Although my parents were pure and perfect atheists, they did not advertise their atheism or disparage the religions of others -- at least not in my hearing. They were exactly the opposite of what is sometimes called "militant atheists." To be militant would have been to give religion too much regard, too much importance -- and they wouldn't have bothered. To the best of my recollection, they were utterly indifferent. In our house, it was as if theology and worship had never been invented, practiced, or pondered. While my parents didn't enforce or evangelize their views upon their children, their unconcern, their lack of interest, was eloquence enough. Of course my brothers and I grew up to be atheists, and have remained so. Peaceful and positive atheists.
My parents were both readers. Every Tuesday my mother trundled over to the McDonald Avenue branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and trucked home a shopping basket full of books. There were volumes of all kinds -- mostly fiction and mysteries for my mother and, for my curiosity-driven father, politics, law, science, history, art, and of course, gardening. But I never saw a book on religion. Not a one. In their bookshelves at home, I remember only one volume that might have touched on the subject. It was a collection of essays by the Freethinker Robert Ingersoll.
I was young boy, perhaps 10 or 11, when I overheard some friend or acquaintance of my mother say something to her about prayer, or putting faith in the lord, or some such platitude. She waited politely until the person departed and then turned to me and murmured, quietly, "Well, I suppose some people need a crutch." I think that's the sum of all I ever heard from her on the subject of religion. One might think that the dismissive term "crutch" hinted at disdain or superiority (they need crutches but we don't) but it was not so. My mother's observation was made without prejudice or judgment.
Where other households might have worshiped or wondered or discussed, for us there was absolutely nothing. Religious education? None, not a drop. In our home, there was no attendance at temple, mosque or tabernacle, no religious ceremonies, and not even a Bible. I can remember my father and me dribbling our basketball to the schoolyard to shoot some hoops. When we passed the local orthodox synagogue, my father said, "Bingo.They play bingo in there." But he was not condemning the religion. It was the gambling. He disapproved of gambling (even Bingo) and the idea that a religious institution would allow gambling every Tuesday night offended him deeply.
When I was a questioning adolescent, out of a spirit of curiosity and perhaps rebellion, I liberated a bible from our local public library and secreted it under my treasured collection of Mad magazines. While others of my age cohort were squinting at smuggled Playboys or at The Amboy Dukes under the blankets by flashlight, I was acquainting myself with the holy scriptures. In my ignorance, I thought of the bible as a forbidden book, one which my parents would have disapproved. But I was wrong. They wouldn't have noticed; they wouldn't have cared. Looking back, I'm sure that they knew about my thirst for forbidden knowledge and probably enjoyed a giggle at my expense. Many years later, when my father was a widower, I gave him a copy of an annotated, edited Bible that I used as a textbook in one of my literature courses. Did he disapprove? Not at all. He said, "It's interesting." But of course he read it not as an inspired text but as history and as fiction.
To have been raised in such a household was my good fortune. My atheism was an unearned gift. I got it free, and I'm perpetually grateful. Many of my friends, growing up in religious families, have struggled to achieve atheism -- often with painful inner conflicts and anger and resentments. I admire them for the strength to break free -- especially those that live with irreparable breaches to the family. I endured no such struggle.
Philosophically speaking, it's been an easy life. There's a clarity about atheism. It's based in reality, not (dare I say what my parents wouldn't!) in wish and myth and superstition. Atheists, I think, are afforded a purer appreciation of human achievement and a clearer, less conflicted understanding of health, disease, and death. Reason and the evidence of the senses may not always lead to perfect understanding, but they're the best tools that we have, and we must cherish them.
You are probably more fortunate than you realize to have grown up in an atheistic household. The legacy of growing up in a religious household for me has been unending anger and resentment; clearly, it is easier to get things done when one is not angry or strident. But when I see the bible-holding president using tear gas to clear his way to a church for a photo shoot, I experience rage. And it doesn't go away. Religion had done immense harm and caused immense pain, and as long as it remains a force in public life, the dark ages will always lurk.
Posted by: Don Z. Block | August 28, 2020 at 08:14 AM