An easy target
There’s another thing about Stedman’s campaign “to find common ground between the religious and the secular.” It’s that all his finding and common grounding and affirmativing and positiving is directed toward the religious while he is in effect quite unfriendly toward the nonreligious. He goes about his work of saying what should be done, by throwing a little dirt at atheists.
We cannot promote Humanist values when we expend our energy lobbing simplistic critiques at the religious…we must get over this sense that provocation should be our number one goal, and that positive engagement with others is unimportant…the future of Humanism isn’t blasphemous billboards, bombastic rhetoric or even blogs…
Little jabs, one after the other, all over-general and subtly unpleasant, all just the kind of thing that appeals to existing prejudices which have been getting systematically stoked for several years, all directed at atheists.
Well…if positive engagement is such a good idea, why so much negative engagement with us? Why recycle the hostile stereotypes yet again? Why add yet more stiffener to the existing hostility to atheists?
It’s a safe path he’s chosen. He’s agreeing with The Great Majority, and kicking sand in the direction of the widely-hated minority. His schtick is that he’s more benevolent and ecumenical than other people, but doing the 87 millionth trashing of atheists isn’t really all that benevolent.
The comments at the Huffington Post bear this out. Lots of people gleefully seize the opportunity to say how boring and smelly and awful atheists are, as Stedman must have known they would. We’re an easy target.
So,we’re the ‘Other’ are we? I noticed the use of the term ‘blasphemous’ I’m puzzled as to why a humanist would use the term. Perhaps it was a freudian slip.
How come theists can’t start respecting what we say? Is what we say really that much more terribly bombastic than “believe or else”? Why can’t they stop provoking us? I guess that is rhetorical–they can’t because their religions and their imagined gods demand that they provoke others. Still, I like to think that I make great effort at positively engaging theists these days even when they provoke me, up to a point.
Honestly, I put up with a guy telling me that Ken Ham was right and that if I don’t visit AIG as much as I read the news, atheist/science blogs, and learn about the world, then I’m refusing to consider Ken Ham’s message. I think that without having this online community support, I might have fallen for that guilt trip, but now I am comfortable telling them I have better things to do with my time and not really interested in what AIG has to say and here’s why.
So, it is not fair to group us all in with the disparate atheist, skeptic, or humanist organizations that we don’t belong to and have no control over, and even there they surely value positive engagement with theists. None of them are “lobbing” anything, either, and we atheists are not the ones who built up entire organizations on flimsy foundations that can be shaken to their core by simplistic critiques.
the future of Humanism isn’t blasphemous billboards
He can’t even bring himself to put ‘blasphemous’ in inverted commas!
The boyfriend story sounds suspiciously like it might have happened at a conservation event.
‘As the Interfaith and Community Service Fellow for the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard,’ writes Stedman, ‘I am working on the ground to build up positive Humanist community. Just a few weeks before I visited my family in Minnesota, the Chaplaincy threw a Humanist holiday party, replete with a lighted tree, seasonal music, a donation drive and gift-giving. The sense of community was palpable…’
I cannot help but find this sort of saccharine sentimentality repellent, and wonder if others do. Beneath it is precisely the sort of meaningless, pale, religious smile that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons or other proselytisers force on to their faces when they knock on your door in order to annoy you with their petty obsessions, smiles that are designed to say, ‘We are nice, harmless people, and we have only your best interests at heart.’ (Of course, they are neither nice nor harmless, and the only interest they have at heart is that of the religion they espouse.) For not only do people like Stedman think they are nice, harmless, righteous sorts, like the Pharisees whom Jesus rightly decried, they have to show publicly how nice, harmless and righteous they are by publicly doing all the things that the religiously-minded Pharisees make such a song and dance about doing, and writing about it in such places as the Puffington Host. It really is rather contemptible.
I’m so annoyed with the identity legerdemain. He’s an atheist, so he feels entitled to talk down to other atheists using “we” and to do so on the assumption that atheists are part of his “Humanist” community or movement. He doesn’t have to engage positively with atheists, because we’re somehow automatically included as the bad wing of Humanists.
