When I argue that atheists ought to aspire to be better people, I always get this weird counter-argument, along these lines: Ayn Rand was an atheist, and she pretty much opposed every single thing you lousy Social Justice Warriors stand for. Are you saying she wasn’t an atheist?
No. I’m saying she was a rather crappy person, and that maybe atheists ought to aim a little higher, and not insist on reducing every atheist to the same feeble common denominator. That the general term encompasses some awful people does not mean we’ve been given a pass to be awful ourselves. If the atheist movement were synonymous with the objectivist movement, I wouldn’t be proud to call myself one.
Here’s another perspective:
I have another response to those social justice haters: if you’re so smart and gosh-darned clever, how come you’re not using your powers to help other people and promote equality and diversity and justice for all? Superman wasn’t a Libertarian, but Lex Luthor shows all the signs.
Eh, I’d much rather have a putative ethical movement than an atheist one. Say what you will about the awkward “Brights” moniker, it was a sincere attempt to come up with a descriptive term for an ethical movement, as opposed to a factoid like “atheist”. Fine, you’re an atheist. So what? What does that really tell me about you as a person? Nothing. “Bright”, flawed as it is, tells me more than that. You might as well own the pejorative “Social Justice Warrior” instead of “atheist”, if it’s differentiating yourself from those you hold in contempt that you want.
I’m confused.
One who is not convinced that an actual deity really exists is an atheist. That’s it. I need it to be defined that way so I can argue that atheism is in no way comparable to a religion.
It’d be nice if atheism also correlated with ‘being a decent human being’. It doesn’t. Maybe it did in the past, but it does now.
But I don’t want to change the meaning of the word atheism, because I don’t want to deal with any argument that ‘atheists are terrible persons’ (from the theists) or ‘atheists ought to behave as morally superior persons’ (from PZ?). Those were never part of the definition.
I came from a religious background. I had to purge my mind of the idea that atheism is associated with ‘bad things’, I learned that it simply was lack of belief, that there was no guilt by association, because there was no association. You can’t argue a point by association. It’s not a reason.
The labelling confuses me. I want to separate the position that atheists ought to care about social justice from atheism itself. In that way I can still respond to those who say all atheists are terrible people, but still feel part of a group that takes a stand for justice. I want to be able to admit, without shame, that some atheists are assholes, just like I can admit that some christians are decent human beings.
I’d very much like to see the time that all atheists are also united on the issue of social justice, but I won’t tell others that they ought to care _because_ they are atheist.
PZ, how can you feel proud for being an atheist? What part of the definition of atheism makes you feel proud?
I appreciate you, but not because you are an atheist. I appreciate you because you are a good person, because you are someone who cares about others, because you fight for justice. That is the reason you have my respect.
@wirebash #2 – It’s not that the word means something different. It’s that there is a movement associated with it and the movement has to, well, move. It’s like getting a religion and the church that runs it mixed up. The two are NEVER the same thing nor are they even on the same moral ground. Which is the same here with atheism as a simple term versus an atheist movement. A movement has to go somewhere or it ceases to exist. If nobody feels their lives or the world in general would be a better place, there’s absolutely no reason to stand up and be counted as part of a group that’s occasionally vilified.
lanir @ 3:
Well, I’m happy to not villify Ayn Rand for being an atheist. But how do you differentiate yourself from someone like her as an atheist? I think you need to think outside the box to do that.
I just can’t follow the argument.
“We’re an atheist movement. What we have in common is we are atheists. Why should we treat people decently regardless of their gender or race? That’s got nothing to do with atheism!”
You might as well be arguing:
“This is a golf club. It’s for people who play golf. Why do we need to get liability insurance? Liability insurance is totally unrelated to golf!”
@ 5:
“You’re an atheist? Isn’t Ayn Rand an atheist too? So you’re all for selfishness being a virtue then? Oh, you’re not? Why not? Because you think that primates, including us, have an innate sense of fairness? Why do you believe that? Oh, who is this fellow named Frans de Waal, and what does he know about primates then? I guess there’s more to ethics than atheism then, isn’t there?”
And I need to look up the definition of “motivated reasoning.”
Just as you said, you really are confused. They never did in the past, and no one says they do correlate. They say things like “it’d be nice.”
You just did it, right there. Turns out definitions aren’t much of an issue after all.
But you’re not. Atheism doesn’t correlate (strongly, at least) with being a decent human being. Remember? So you’re part of a group that’s full of shitty people, and some part of that actually do what you want. Whatever the case may be, a label that we fix to this thing or that thing or the other thing will do absolutely nothing to change those facts. And (practically?) everybody already knows that, including PZ.
