Not meekly asking
Well exactly.
Many of the millions of Americans who do not believe in the supernatural have had enough of being targeted by unremitting discrimination.
Indeed we have, and this is what we keep saying, and why we keep pushing back against all the people who started squeaking, the instant Sam Harris’s book hit the shelves, “Yes but please be quiet now, you will frighten the moderates and shock the liberals and horrify the agnostics and spook the undecideds and terrify the moderate-liberal agnostic undecideds.”
The “crime” that the nonpious are committing is nothing more than declining to believe in supernatural beings and forces that lack sufficient verification of their reality. There is no excuse for discrimination that is as under the radar as it is persistent. So I wrote an op-ed that, in the tradition of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter From Birmingham Jail, would put the nation on notice by calling for the societal civil rights of Ameroatheists.
And, Gregory Paul says, it went viral.
The article went viral because atheists are fed-up and the piece says what we have long been feeling. There is not the slightest reason for all the abuse, and we, dear theists, are not going to take it anymore!…So knock off making us miserable for expressing our All American freedom from religion. Just be nice. If a family member goes atheist, don’t berate them. Sit down and have a chat — both of you might learn something.
But make no mistake: Nontheists are not meekly asking for full acceptance and citizenship any more than blacks did after the World War II, or gays did after Stonewall. We are telling you observant Christians, Jews, Muslims, et al., to be as respectful to us atheists as you are to other believers.
We’re not meekly asking. That’s why we’re gnu. (I wonder if Gregory Paul considers himself a gnu.)
Where the response to the great popularity of my article has been inadequate is among the media, which continue to pay the chronic anti-atheism problem the minimal attention they always have. The absence of progressive media on the issue is especially remarkable because atheist bashing is part and parcel of the theoconservative PR campaign to discredit all who dare not agree with them. Much as theists need to be kinder to nonsupernaturalists, societal leaders need to regularly address and denounce anti-atheism.
Yessssssssss…thank you.
The theists got in first on this one, with all holy books declaring that believers are vastly superior to non-believers, and tribe members likewise with respect to outsiders.
Transferable of course from church insiders to party insiders. The rest is history, and history is largely the rest.
The theocrats have damned atheists as immoral, subhuman, evil, and everything else they could think of for centuries, and it still continues. Then, when we question their delusions, they attack us for not being respectful. To hell with them.
Paul and Zuckerman’s April article was a good one, the two of them have written other stuff that’s very nice and awfully substantive, and this more recent article isn’t bad, either—though it has overtones of Paul being a little full of himself. “[My previous Post article] may be the most read atheist text since the best sellers of Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens”? Oy—spare me.
I’d call Paul and Zuckerman Gnu-ish types at least; articles like “Why the Gods Are Not Winning” and “Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being” are terrific stuff; they’re awfully useful when we’re making certain kinds of (not terribly accommodationist) arguments. On the other hand, I vaguely remember Jerry Coyne citing a PuffHo piece in which Zuckerman (I think) took some surprisingly cheap shots at Gnus.
So I’d say there are some very bright spots and a few not-as-great ones on their resumés. FWIW.
Our “crime” isn’t “declining to believe in supernatural beings and forces that lack sufficient verification of their reality.” Our “crime” is not doing that “declining” in complete silence.
I don’t bow my head, ever. I don’t hold hands and mumble an “amen” around the dinner table. I don’t say “God bless you” when someone sneezes, and I don’t cave in to pressure when someone calls me out on my lack of godly exclamation.
My drill instructors were easier to deal with than my mom. My DIs were pissed when I refused to bow my head in prayer, but they respected me and the law enough not to push the issue. My mom wasn’t nearly as respectful. It was uncomfortable for a few years, but it finally came to a head one specific Thanksgiving. The family was gathering around the table for the pre-meal prayer, and I was in the middle of doing… something. Whatever. Anyways, my sister said something like “shouldn’t we wait for Joe?” and my mom responded “No. Joe is too stupid to believe in God, so we shouldn’t waste our time on him.”
Fine by me. I started gathering my stuff to leave. My mom came up to me to ask me if I was going to come to dinner. I told her “If I’m too stupid to share a table with you, then I guess I’m not welcome here. I’m happy to go, and good luck with your life.” After a bunch of tears on both sides, my mom realized that she was being a giant creep about it, while I wasn’t making any big deal about my atheism. We’re good now, more or less. We talk at least once a month, even though we now live 600 miles apart, but it was rocky for a long time.
Yeah, atheists are completely sick of the BS we have to deal with. It isn’t some sort of intellectual exercise where we’re unhappy that there’s a philosophical difference that interrupts our club meetings. This is something that threatens to split up families and wreck friendships. This is something that almost severed my connection to my mother.
Sad story, Joe. Sorry that that happened to you.
Hey, Rieux…
Not a sad story, because the ending was OK, and I think better than most. I wasn’t murdered or executed for heresy. My parents didn’t disown me, kick me out of the house, or beat me bloody over it. I wasn’t shunned by a community that I couldn’t escape. There were no legal ramifications. In the grand scheme of things it is nothing much.
On the other hand, people who try to paint this as some sort of “atheists are just whining and want special rights, nothing bad ever happens to them for being atheists, and Christians are the real victims”? Those people are a bunch of unmentionables who I want to punch in the junk.
Defending against the bashing may be important, but I agree with Patton: “The best defense is a good offense.”
Well, they are.
Joe – well not really “nothing much.” It’s great that it got worked out, but…there are things a parent shouldn’t say. Great that she realized she was being a giant creep about it, but that’s precisely because it wasn’t nothing much.
This current blog got me thinking… I’ve been skeptical of religion, and said so, since I can remember, tho’ I do not call or think of myself as an atheist, tho I have no `beliefs’ in anything supernatural. In fact I didn’t know that there was such a designation, or understand the name/description) for many years (I’m `not now nor have I ever been’… ;-) an intellectual), but have never tried to hide my ideas, or changed the way I talk or do things. Altho I had no cohorts tht I knew about, most people around me, family, socially, school/univ. and then professionally, have understood that I wasn’t into any theology, I recall no bad reactions from anyone, and have no bad experiences from anything I’ve said or done. On the good side, I convinced my then husband he didn’t need to continue to be a guilty Catholic, as it was pointless. Since I’ve only been reading about and specifically participating in skepticism for the last couple of decade (reading websites, blogs, joining CFI-LA, etc.), I was surprised to hear that that was going on, and that experiences similar to `Joe’s’ (and worse) were commonplace. Perhaps, that now more and younger people are subjected to negative and discriminatory attitudes, it is a sign of the times. And perhaps, more people are questioning old ideas/traditions, and embracing critical thinking, talking about it, and most importantly, living their lives rationally in example. A good sign, don’t you think?
Yes, I do think.
[…] Not meekly asking […]
“Much as theists need to be kinder to nonsupernaturalists, societal leaders need to regularly address and denounce anti-atheism.”
nonsupernaturalists = naturalists, those who take naturalism as their worldview, that nature is what exists, and it’s enough. Just trying to accentuate the positive…http://www.naturalism.org/landscape.htm
Heh.