This year, I found out about Interview an Atheist at Church Day the day before it happened. This year, the people who initiated the project are working a bit harder to get the word out. You can help.

Interview an Atheist at Church Day is a community project aimed at bettering the understanding between atheists and religious persons. We hope to connect atheists who are willing to be interviewed with congregations in their area that are interested in developing ties with atheists in their area. The “day” represents our desire to grow into something far-reaching and beneficial to atheists and churchgoers alike.

As unbelieving populations around the world [continue] to rise, dialogue and understanding between atheists and people of faith is more important than ever. We live and work in the same world: understanding better what both unites and divides religious and non-religious people can only help us make this world a better place.

We hope that these interviews will benefit both believers and non-believers.  Possible questions include:

1.  How does your atheism influence your day-to-day actions?

2.  Why don’t you believe in God?

3. How do you find meaning in an atheistic universe?

4. Where do you think morality comes from?

5. How can we find a way to work together?

They’re looking both for atheists who are willing to be interviewed and churches that want to quiz an atheist. They’re also trying to raise a small budget to promote the idea more widely. Do what you can.

Clark Bianco at Popehat put up a post Friday claiming that atheists are confused because they rely on the concept of rights. Although I disagree with him, I can see where the confusion comes from. He presents an interesting argument:

No, the reason that modern atheists have incoherent views is that they simultaneously

1. assert that there is nothing beyond that which is visible (i.e. they are materialists)
2. they believe in rights, and not merely in a legal or social descriptive way, but in an absolute and prescriptive way.

Let me explain what I mean by point number 2.

The English language muddies many discussions of “rights” because it uses one term to cover three very distinct meanings.

The three meanings are:

1. the “rights” that society acknowledges a person has
2. the “rights” that government acknowledges a person has
3. the “rights” that a person actually has according to non-material abstract principles

I assert that almost everyone in the modern West, including “Brights” / “new atheists” / Ayn Rand followers / etc. acknowledges these three distinct things and acknowledges them as distinct. And it’s that final one, the acknowledgement of non-material abstract principles, that puts the contradiction in modern atheism.

He then goes on to give examples that do a very good job of demonstrating that there are indeed three distinct meanings of “rights”. That part of his argument is sound. So where does the whole thing fall down? Continue reading “Someone Is Confused About Ethics” →

Ed Brayton has a request. It’s more than reasonable. It may even be something you’ve already considered doing on your own:

I’m sure you’ve heard by now about Joe Klein’s awful cover story in Time magazine last week, which took an entirely inaccurate and gratuitous cheap shot at the atheist and humanist community. His article focused on Team Rubicon, a wonderful organization of veterans that does crisis relief work after natural disasters.

[…]

You may also have seen Klein’s sad and absurd response to criticism he received for it, which Hemant thoroughly dismantled, and the editors of the magazine, when faced with the opportunity to make up for it, instead making it even worse. And I hope you’ve seen Dale McGowan’s eloquent rebuttal in the Washington Post.

But as Dale suggests, this really isn’t about Joe Klein. Frankly, Klein has been a tired hack for most of my adult life, so I’m not at all surprised by either his initial absurdity or his equally inane response to criticism. It isn’t even really about Time magazine, though their response has been pretty appalling. It’s about how ignorant statements like the one Klein made are perfectly in sync with the larger culture, which tends to treat the entire secular community with indifference, at best, or outright hostility. And as long as the mainstream media continues to view us with either dismissal or derision, the situation is not going to change.

This is where you come in. On behalf of Foundation Beyond Belief, which has been so successful in channeling the compassion of the humanist community that it is about to go over the $1 million mark in funds raised and distributed in less than four years of operation, I’d like to ask you to email the editors of Time magazine at [email protected]. Please be polite rather than angry when you do so.

If you need them, Ed has a number of things Time really should know about Foundation Beyond Belief. Those are good, particularly if you helped contribute to those efforts. Or since many of you are members of local atheist or humanist groups that do the kind of work Klein is claiming doesn’t happen, you can tell them about that too.

Tell them about the donations collected. Tell them about the blood drives. Tell them about the trash picked up. Tell them about those hot meals that have been handed out.

If there is also a letter sent by the leaders of the organization you belong to, all the better, but don’t neglect to write to them yourself.