This Sunday is the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and as with many historical events, the role religion played in helping people recover from is a lively topic of discussion. Part of that discussion has revolved around the 9/11 cross, with Christians defending the placement of it at ground zero as a symbol of hope and atheists criticizing it as a sectarian religious symbol at what should be a secular place for remembering the victims of a faith based terrorist attack.
The group calling for the removal of the cross has been viciously criticized by many including Jon Stewart who ridiculed the suggestion that non-religious Americans be given the opportunity to have a symbol at the ground zero memorial. Although it is easy to make fun of the idea that Atheists be allowed to place some sort of symbol to represent them at ground zero, an examination of the last ten years as well as the events of 9/11 shows that an Atheist symbol deserves to be placed at ground zero far more than any cross.
From 2001 to 2008, the amount of Americans claiming to be non-religious increased by 15% but more importantly, the number of Americans calling themselves Atheist increased 91% in the 7 years after 9/11. There are probably complex reasons why millions of Americans would choose to abandon the faiths they grew up in in response to 9/11 but there are some obvious ones that can clearly be identified.
For many, 9/11 was a graphic reminder of the Epicurean Paradox, more commonly known as the Problem of Evil. If God did exist, then He would have had the capacity to prevent those planes from crashing into the World Trade Center buildings and killing 3,000 people. If anybody were in a position to prevent the attacks but did not take action to prevent them, we would call that person evil for not intervening. There is simply no way of arguing your way out of this logical dilemma and millions of Americans realized that their belief in God could not be defended after what they had witnessed.
As we learned afterwards, (setting aside historical, political and economic motivations), the 9/11 hijackers were primarily motivated by their religious faith. The image of religious fundamentalists yelling “Allahu Akbar” moments before killing thousands of innocent people was a powerful one. For many Americans who grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, the idea that religion was a force for good in the world was one we grew up with. Even if we didn’t share it, we were told religiosity should be admired since it leads people to commit acts of compassion and charity. 9/11 shattered that illusion when we realized that not only can religion inspire people to commit attrocites, but that there are actions so vile and morally evil that they can only be perpetrated by someone motivated by his religious convictions.
The reaction to 9/11 by the religious right and their actions in the years following 9/11 no doubt contributed to many people re-examining their beliefs. Here we found ourselves, recovering from an act of terrorism carried out by religious fundamentalists while at the same time finding religious fundamentalists taking over our government and our civil institutions. We had the Dover Trial, where we were reminded that we had Christians trying to push creationism into our public schools and committing perjury during the trial to cover up their actions. We had a national debate about stem cells, which resulted in research that could save countless lives being put on hold because of religious objections. We had religious leaders claiming not only that 9/11 and hurricane Katrina were punishment from God for homosexuality. We had religious groups succesfully vote to outlaw gay marriage. We found out about the Catholic church covering up the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children.
During the years after 9/11, we were constantly reminded of case after case of the real harm that religion was causing in our country. It simply wasn’t possible to criticize Islam for inspiring the attacks of 9/11 while simultaneously ignoring the fact that Christianity was a negative force in America.
There’s a full decade of news and events to think about this Sunday and I hope people use the opportunity to reflect.
I HAVE BEEN TELLING YOU NOT TO BELIEVE IN NOTHING BUT ON YOURSELF, GOD AND RELIGION IS A POLITICAL WAY OF SLAVERY AND A WAY TO MANAGE PEOPLE WITH EASE. YOU CAN NOT BE INTELLIGENT IF YOU BELIEVE IN THAT FALSE.