Atheists as “other”: Moral boundaries and cultural membership in American society

Abstract

Who is like me and who is not? What kindof relationship do I have to those who are different? These are questions about bound-aries, the symbolic distinctions that we make along multiple dimensions between ourselves and others. Such distinctions have social impli-cations when they are widely recognized and accepted as legitimate dimensions of differ-ence, and when they organize access to resources and opportunities (Lamont and Molnár 2002). Symbolic boundaries both include and exclude—by separating out those who do not belong, they draw together those who do (Alexander 1992; Taylor 2002). Symbolic distinctions drawn along lines of race, gender, sexuality, or social class are often studied because they lead to social exclusion for those in marginalized groups, and these dis-tinctions form the basis for social inequality (Epstein 1988; Lamont and Fournier 1992). By contrast, religious boundaries are often seen by sociologists as a basis for inclusion, forming meaningful subcultures and motivating politi-cal mobilization of the marginalized (Warner 1993). Moreover, increasing religious plural-ism in postwar America has coincided with an ecumenical movement and a decline in the salience of the boundaries between particular religious groups (Hout and Fischer 2001). Yet what about the boundary between the religious and the nonreligious? Do Americans make invidious distinctions (c.f. Epstein 1988) between believers and nonbelievers? If so, what are the bases for these symbolic distinctions? More broadly, what can that tell us about the sources of solidarity in American society and the limits of religious acceptance? In this article, we situate Americans ’ atti-tudes toward atheists within the literature on religion in America. The reaction to atheists has long been used as an index of political and social tolerance. While important, this literature does not tell us why there is so strong a reaction to such a small, hard to identify, and disorgan