Well, no. It doesn’t work like that. While there’s of course some overlap in broad values and objectives, I personally and the atheist community to which I (informally) belong – the only one in this context for which “we” is justified – don’t have and haven’t expressed any interest in his “Humanist” movement. In fact, I’m hostile to some of its goals and tactics. So it should be obvious that I don’t care about its progress and how it might be affected by my actions. The analogy isn’t perfect, but it’s kind of like if someone said to me “I’m on the left, too, and your actions are harmful. We’re not going to build a strong Democratic Party by writing anarchist blog posts.”
Well I’m certainly not interested in promoting Humanist values (whatever they are) but rather reason and science and secularism/liberalism/human rights. Terms such as interfaith and chaplaincy and blasphemous only send off red flags that a religious mindset is at work here.
Stedman’s problem is the same mistake made by other accommodationists: that criticism means negativity and in order to promote lovely positive nice vibes we must stop being critical. In other words, Stedman turns off his rational mind and begins hypocritically criticising and creating negativity among his fellow humanists and atheists instead.
I suggest Stedman takes his own advice, and stop fostering dissent among humanists and atheists, and build a bridge toward reason and critical thinking.
At least we’re not suffering from a strawman shortage. Yeah, really, he’s right; maybe we ought to have that clause removed from our manifesto.
I can never read one of these pieces without coming away with the conviction that the writer cannot actually imagine atheists really having equal rights. How else could they object to atheists voicing their opinions without coming down just as heavily on theists who do the same thing? These are the people who think it’s ok for religions to work towards a world in which all will have seen the light and accepted their truths. It’s only not ok for non-believers to practice a much milder form of persuasion.
And what a telling anecdote. People are afraid of offending atheists with something even hinting at religion. I guess the reason there was no balancing anecdote of atheists afraid to come out of the closet was simply that no examples could be found.
He’s so happy to be building bridges, but it’s all in one direction. There is praise for the sense of community to be had under a lighted tree and with seasonal music. Atheists are only praiseworthy if they participate. The slant of the piece is entirely critical of atheists and there is criticism of neither religion nor anyone who represents it. For a piece claiming to be in favour of reconciliation, it’s pretty damned hostile to one of the parties.
Chris showed up over at World of Weird Things to try his argument over there, and it caused me to visit his own site and address exactly what you’ve said above directly to his crew. Amazingly enough, my comment never showed!
So I reposted it with Greg’s permission at Weird Things, whereupon Chris avowed as to how it had never met his servers, but he would be back and answer it as soon as he got done with his busy busy life (something he seems to talk about quite a bit, it appears.)
Are you surprised that this never happened? Chris is another vague empty shell of platitudes to make the religious feel good with his posturing, but that’s about it. The religious don’t think there’s such a thing as too much sucking up to them, and when you’re paid to suck, you might as well be good at it.
Simplistic critiques of religion? Perhaps he should try that one again. First of all, criticism of religion is highly developed and complex. It is almost as complex as religion itself, and that is thoroughly Byzantine in its complexity. But some critiques — what can I say? — are pretty straightforward. “Where’s the evidence?” is a good place to start. Or, “If God is loving, how come you picture him as viciously cruel? Yes, yes, I know. Hell is for other people, but still … don’t you find it cruel? Oh, watching the torments of the damned is part of the joy of heaven?! Now, I see, not cruel at all then. Just punishment for not believing in something for which there is no evidence? Now I understand. Of course, fully deserved! I stand corrected!” Or, “Well, if God is good and loving, why did he choose evolution as his method of creation? After all, couldn’t he have thought up something less destructive with less suffering involved? Oh, I see, that’s just the nature of things. He couldn’t do any better. Of course, that makes sense. He did have to fine-tune the laws, after all.” Simplistic critiques like that?
