Jonathan Rée

Yesterday I met with Jonathan Rée, who is a member of the British Humanist Association, a writer, philosopher, and historian, and a founder of Radical Philosophy in the 1970s. Mr. Rée describes himself as an atheist in the sense that he does not believe in God but not in the sense that he despises religion in any form. In his opinion, many militant atheists are too quick to assume that they have a full understanding of what religious people are talking about, whereas religious belief often turns out to be more complex than they imagine. Additionally, he pointed out that quite a few religious people are entirely unconcerned with the existence of God and are more focused on living life with a kind of reverence. In that sense, Mr. Rée admits that he is actually inclined to feel warmly towards religion and quite likes the idea of a sort of atheistic religion. Among other 19th century thinkers, John Stuart Mill implied that religion is so much a part of human heritage that the idea of totally rejecting is is unthinkable--if you are a non religious person, you should be asking yourself what we can make of religion in the future that will be beneficial to society and not necessarily subject to intellectual criticism.

Rée describes himself as a rather wishy-washy atheist compared to his more aggressive counterparts. When asked about the approach of other members of the 'new atheism' such as Richard Dawkins, he replied that he "can't stand Dawkins' way of going about it because I think that he has no philosophical or intellectual curiosity and I think that he assumes that he knows what theists believe and it's obviously stupid." Rée feels that many militant atheists fail to grasp the complexity of religious beliefs and in attempting to oversimplify religious faith, they insult the people they are trying to argue with which is impolite and also unproductive."

In contrast to Dawkins and Hitchens, Rée recognizes the great good that many religious groups bring and have historically brought to society. Rather than religion poisoning everything as Hitchens suggests, Rée concedes that "almost every progressive movement that has happened in history has directly or indirectly had some kind of religious motivation, and actually, though I am quite seriously anti-Christian in a lot of ways, a lot of the things that make the society better are due to the campaigns of people acting explicitly in the name of Christianity. Or if looking a bit deeper, they are drawing on Christian traditions even if they don't count themselves as Christians." For Rée, his personal non religious beliefs are based on theoretical reasons and not because of an opinion on whether religion is "good" or "bad" for society. In fact, in his view, if the argument against religion is to be based on purely utilitarian considerations about whether it's done any good to the world or not, "then I'm not entirely sure that my soft atheist position would come out better than the Christians."

When it comes to religion inserting itself into the public sphere, many of Rée's opinions are based on practicality rather than principle. When asked to share his thoughts on the 2004 debate surrounding the inclusion of Christianity in the preamble to the constitution of the European Union (a document meant to essentially define united Europe), he responded that a mention of Christianity would be rather extraordinary but that he found it much less upsetting than other members of the British Humanist Association because he couldn't see it having any real legal meaning. If the underlying agenda was to exclude non-Christian countries such as Turkey from acceptance into the EU by defining it as Christian, then he would have been strongly opposed. But a mere mention of Europe's Christian heritage in the preamble did not strike him as highly problematic. Similarly, in reference to the possible French ban of the hijab, he replied that he "can't connect the issue with any principles." Personally, he prefers to see people's faces rather than have them hidden behind a veil or huge sunglasses (so he would not like the sorority girls at SMU.) To him, a veil seems very impersonal and sends the message that an individual is unwilling or reluctant to be open and engage with society. However, as much as he would prefer that people simply didn't want to wear them in the first place, Rée questions the effectiveness and possible repercussions of such a ban in society. Restricting specific clothes would inevitably be highly offensive to many people and might ultimately provoke them to cling even more firmly to their rituals and habits. Thus, the issue becomes one of political judgment rather than principle--of progress and cohesion rather than right and wrong.

In general, Rée is an avid supporter of diversity. He views the United States' experiment of "mixing up people of different backgrounds [as] actually rather wonderful and makes life more interesting and makes people more intelligent in the long run and opens up people's intellectual horizons." While he finds some religious beliefs, such as Islam and Christian literalism, especially incomprehensible, he does not view those beliefs as grounds for exclusion. In fact, Rée views the public expression of Islam in England as helpful in educating others about their faith. In response to the recent appointment of 13 faith advisers in the UK, he says "why not try?" The more knowledge the government has about various religions, the less likely they are to offend someone or cause disruption in pluralistic communities. He also mentioned that he is quite fond of the idea of voluntary organizations that seek to contribute to society, many of which are religious. He believes that there ought to be ways to involve such groups in giving advice to government--"not saying their advice is going to be sacrosanct but just to hear from as many groups as possible." Politicians are obligated to listen to the voices of all groups, both religious and non religious.

Finally, Rée supports what he calls a "high minded idea of the political sphere." In this regard, he suspects that he may be a bit of a secular fundamentalist because in his view, it makes sense to require that when people are acting and speaking politically, they should forget about their religious beliefs. Initially, I thought that he was saying that there should be absolutely no mention of religious values or beliefs in any kind of official political arena. However, rather than opposition to an honest discussion or explanation of the way in which one's religious values shape one's views on policy making, Rée is fiercely opposed to the possibility of one person turning to another and saying, "I don't care what you say because you aren't a good Muslim...Politics is a special kind of protected area where people talk about how they want to live together and it does seem that there is a good case for saying it is absolutely forbidden for people in that sphere to say, 'you're not allowed to play this game because you're not a good Christian, etc...'"

I responded with the question: "What about people that have a religious belief that impacts their view on something in the public sphere? Is it appropriate for them to come to the table and say that I feel this way about this topic because of these beliefs? Is it beneficial for them to explain that?" His last response was my favorite part of the interview. He answered "yes" but that people should be able to explain their underlying beliefs and values and then realize that other people might simply not find them convincing. Ree: "And I actually think that in the long run, it’s going to be educational for them--that they’re actually going to discover that whatever makes them so sure of their opinions on these moral issues maybe isn’t as firmly grounded as they’d like to think, and there may be something genuinely discussable. ...Not that anyone's going to say that you have to change your opinions before you take part in the debate, but my guess is that once they’ve thought about it more they might change their mind. And I suppose that this is another thing about the nature of politics: that you have to go into politics thinking that it’s possible that the other people are right. And that’s one of the respects in which I think political thinking is superior to fundamentalist theological thinking." Okay, fair enough. I actually totally agree. He ended with the statement: "You know that you can believe something very warmly and passionately but you should also have a bit of your mind saying look, maybe it's wrong. And that’s one of the reasons, I suppose, to go back to the first question, that there may be some plausibility in the statement that religious belief is damaging if it leads some people to think that what they think is the only thing that could conceivably be justified."

Final Thought: After reading books and articles by atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, I found my conversation with Jonathan to be surprisingly refreshing. Often throughout the interview, he would burst into laughter immediately following a serious or straightforward statement about his own opinions on an issue. To me, Rée gave the impression of a man with considerable intellectual capacity and achievement who has managed to not take himself too seriously and who is able have an amicable conversation about very pressing and controversial issues. In my experience, that is a very rare and valuable quality that deserves a lot of respect.