Too many bridges impede the flow
Once again Chris Stedman is at the Huffington Post (home of woo and worse, home of Jenny McCarthy in deep denial about the exposure of Andrew Wakefield’s fraud) saying how great it is when atheists Reach Out to peopleoffaith.
He had a good time at Christmas. He went home and hung out with his family. Excellent; lovely; I have not a word to say in dissent. But he drew a moral from it, which seems to be that atheists are grumpy therefore it is urgent for humanists to Reach Out.
The trouble with that is that not all atheists are grumpy and that, especially, even atheists who are grumpy are not necessarily grumpy all the time. Things aren’t as stark as that.
We cannot promote Humanist values when we expend our energy lobbing simplistic critiques at the religious, or demand that people stop participating in practices they enjoy simply because they’re associated with religion.
Yes we can. We can do the one, and then the other.
All right, I know; he means we give Humanism a bad name by doing the things he accuses us of doing. But I think that oversimplifies the matter. Maybe some vocal atheists give some branches of humanism a bad name by doing foolish or trivial things – but that’s life in the big city. I’m not convinced that vocal atheists need to shape what they say and do according to what might possibly give Humanism a bad name.
As the Interfaith and Community Service Fellow for the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, I am working on the ground to build up positive Humanist community…To build, literally and metaphorically, a Humanist community that is healthy and sustainable, we must get over this sense that provocation should be our number one goal, and that positive engagement with others is unimportant.
What sense? I have no such sense. I don’t have some settled view that “positive engagement with others is unimportant.” I don’t put it in those terms, because I’m not enamored of managementspeak, but I certainly think it’s fine to get along and sometimes collaborate with other people. Of course I do! Stedman’s version is sheer strawman. What I don’t think, however, is that I have some affirmative duty to Reach Out to Faith Communities as such, any more than I have some affirmative duty to Reach Out to Republican Communities as such, or Banker Communities as such, or Realtor Communities as such. Stedman, on the other hand, does think he has such an affirmative duty. He seems to think that he has to Reach Out to People of Faith precisely because they are in some sense opposites. I don’t have that. To me, disagreement is disagreement. It’s not a motivation for Reaching Out. I disagree with “faith” as a way of thinking, so I’m not going to Reach Out to it. That doesn’t mean I’m going to pounce on anyone I happen to encounter who has it, it just means I’m not going to open a diplomatic mission to it.
I believe that ethics and engagement are central to what it means to live in the world as a Humanist, and that Humanist community and identity require an affirmative foundation, not one structured in contrast to ideologies we disagree with.
But you can have both. You can be affirmative and still go on disagreeing with ideologies you disagree with. The one does not interfere with the other. Stedman really wants to persuade people that it does (so he’s not being affirmative toward atheists, wouldn’t you say?), but it doesn’t.
Absolutely! “… you can have both. You can be affirmative and still go on disagreeing with ideologies you disagree with. The one does not interfere with the other.” But there’s more than that. Religion is a problem. It’s a problem intellectually. It’s a problem socially. It’s a problem politically. If religions would suddenly change their tune and say, “Hey, that’s great, you believe your way, we’ll believe in ours. But that needn’t affect the society we live in or the laws that govern us,” then I’d probably say okay, let’s live in peace together. You go your way, I’ll go mine. But when religions interfere with the education of children, the freedom of women, etc., and threaten harm to others for their beliefs — and many religious beliefs do this — then it is time to say no, in those respects we won’t reach out to you or affirm you. It is very troubling to see someone who doesn’t get this point, and thinks that Humanism is just another belief system. The underlying premise of humanism, as I understand it, is the critique of religion and religion’s deleterious effects on society. If Stedman doesn’t understand this, then he’d better get cracking. He’s got a whole lot of learning to do.
Give the man a break. As a courtier, what’s he supposed to say?
My guess is that he spends more time hanging out with Unitarians and Quakers than with Pentecostals and Southern Baptists.
What stupidity! What straw!
When you’re an atheist, you can’t help but “engage” with non-atheists. Unless you live as a hermit, you have to move about in a society in which you are a severe minority. I engage positively with non-atheists all day long, without incident.
As far as the atheist community goes, from whence comes this idea that provocation is a negative thing? Provocation for the sake of provocation is certainly the stuff of mischief, but provocation with a purpose is another matter altogether. Any group of like-minded people who are looking to convince their fellow citizens of certain points should be engaging in provocation. To get people to think, you have to provoke them in some way. (Anyone who has been a teacher knows this.) I fear a perfectly P.C. society in which we’re all 100% agreeable ALL the time, in which no one ever provokes anyone for fear of offending them. Myself, I’d rather be offended from time to time. I’d rather be challenged.
