims of Gujarat and went to their relief camps. They are human beings too.

Sir, It is not enough to teach the rich how to breathe. It is the rich mans recreation. It is the hypocrites pretension. It is a mischievous deception. And you know that in the oxford dictionary, mischievous deception is a term that is used for a word, and that word is HOAX.


Speech by JAVED AKHTAR at India Today Conclave  *


 

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