Common Problems, Uncommon Grounds- A Matter of Trust 1

As part of an ongoing project to write an article for the online journal Theoecology I have been engaged in thinking about reasons (beyond the obvious ones) that atheists and Christians, especially conservative Christians, might be having trouble connecting with on another to work on environmental issues, especially anthropogenic global warming (AGW).  In an earlier post I noted that polling information shows broad-based agreement on both the existence of global warming as a phenomenon, though there were differences among religious group on whether it is man-made, and on the value of action to protect the environment in general.  I also suggested factors such as the shortened time horizon implied by end-times eschatology, a generalized sense that the threat of AGW is to others elsewhere, and that accepting AGW may compromise beliefs in a just world.  All of these will be addressed in the final article.

However, just as I was, I thought, finishing the article, this link appeared on my Twitter feed.  The article it led to talked about social science research that had been done by psychology professors at the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon, on whether theist prejudice against atheists was based on a lack of trust.  This would be different, say, from prejudice against gays, which other work has found to be based in disgust.  It also presupposes that when in-groups and out-groups collide, the prejudice against the out-group will be based on the nature of the threat they pose.

Religious belief, they claim (and it is a claim that should be familiar to regular readers or who has spent more than ten minutes talking to me about the topic) arose as a tool of social cohesion.  Like David Sloan Wilson, whose Darwin's Cathedral is a must-read on this subject, Gervais, Shariff and Norenzayan argue that religious belief was, essentially, a way to unload the responsibility (and energy cost) of motioning public morals and doling out punishment to a supernatural being.  This has been so effective, that recent psychological studies show that the mere suggestion of divine watchfulness has been enough to increase honesty in personal transactions.

Over time, as human communities grew, the mixing of strangers required extension of trust.  Religiosity, Gervais, and his co-writers suggest, was a potential shortcut in this.  Outward signs of religious faith were a signal that a person could be trusted, helpful in an environment where everyone could not know everyone else.  Because of this atheists are problematic.  They do not make the outward signs that the religious do, leading religious believers to distrust them.  This idea was borne out in their experiments.  Self-identified religious participants expressed varying levels of distrust for atheists, with this prejudice being strongest among the most religious.  In a subsequent paper, two of the authors found that this distrust could be mitigated by reminders of secular authority.  Governments, they contend, have assumed the monitoring and punishment duties of gods, and it would seem that reminders of this bring home to believers that they and atheists both are liable to judgment from the same authority.

So one of the problems inherent in this meeting of the minds between religious believers and non-believers, on any topic is going to be this trust issue.  Among those identifying themselves as extremely religious, such as conservative Christians, this distrust will be at its worst.  Among more liberal denominations this seems less likely to be an issue, as such denominations tend to be more secularized. Another potential problem is discomfort with the way atheists come, or are perceived to have come, to their determinations, which is to say by the application of reason.  An interesting study of attempts by evangelical leaders to rally the faithful on environmental issues, especially AGW, suggests that even the most conservative religious believers can be brought around by leaders within their faith tradition and more specifically by leaders who are seen to have arrived at conclusions not simply through reason, but also by prayer.  Epistemology, the means of reaching the understanding, is as important as the understanding itself.

Therefore, in engaging with believers, especially conservative Christians, atheists face two challenges.  The first is overcoming problems of trust.  The second is that religious believers will be less likely to accept their views because of the process involved.  A potential third is, of course, the attitudes of atheists themselves towards the religious.  It is not far-fetched to suggest that distrust and epistemological problems may lie near the root of this as well, something I will explore further.