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So would I, and more than that, I think that’s a better preference. I think it’s fair to universalize it. I think it’s fair to say: if you wouldn’t rather be challenged, then you’re doin it rong.
Maybe that’s why I just don’t feel the guilt that all these guilt-mongers think I should feel. I really don’t think the kind of provocation that I and others do is harmful to most people. (The exception is, I think, people who’ve been barred from education in one way or another. I do hate shaming people, so that kind of consideration inhibits me in real life.)
That’s clear from this.
You’d better believe that truly religious people define it just that way. In fact, secular humanism is a rallying cry pointing to what must be pushed back against. It’s only believers in belief who feel otherwise. So your positive engagement with others is just going to be with others like yourself. Yeah, that really moves things forward.
Since when has this been the number one goal? It is not just provocation for provocation’s sake, but to effect change. To get people to think, to create cognitive dissonance… It goes back to your niceness quote a few posts back.
So? Maybe they’ll both find someone more compatible.
***
Ah, but he doesn’t give a hoot about the atheist community (or many of the other communities or movements important to me). And I’m tired of the pompous assumption that we share these people’s priorities – quite frankly, I haven’t seen anything in his cause that I find particularly appealing. If he wants me to join with his Humanist community, he can damn well engage me, as I am. If not, he can STFU. I didn’t ask for his advice, he’s misrepresented me and my community, and I really don’t care about his views. I’m not going to lay off the pof, so he can stop wasting his time.
“I know you’re an atheist, but is it OK for me to say ‘Merry Christmas’ to you?”
I spotted the same question in the article and wondered why it was that his father’s girlfriend waited ’till he was almost out the door before she apparently offloaded on to him the anger of that of her last boyfriend, regarding atheism, etc. Could it – not have been more than nervousness of atheism of the past, per se, that was really bothering her? Who knows, only her for sure? Maybe she felt that her past had come back to haunt her in the guise of, not her boyfriend, but that of the son. Once bitten by a Gnu, twice shy of Gnu’s. Pure speculation on my part.
I don’t think it’s ever been a goal at all. It’s a tactic, or (often) an unintended effect. But presenting it as a goal itself is very convenient for those whose intention it is to ignore real goals that they may not share and present all gnu actions as performed for no rational reason or purely for their own sake.
Not to me.
The whole presentation (not yours – Stedman’s) makes me angry. It’s just so typical: anecdotal tale told from only one perspective, abstracted from any local or broader societal context, with the presumption that everyone will naturally understand that the selfish and unbending atheist is in the wrong and the cause of all friction (not to mention unfortunately seen as representative of all, giving atheism a bad name). Can you imagine similar stories with other marginalized groups in the role of the atheist?
It’s long past time for them to start thinking seriously about how to be more thoughtful concerning us, make an effort to understand us, and accomodate us.
This really annoys me. A handful of atheists might put people off by acting like dicks – we’ve probably all encountered some of those people – but compare that handful to the millions of nutters who give religion ‘a bad name’ day in, day out…
‘we must get over this sense that … positive engagement with others is unimportant’ – who seriously thinks that positively engaging with others is unimportant?
As for ‘Humanist community and identity’, I’m interested in neither. I’m interested in living as an individual who can live as he wishes without anyone having the right to push their superstitions and ‘divine commands’ on me. I don’t consider myself a ‘humanist’ who needs an ‘identity’, which is just replacing one construct (Christian, Muslim, etc.) with another. Frankly, I want to be left alone (‘Don’t Tread on Me’ is a great principle), but aggressive religious people don’t like that, hence the need to point out how empty and groundless their own beliefs, ‘communities’, and ‘identities’ actually are. This is not ‘aggression’, so much as robust self-preservation.
And to use one’s father’s girlfriend’s anecdotal evidence to convey the nasty atheist’s that there are about the place seems somewhat liket a cheap shot indeed.
Are participatory Christmas practices (CS refers to) not so much associated with religion, but, quintessentially, the very essence of religion itself? For example, when most people go to Xmas mass, they partake in the birth of the coming of the Savior Jesus Christ, which is one of the most important events on the Christian calender. Maybe my reading of it is incorrect?
Humanist Chaplaincy sounds terribly religious, doesn’t it just?
isn’t Chris Stedman supposedly an atheist? He should use himself as a counter anecdote.
Until someone trots out that sophisticated theology I keep hearing about but never actually see any examples of, it will be scattered simplistic critiques followed by a warming front of irony, satire and ridicule.