Bounded by Disbelief: How Atheists in the United States Differentiate themselves from Religious Believers

Abstract

Recent empirical studies have revealed that religious believers tend to hold atheists and other religious doubters in low regard. This article examines how atheists in turn negotiate and construct the social and symbolic boundaries between atheists and religious believers. I draw on ethnographic and interview data to explore the lenses through which atheists view religion, religious believers, and the boundary between religious believers and non-believers. I find that atheists participate in boundary work to construct difference between religious believers and non-believers. However, atheists see greater social distance between themselves and some groups of religious believers than they do in relation to other groups, constructing religious leaders and devout adherents of particular religions as especially different. Atheists’ constructions of religious believers also vary in response to their individual experiences with religious people. The analysis illuminates the complexity of boundary work among members of a minority group.

Notes

1. Seven US states prohibit atheists from running for and/or holding elected office.

2. Religious non-believers use a range of identities, including atheist, agnostic, freethinker, bright, and/or secular humanist. While recognizing the diversity of religious non-belief, in the interest of brevity, I use the term ‘atheists’ throughout this article to encompass all religious non-believers in this sample (Lee). Indeed, almost all interview respondents identified primarily as atheists, although some also provided secondary identification as freethinkers or secular humanists. This analysis does not include the so-called non-religious or persons who are religiously unaffiliated (i.e. unchurched), but who still believe in a god, gods or other higher power. Rather, the focus is on non-believers or those who doubt or do not believe in a god, gods or other higher power.

3. Interview respondents represent three atheist groups which are primarily social groups for atheists. Because of the geographic proximity between the groups, about a quarter of respondents belong to two or more of these three groups and about half the respondents belong to some other organization for atheists, such as a national group or a targeted organization for atheist parents, apostates, etc.

4. A highly engaged team of research assistants have supported this work. I completed 26 of 30 interviews used in this analysis; graduate research assistants completed 2 interviews under my supervision. Beginning in January 2011, graduate and undergraduate research assistants also attended events, often with me but sometimes independently. I estimate that research assistants conducted about 10% of the total field work; I completed the rest.

5. For detailed discussions of the New Atheist writers, see Stephen Bullivant and Richard Cimino and Christopher Smith.

6. 'Angelica' is not a pseudonym. Respondents were given the choice of having their actual names used or not. See Guenther ("Politics") for a discussion of the ethics of naming in research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katja M. Guenther

Katja M. Guenther is associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Riverside, USA. Her areas of expertise include social movements, gender, and qualitative and comparative sociology. She is the author of Making their Place: Feminism after Socialism in Eastern Germany.