MAPPING FAITH & PLACE: 3rd SEMINAR

At the University of Leicester, Bennett Building, Department of Geography, this morning for the latest seminar in the University's Mapping Faith and Place project. Mapping Faith and Place is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) within their funding stream, "Care for the Future: Thinking Forward Through the Past".

The core aim of the project is explore the significance of South Asian religions and cultural heritage in Leicester's urban landscape. The wider context for this work, of course, includes the other aspects of religious and cultural identity and life in the city. There's more to the diversity of Leicester in terms of faith and belief than just the South Asian representation - as the project acknowledges, both in these workshops and in its print and online publications.

This is the last of three seminars for this project. You can read earlier blog posts for the launch event (Friday 7 October 2011), first seminar (Tuesday 18 October 2011) and second seminar (Monday 16 January 2012). These seminars will be followed by a final conference in the summer, although it's hoped that the project will continue beyond that period of initial funding.

Leicester Council of Faiths has lent a hand at various stages of this project (although if we'd grasped how significant Mapping Faith and Place is, we'd surely have done more to help). We borrowed the two pop-up banners for our display at Highcross during Inter Faith Week a couple of months ago, when we also distributed many copies of the Leicester Faith Trail booklet. Members of staff (Deirdre O'Sullivan and Dr Ruth Young - both of whom are here today) and students from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History took part in that exhibition.

The first seminar focused on built sacred spaces in a stricter architectural sense: whether new-built or taken over from other, earlier uses, expressing a break from, or continuity with the past. The second concentrated on sense of place: how people construct stories around geographical sites and personal identities. Today we're looking at new media, the transformative nature of digital technology to affect identity and project it into the world.

I was concerned that we’d have an unmanageably small turnout this morning, given torrential rain and the relatively difficult access to the venue. But there are a dozen of us here, which is more than enough to make it work.

First order of business is the uploading, copying or scanning of resources related to places of worship or faith trails that each of us have been asked to bring today. I've brought three digital photographs taken on the Holi Yatra Walk, Saturday 10 March. Others have brought sound clips, video and solid artefacts.

Dr Claire Jarvis, Senior Lecturer in Geographical Information, gives a fascinating PowerPoint presentation, "Representing Faith and Place". She shows and discusses some ancient maps which may be said to tell us more about the people who made them rather than the places they were intended to describe. She speaks of how we are becoming "prosumers" (a hybrid of producer / consumer) in this geospatial digital age; prosumers of a vast quantity of maps, which are being created and used in greater numbers than ever before, and in increasingly imaginative and idiosyncratic ways. Maps are being increasingly used to reflect lived experience, to tell stories about ourselves as individuals and communities. We see some examples of this kind of map too, which say something more nuanced than just where something is located or how to find a place. I'm especially struck by this quotation in her presentation, from Miguel Helft, in the New York Times, 27 July 2007:

With the help of simple tools introduced by Internet companies recently, millions of people are trying their hand at cartography, drawing on digital maps and annotating them with text, images, sound and videos.

In the process, they are reshaping the world of mapmaking and collectively creating a new kind of atlas that is likely to be both richer and messier than any other.

Incidentally, this concept of being a "prosumer" reminds me of the theory and practice of Co-Production, which was the topic of a meeting at County Hall on Monday morning.

Claire leads us through the process of creating our own maps, each of us at a work station, using mscape maker. I get to add my first digital image but no more, as I have to leave early for a Funding Fair at Voluntary Action LeicesterShire. I'm sorry I don't get to stay for the rest of this seminar, as I've found what we've done so far utterly fascinating and would love to learn and practise more. I hope to be able to follow up in my own time.

Has atheism become a religion?

Very interesting article in the Huffington Post, reproduced below. I like the different stance it takes on the topic, which reveals some of the nuances between how atheism is regarded here and across the Pond. It's thoughtful and thought provoking and adds a subtly distinctive flavour to the debate.

Has Atheism beome a religion?

By David Lose

Before you dismiss the question out of hand, consider these four inter-related bits of evidence:

1) As recently reported in the New York Times, military personnel who identify themselves as "Atheists" have requested chaplains to tend to their spiritual needs. As the Times article notes, "Defense Department statistics show that about 9,400 of the nation's 1.4 million active-duty military personnel identify themselves as atheists or agnostics, making them a larger subpopulation than Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists in the military." Having their own chaplains, the article explains, would give Atheists a sense of legitimacy and help validate their own system of values and beliefs.