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rational Humanist, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: An easy target http://dlvr.it/DPmt8 […]
Yes I noticed the use of “blasphemous” too, and I questioned it at the Huff. Post on Friday, when there were only 5 comments. Guess what: my comment didn’t make it past the “moderators” there. It wasn’t rude, or even blasphemous, it just asked why he was taking the concept of “blasphemy” seriously and what he thought of the recent events in Pakistan.
Regarding the most attention-getting of the bunch…
So secular groups are just part of a BUNCH? A bunch of what…? Hmm?
We cannot promote Humanist values.
Chris Stedman talks about Humanist values in terms of We. Meaning, supposedly — we the good guys?! Then he goes on further to talk about atheists as being Them in terms of supposedly — them, the bad guys, operating disapproving, despicable in-your-face stuff. Never the Twain shall meet. Am I detecting a hint of snobbery? The rowdy pharisees vs the cra-thmping republicans, who sat in the front of the temple reminding god of how holy they were and so unlike the former.
I’m not an atheist and I personally thought the billboard was a fantastic innovative brainwave. Christians place their cribs everywhere that they can best be noticed. There stands a massive crib right in the heart of the city-centre of Dublin every Christmas. So why not atheists have the same notoriety with counter-argument billboards. The religious have the monopoly in almost every sphere of life. Free speech must not be squashed.
The billboard really made me stop and think about how passionate atheists felt about atheism. What’s wrong with them counter arguing religious beliefs at an appropriate opportunistic time when Christians too are out there selling their Faith. All behind a nice cosy smoochy veneer. When people are all hyped up and in overly emotional states.
I reckon too that young believers, of which I’m not one, would also have felt the same way about the billboard.
The religious have had too much monopoly, so roll on atheists paste them up everywhere and to hell with the humanist begrudgers. Their pathetic suppressing stifling take on atheism radical enthusiastic doings is not helping at all.
The pot calling the kettle black shenanigans is pathetic. I’m getting the impression that humanists are kind of like the Jesuits or the Benedictines of the secular world. Waterford Crystal vs ordinary glass. Too grand and delicate and very easily breakable against the rough and tumble glass. Upstairs/downstairs syndrome.
Outrageous.
Eh, Steadman is a whiny Mooney-wannabe whose trying to turn his fluff into a cash cow. He better ask Templeton if they have any spots left for their seminars in intellectual impotence. But what irritates me most about him is that you can give him a ten page point by point list of critiques, questions, and responses to his points and he’ll look you in the eye and insist that you haven’t addressed anything he said are are in fact, a pathologically anti-religious troublemaker.
Come to think of it, the talent to lie so brazenly and blatantly while talking out of both sides of his mouth would make him a terrific politician.
I envy the casual way you can write that, almost as if non-believers could get to call the shots on a question of blasphemy… :)
Never letting certain non-trolling comments get out of moderation seems to be the hallmark of what I can probably fairly describe as our opponents. I find it hard to imagine the mindset that must cause such behaviour; it’s not something that would ever occur to me to do if faced with a tough question. Is it really as simple as that: that if you’re an atheist defending religion from other atheists, you’ve got to be less than honest?
Stewart :- )
I almost put scare-quotes on the word but didn’t want to overdo the damn things!
I took the cue from the dreadfully uncouth, rough and tumble, hard-wearing, genuine; gnu; dishwasher friendly glass atheists and posted my comment in two parts over at the huffy post where the more than huffy fluffy-fine feathery Humanists hang out. Guess what – the comment was posted. Perhaps, it sees the naive and uneducated as less of of threat.
Thanks for that link, Just Al – very interesting.
It’s all so tiresome.
If only the religionists had a flank of people within their own ‘ranks’ who were as vocal and enthusiastic in their criticism of them, we wouldn’t need atheists at all, gnu or otherwise.
The Huffington Post moderators have no way of knowing how educated or naïve any particular commenter is.
