The uses of anger
Jerry Coyne said some things about atheism and anger today, giving a few of the excellent reasons to be angry about religion.
What is the proper response to all this religiously-inspired nonsense? Anger, of course. No, you don’t have to be a red-faced, sputtering jerk when confronting the faithful, but controlled anger is without doubt the right response to a form of superstition that wreaks uncountable harms on humanity. And not “transitory” anger, either—permanent anger.
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Again, the proper response to religious stupidity, as it was to segregation in the South, is anger—persistent anger. Anger that remains until the kind of religion that forces its tenets and superstitions down humanity’s throat vanishes for good.
It’s odd that we even have to argue this. With the bishop of Phoenix and the murderer of Salman Taseer to point to, how can there be any dispute that anger is necessary? It’s as if we’ve all been sleepwalking for several decades, lulled into a stupid complacency about religion only because we never looked hard enough at its gruesome ways of carrying on.
Yes I see you there in the second row, Mr Blair. Yes I know that many people do good things in the name of religion; I do understand that many people think the way to be good is via religious institutions. But they’re laboring under a misapprehension: they could be good via secular institutions. The special ways religion is bad, on the other hand, are harder to replace with secular equivalents. What secular official would try to compel hospitals not to save the lives of women by ending their pregnancies? What secular person is not shocked to the core to learn that US bishops earnestly defend exactly that policy?
Until there are no bishops and no mullahs coming up with creative ways to oppress people, anger is not something we can afford to give up.
As Public Image Limited put it, anger is an energy.
Precisely! If there were a god and hell, then that god should damn them to that hell! Failing that, we’re just going to have to stand up to the bastards!
Talk of “angry atheists” is usually a rhetorical ploy designed to suggest (without saying) that this anger is irrational and unwarranted. Anyone who deviates from the Jeffersonian ideal (“It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg…”) must be a spittle-flecked lunatic.
But if the god my neighbor believes in wants pregnant women to die, or blasphemers to die, or preachers to live the high life on a tax-free income, or any of a myriad of other recent examples, then it does indeed pick my pocket and break my leg.
Jerry already took note of this, but as a total Greta Christina fanboi I have to link to the seminal work on the subject of Atheists and Anger.
To my understanding, that post is the main thing that elevated Christina to the prominent status within the atheist community she now (and deservedly) enjoys. She’s written plenty of other terrific stuff, but that one in particular really caught fire. (See also Greta’s follow-up to the responses she got to the above-linked post.)
The New Atheists are mad as hell and they’re not gonna take it any more!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew&feature=fvw
Can’t add anything to that, it says it all.
Since Shatterface mentioned PIL, I have to mention Joe Strummer and The Clash:
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power D’you know how you can use it? The voices in your head are calling Stop wasting your time, there’s nothing coming Only a fool would think, someone could save you.
Working for the Clampdown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTQCU2ndzzw&feature=player_embedded#!
Actually I think we need to give even less ground to the religious than that. It’s not just that sometimes religious people do good things, it’s that when they do good, they’re appealing to secular ethics to do so. An example will be any point where people contrast “real” Christians, Muslims or Jews from extremists. What exactly is it that explains why those believers derive nice liberal values from the scripture because it can’t be the scripture; we all know that scripture can be used to justify whichever system you please.
No, we tell the difference because we’ve a culture generally steeped in secular values that form the hidden backdrop to the debate. The religious really are only moral because of secular values such as concern for others or that niggling little thing called 2,500 years of secular ethics in philosphy.
The most telling part of Jerry’s article for me:
Pilligucci’s piece is the same old generic bash at invisible angry atheists and even stoops to use the entirely human trait of occasional irrationality to denigrate all atheists. Look, I will usually fall for “3 for 2” offers in the supermarket, I will be duped on Amazon by sudden price drops (even though the original quoted price was inflated to make the sale appealing), I will usually go for brand medicines rather than equally effective generic brands. I’m irrational on occasions, I don’t apply critical thinking at every point, but that doesn’t dilute any argument I have on the harm from religion.
However, I genuinely don’t get what Jerry is saying. First, in effect, the above quote seems to say it’s targeted, rather than permanent anger that is right and justifiable. Anger in the face of “religious stupidity” is absolutely right, but I would point out that it isn’t the same as permanent anger. Of course we can justify anger, that’s easy, but that doesn’t make all anger justifiable or the use of anger always appropriate. I’m just confused as to what Jerry’s argument is here, is it permanent anger is ok or just that focused anger at “religious stupidity” is ok? If the former, I’m sorry that’s not the case, and the Big Four Atheists reference demonstrate that. If the latter, then fine, but my take on the Pigliucci article is that he’s saying the same thing. Yes saying it in a different way, yes saying it by creating this mythical hoard of warlike atheists, but saying it nonetheless.
And just lastly, one final point on the quote: I get it, I agree, the Accomodationist Manifesto is tiresome, unsupported and weak, but I really think Jerry’s comments regarding who he’d rather have a drink with is unnecessary and actually weakens his whole point. It just makes Jerry seem bitter and personal about Mooney which is even worse after stating how the Big Four are not bitter.
Pilligucci’s rant was motivated by grumpiness and irritation as much as any of our rants. But is he seriously justified in being grumpy and irritated by a AA ad? Not only does his grumpiness seem misplaced, but his critique is entirely inaccurate and ridiculous. He then uses this sloppy premise to attack inferior atheists, which is even more suspect.
Just like Mooney, he does not want to call himself one of those irrational accommodationists, and so then he feels entirely justified to do just what accommodationists do.
I have no problem with being grumpy or moody, which is motivation enough to answer back to all kinds of stupidity, but so long as it is consistent and coherent.
Certainly anger is an appropriate, maybe a necessary response to the anti-human ideas and actions of the religious when thoseare harmful. But let’s not deny ourselves the pleasure of ridiculing the religious when that is what they truly deserve, as in this case
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/gay-demon-exorcist-claims-mass-animal-deaths-due-dont-ask-repeal/
@ C Anders
I think Jerry’s point is pretty adequately summed up by the the first sentence of the passage you quoted. Something like, that permanent anger need not be a corrupting influence. Jerry’s actual argument is a little unclear but that’s par for the course for a piece of casual writing where the idea being argued against has become embedded in the language itself. Simply put, permanent anger, in an intellectal sense, is different from being permanently angry, in an emotional sense, but the distinction isn’t at all easy to make, as the clumsiness of this sentence attests. It is however, important since it’s all to easy to argue that, because we can’t live in a permanent state of anger, we had better forget about (cease to care about, be motivated by)injustice. (Anger is an energy – indeed! – thanks Shatterface) Fortunately we have people like Ophelia as living counterexamples to that fallacy but the counter-argument too needs to be made.