Disability and Freethinking
I received an email query recently from the Editor Ruth Geller of the Humanist Network News about individuals with disabilities who are non-religious, either agnostic or atheist. Geller hopes to do an article on the topic.
The topic intrigues me too. Disabled freethinkers? There's Harriet McBryde Johnson, of course.
I'm agnostic, as I've said before, though not without a yearning for something more satisfying than saying that I find faith an unpersuasive belief or emotion. Truthfully, I'm not in the same league of freethinkers as people who declare themselves atheists -- I just haven't put the time and effort into examining the issue that I have into, say, disability issues. (Or Things That Crack Me Up.) I feel comfortable calling myself a disability activist and a feminist because I've actively explored both topics and feel reasonably well-read there. Not so with faith, rationalism and belief, yet.
What about you? If you're disabled and consider yourself a freethinker, Geller is interested in talking to you. Contact info here:
Ruth N. Geller, EditorOr, can you name other atheist or agnostic disabled folks besides McBryde Johnson? Historic figures or contemporaries? (Penny?)
Humanist Network News
Email: RGeller@humaniststudies.org
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If you're as intrigued by the question as I am, and the general topic of religious beliefs of disabled people, you might also check last May's Disability Blog Carnival on Spirituality and Disability at Ryn Tales.
12 comments:
A historic figure who was surely a freethinker and able to see through the folly of organized religion was Robert F. Murphy, author of the Body Silent.
LOL, I'm sure there have been many free-thinkers in history and TODAY who are disabled. This makes me think of how I used to sit by the big tourist attraction in Seattle, The Pike Place Market, in my wheel chair, and soooo many strangers from around the world would stop and try to convert me. LOL Apparently, if one is ill or disabled, they MUST have a need to follow some religion! LOL---NOT
Helen Keller gets listed among famous atheists sometimes. She wasn't a Christian or Jew or any of the major religions, and spoke about that--but she's also sometimes associated with Swedenborgian beliefs, so maybe it's just a case where everybody wants to claim Helen Keller. ;)
You could certainly count Arthur C. Clarke--physically disabled (polio survivor) and identified himself as an atheist:
http://www.adherents.com/people/pc/Arthur_C_Clarke.html
William Peace: I thought maybe Murphy, but it's been so long since I read his book I couldn't remember his religious perspective.
Diane J Standiford: Yeah, I'm sure there are numerous historical figures, and since labeling oneself "disabled" in a social or political sense is a fairly new thing, there are probably a number of famous people we just wouldn't think to put in the dual category of disabled and atheist/agnostic.
Penny L. Richards: I knew you'd think of someone! I had no idea Clarke had polio. Or that he was atheist. Interesting how his wife says emphatically that his atheism (and her opposing Christianity) is what killed their marriage.
This is neat. I emailed her... my question was, "Do I count as disabled?"
Personally, I think atheism and religious faith are pretty much the same... I teasingly call atheist friends that they've just forgotten where they put god. As for people with faith, I challenge that they can never really get any sense of the divine due to the mediating structure of language and cognition that distorts anything beyond the human into a form we can understand, and therefore is no longer accurate.
Reason and faith... the double barrels of the human mind.
Kay, Sadly Murphy's book is quite dated and fails to resonate with college students that do not know who Reagan was. Murphy was my advisor at Columbia when I was getting my PhD. It may be far a field but Dialectics of Social Life is another great book he wrote. It could also be subtitled why I left the Catholic Church.
Dianne, I loved your comment about how religiously inclined people react to people with a disability. I have been damned and blessed by many and was once identified as the Anti-Christ by a stranger.
"Disabled persons are handicapped not because of our disability, but because of lack of access to information about our rights and entitlements and how to get them,” says by disability unit.It can be produced a Right to Information guide to improve government facilities for Disabled People.Free Thinking gives the reader the nearest thing to a series of brief, intense conversations with a woman who has thought deeply, writes beautifully and, even when she is confessing to her all-too human faults, never fails to uplift and inspire.
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Gillberk
LINK BUILDING
Why do you think that the religiously inclined try to convert the disabled?
Do they think belief in God will make the "burden" easier to bear? That one needs "faith" to get through one's life as a person with a disability? Sounds patronizing to me.
Or do they perhaps just try to convert any and everyone?
For those that have had this happen to them, how did you handle it?
I think that any evangelical organization, be it a religion, political party or corporate entity, will look for a vulnerability and exploit it. Sometimes it can even be for the best of intentions... some honestly believe it will help, some how.
I just prefer to be skeptical of any evangelicalism in any form it takes. Note, of course, that some religions are explicitly non-evangelical. :)
CT: Those are some beautiful photos at your site.
I don't believe the conversion compulsion is about exploitation, though I have experienced situations (back in my college days) where the religious convertor professed friendship as the goal when they actually believed it was their God-given duty to befriend and convert. Yuck.
hnneditor: I think the message of helping those "less fortunate" is so much a part of Christianity (to take the example I'm most familiar with), and there are so many Biblical examples of the "less fortunate" being blind or "crippled" that some religious folks take it as an explicit calling to help disabled people. Maybe we're seen as their path to redemption and heaven. It's a message reinforced by the scriptures and ableist attitudes in society.
You're right. It can be very patronizing. It wouldn't have to be, but very often is.
In my experience, the only way to handle someone intent on converting you to their faith is to avoid them. If they are fine with offering their faith as a way of sharing themselves and then accepting you as you are, it's not a problem.
Kay: Thanks for your thoughts, and your comment on my photos...
Personally, I don't mind talking with recruiters. I often know the bible better than they do. Most only have read the SRV or King James. I'm no scholar, but when you ask them what they think about how the Book of Job is translated in the AngloSaxon version, versus the septuagint, and point out that if all these texts were considered canonical when they're contradictory then there's a problem with literality... they back of slowly as you chase them asking their thoughts on the dead sea scrolls :)
But now that I'm older and less mean, I'm usually honest. I tell them that my heart is open to Jesus (and to peanut butter, but I let that slide), and if he calls me I am ready to listen. However I think it is a sin to falsely profess belief, as well as a sin to coerce false beliefs (which may be true, but I'm just guessing), and so they should leave me be and I'll call them, if and when I'm called.
I can say this with a straight face, because it is true. If any form of spirituality wants to send the limo of god(ess) to pick me up, I'll go for the ride. Wouldn't you?
[Luckily for me, my particular gimp manifests itself in verbal pyrotechnics and bombastic convolutions if/when I'm confronted... fun at parties.]
CT: Yeah, I'd take that limo ride.
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