Chris’s reply to Just Al:
A huge LOL right there! Busy busy busy.The accomodationists have the time to write articles criticising those horrible atheists, but are then far too busy to actually answer their critics (although apparently not busy enough to reply that they’re too busy.)
I just briefly read on the web, that one can instantly become an online spiritualist Humanist Minister and officiate at weddings. That is, with just a mere instantaneous online click. Reading this and other stuff on the site makes perfect sense to me, anyway, to some of the way Chris Stedman thinks. That is my initial perception, it could change upon closer scrutiny. I heretofore had a very different view of Humanists. I saw them on a par with atheists. Perhaps there are schisms amongst same? I can now see why some of them can speak with this religious tone and also not feel daunted or fazed in preaching from on high the religious pulpits. Some of them might still have one foot in the organised church. Not too far removed from the fold. Like scarabs hanging out of it in order to bring it down, perhaps? Not beating the church from without, but from within, is that their ideology? Almost like they are superior and right up there with the church. I could be perfectly wrong. Judging from the CS’s Huffington Post article spiel, i see that there is not much to differentiate between him and the pillar of society church-going Christians. The latter also are maybe harbouring similar unnerving thoughts about the nasty atheists. They thump their cra’s, thanking God that they don’t belong to the unwashed untouchable atheist barbaric tribe.
That is maddening (as it was at Mooney’s) and is why I quit going there. Our voices are silenced at the Huffington Post. Oh, and Marie-Thérèse O’ Loughlin, in my experience it was not beyond the Huffington Post moderators to go back through the comments at a later date and scrub them clean of atheist/skeptic/scientific criticism.
No I think you’re right, M-T. I’ve been finding the same thing by looking around at Stedman’s blog.
The more I look, the more I dislike, I’m afraid. I was thinking he’s well-meaning but confused, but now…I think it’s just another lightly-disguised smear campaign.
There is certainly a strain of the godless who do not see supernaturalism as intrinsic to religion because the religious with whom they come in contact place little or no emphasis on it. Frank atheism, to them, seems a rude and unnecessary disruption, a pointless belittling of good people who gather to celebrate love and justice.
(Say, that’s not too shabby. I think I could do this!)
When you remind them that most religious persons are superstitious, and that this causes serious problems, they may ask how you expect people to listen to reason when you show such contempt for the reasonably religious.
(Again, I shouldn’t boast, but…)
This, of course, is the fallacy of moderate faith, holding that, somehow, theologically liberal Christianity is a friend of rationality and must be defended as a bulwark against fundamentalism. It’s such an underpants gnome enterprise. (Defense of Christianity Against Atheism – – ? – – Liberalization of Fundamentalist Christianity) In fact, fundamentalists hold moderate religion in contempt and treat it as a recruiting ground. What’s just in the news today? Anglicans show their enlightenment by consecrating women as bishops, and the Vatican raids their clergy.
To do a bad Gandhi paraphrase, As religious oppression can only be maintained through belief, withdrawal of support from religious oppression requires complete rejection of belief.
Aren’t spiritual Humanists and those of a similar hybrid, merely tickling the funny bits of the religious with a fluffy feather duster in order to humour and keep close to the church? By all accounts, it’s far more lucrative and respectable to ape and be in a cosy privileged rubbing shoulders position as opposed to being completely on the outside looking in, along with the rest of the ne’er–do–well and going nowhere poverty-stricken dejected atheists. The church is a very wealthy institution and it would not pay them to be separated from the hand that might feed them. You’ll find that those who defend the church will be on the receiving end of it – monetarily, or job-wise.
Aren’t Humanists simultaneously on the other hand, hammering rusty well-worn nails into the crosses of bleeding scruffy bedraggled atheists.
Gosh, it’s not as if the atheists have not got enough on their hands with having to contend with the awfully nice accommodationists and such-like weak, timorous atheists.
Thanks OB/Aratina Cage. Noted!
The common ground between religion and secularism is secularism.
Unless the religious wish to see other faiths (sic) privileged over their own.