2) The U.S Government reports that in 2008 those identifying themselves specifically as "Atheist" composed the 18th largest group of 43 possible categories of "self-described religious identification." The number of persons so identifying themselves almost doubled from seven years earlier. Admittedly, "Atheist" is one of the options listed under "no religion specified," but given that other options for respondents included checking "Agnostic" or "No Religion" or not answering the question at all, it appears that identifying oneself specifically as an Atheist, as opposed to simply "not religious," is growing in appeal. This points to the utility of a distinction made by Jonathan Lanman between "non-theists," those with no particular religious belief, and "strong atheists," those who view religion not only as irrelevant but as misguided and dangerous.

3) Similarly, it's worth noting the degree to which Atheists routinely, strategically, and often vociferously position what is often described as their "secular-humanist" views against religious traditions. Read or listen to any of the celebrity Atheists of the past decade like Richard Dawkins, Chrisotpher Hitchins and Sam Harris and you realize that they fashion many of their arguments not against some alternative economic, political, or philosophical position but against organized religion. Religious faith is clearly their primary opponent in the contest for the intellectual allegiance of the population, which makes it hard not to conclude that they offer their views and beliefs as a viable alternative to traditional religious systems.

4) Finally - and you probably knew this was coming - consider all the comments made by self-identified Atheists on articles published in the Religion section of the Huffington Post. Seriously. Either Atheists have way more time on their hands than the rest of the population or they've got something to prove. This assertive, us-against-them tone (in this case, against established religion) is characteristic of new religions. (Think of the Christian gospels', especially Matthew and John, stance toward first-century Judaism, for example.) As Rabbi David Wolpe observed a few months ago, there is an astonishing garrulousness to the comments made by Atheists to posts about religion that suggest not simply a lack of interest in, or even disdain for, religion but a competitive anger directed against persons of traditional religious faith. (Obviously plenty of religious folk radiate the same garrulousness, but this post is about Atheists.)

Taken together, these four elements suggest that Atheists regularly demonstrate attributes -- desire for spiritual sustenance, the importance of self-identification, offering their worldview as an alternative to other religious systems, and an assertive if not competitive style of engagement with other religious points of view -- usually exhibited by religious folk of all persuasions.

While Atheism as a movement doesn't have the formal structure, celebrations, or creedal dogmas of organized religions, we might at least identify Atheism as it exists today as an increasingly vibrant faith tradition. Still, when speaking of Atheists, why use the f-word (for "faith," silly) rather than speak of a worldview or personal philosophy? Three reasons suggest themselves.

1) It conveys that both a conventional religious worldview and atheistic worldview require a measure of faith. I don't mean this simply about the rather limited question of whether God exists, but rather about whether the material, physical dimension of life immediately apparent to our senses is all there is. The question can't be reduced, as Atheists regularly have, to observing that there are many beliefs - in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus as well as God - that can't be proved and must be taken on faith, but rather to ask whether there is a dimension of existence that supersedes or eludes our physical senses. Ultimately, any speech about God implies such a dimension that conversation about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus do not.

2) Religious faith - and I'd argue atheistic faith - doesn't begin and end with the question of God or a spiritual dimension to life. One needs also to construct an interpretation of life (describing its purpose, goal, worth) and set of values by which to live that life. Ethics and values are not self-evident from religious creeds -- witness, for instance, the distinct values of the varieties of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam that run the gamut from liberal to fundamentalist. Similarly, there is no self-evident value system shared by Atheists and projecting such a system requires imagination, critical reflection and, yes, faith.

Third, characterizing both organized religion and emergent Atheism as distinct faith traditions invites a measure of mutual regard and even respect that is sorely lacking in present discourse. Professing belief in God, as well as rejecting such belief, each requires equal measures of imagination and nerve. As it turns out, doubt is not the opposite of faith; certainty is. For this reason, we can hold out the hope that religious and non-religious believers alike may recognize in each other similar acts of courage and together reject the cowardice of fundamentalism, whether religious or secular. Being able to disagree respectfully is a small but significant step that believers and non-believers could take as they, together, contemplate admiring, understanding, and preserving this wondrous world we share.

Read the article, along with reader comments (and the opportunity to leave your own) on the excellent Huffpost Religion website (and don't rush off after reading just this one): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/atheism-religion_b_867217.html