Skeptic Magazine pilloried Christian religious groups and individuals over Anthony Bourdainās death.
Among the more obnoxious things Iāve read in the wake of Anthony Bourdainās death is that if only he had been a man of faith, he wouldnāt have taken his own life. Consider the almost sneering commentary offered by Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, in a syndicated piece written less than a day after the rogue chefās body was found hanging by the belt of his bathrobe in a Strasbourg hotel room. āIf Anthony Bourdain had been a religious man, would he have killed himself? Probably not,ā writes Donohue. āBourdain was raised by his Catholic father and Jewish mother, though neither of them saw fit to raise him any religion ā¦ [Bourdain] said his views of religion were similar to those expressed by Christopher Hitchens, the British atheist. This is why the atheist organization, Freedom from Religion, was so proud of him.ā
Not only is the tenor of Donohueās sentiment completely tone-deaf and insensitive, his claim that Bourdaināor, for that matter, any other atheist suicide victimācould have been saved by religion is presumptuous and misleading. In his unabashed efforts to show why Catholicism is superior to other religions (he touts his book The Catholic Advantage while writing about Bourdainās suicide), Donahue points out that regular churchgoers are less likely to kill themselves. Heās right. But it turns out itās a little more complicated than Donahue would have us believe. The church buffering effect against suicide that heās alluding to, in fact, has almost nothing to do with faith. Rather, the correlation comes from churchgoers being part of an active community, one with formal rituals encouraging social engagement and regulated moral support. Itās whatās known as the ānetwork theoryā of religion and suicide, first articulated by Ćmile Durkheim in the late 19th century. In his famous treatise Suicide (1897), Durkheim reported that, despite their matched religiosity, Protestants were more likely to take their own lives than Catholics, a puzzling observation given that suicide is proscribed in both forms of Christianity. But Protestants are permitted free inquiry, have fewer formal rituals, and are characterized by more permeable groups.
This general trendāthat it is church attendance, not simply religion, that protects people against suicideāhas been found in study after study ever since. So, when Donahue writes that āthose who are regular churchgoers have a much lower rate of suicide than atheists like Bourdain,ā heās conflating (and I suspect deliberately so) religious behavior and theism.
When it comes to suicide, the existence or nonexistence of God, or belief therein, is far less consequential than the tumult of our social lives. (more, with a link to Donahoeās hot take)