Why not? What’s your refusal to do so even about at this point? Do you think that getting rid of religious dogmas and starting fresh, based on real facts about reality, is (at a minimum) a good start to caring about real-world social justice issues? Is there some reason why reality just isn’t enough to get us to care? What else is supposedly needed, and how the fuck would that even work?
c.z. @ 7:
I don’t think Objectivists got off to a good start by simply rejecting theism. So, at a minimum, just being an atheist doesn’t make you care about social justice.
No, you get a line about Ayn Rand when you, either directly or by insinuation, try to argue that *atheism*, by virtue of being a position held by *people*, therefore necessitates a *requirement* (your word) of social justice.
I see nothing wrong with arguing for Social Justice; I actually see pretty much everything *right* in doing so. You seem to ignore how many of the “dictionary atheists” (myself included) are in fact completely in agreement with you about the importance of social justice. It’s the view that co-opting the term for the concept, using it as synonymous with the movement, is not honest, that gets at some such as myself. Literally on every other aspect of social justice concerns we *are* agreeing.
Now, I know that there are those that argue it because they *are* against social justice. In that, I will (and DO) fight alongside you against them, not because they make that argument (since obviously I consider it a correct one) but because they are against social justice.
Sometimes I wonder why that isn’t enough to get along, and why you have to sneer at people pointing out that you are using an “ought” in place of an “is”. Instead, I am among those who get labeled as *against* social justice when nothing could be further.
That isn’t what I said. Real facts about reality. If you don’t in fact have those, then you don’t have them. And no ideology “makes” you do anything, because that’s not the sort of thing ideologies are or how people work. What’s so confusing about this?
Oh god, “equality under the law.” You mean, like this:
Separate but Equal.
That’s equality under the law. It even uses the very word so there cannot be any confusion. I able to infer, therefore, that all issues of racial injustice ended that day.
Equality under the law is a necessary but not sufficient condition of actual equality (or, gasp, social justice).
“And no ideology “makes” you do anything, because that’s not the sort of thing ideologies are or how people work.”
As an aside, I find this intriguing, because there was just a dust-up over an out-of-context Sam Harris quote dealing with this very subject in the past day. Now, the out-of-context part was just about making him look bad (and on that I support Harris even though I do not support other recent comments), but it is fascinating that the in-context version of the quote dealt specifically with the idea that ideology *does* motivate our behavior, sometimes to the point of making actions essentially obligatory. I think that a reasonable reading of the concept that ideology can *make* you do something could fit within that.
The whole problem with trying to turn atheism into a “movement” is that all you have in common is a lack of belief in a deity. That doesn’t really imply anything more than that… it’s like trying to build a political party around people that don’t like hamburgers. “Sure, we all agree we don’t like hamburgers, so… so now what?” I would go so far as to call it a fool’s errand.
My word? Really? So when I agree that an asocial anti-justice proto-slymian like Ayn Rand actually was an atheist, you somehow mentally translate that into an insistence that you are *required* to be pro-social justice to be an atheist?
Weird. If you think you were hired to be my official translator, you are now fired.
@13 Radium Coyote
In the context of a culture that forced people to eat hamburgers, or levied pressure through social coercion, the act of rebelling against that requirement (official or otherwise) implies a great deal.
That being said, asshole atheists have more or less forced me to conclude that atheism is a nice thing to promote, but I’d much rather live in a society of benign moderate religious folks (as silly and pointless as their weird ideas are) rather than a world of glibertarian atheists. I share a great deal more in common, politically and socially, with the religious folks I worked with on the Southside of Chicago providing legal aid to indigent clients than I do with Thunderf00t, and, sadly, Richard Dawkins.
Translation: you’re a dishonest fucking idiot.
(The first taste is free, but I charge by the letter.)
c.r. @ 10:
Objectivists consider themselves entirely fact-based, by definition, although the facts they choose and how they evaluate them do tend to support the foregone conclusion that selfishness is a virtue. I guess if you’re equating atheism with naturalism, then we can talk about how wrong they are based on the facts as well. But it must be said that Objectivists are still atheists, no?
I wonder why people who say there is and should be nothing to atheism but “not believing in gods” get so emotionally invested in the topic. If they really don’t believe that atheism should promote some sort of change in behavior, then it’s an utterly superfluous difference, so why get worked up about it?
@15 doubtthat
I guess I just don’t see atheism in the context of a huge battle. I wasn’t raised to be religious, and while religion obviously existed all around me, I mostly thought of it when I was growing up in the context of pointless little rituals people do because we’re creatures of habit. Dad always has coffee in the morning… the neighbors listen to a preacher on Sunday. Each of us does pointless stuff on one level or another.
Granted, my understanding of this changed when I got to college. It slowly dawned on me that people actually took this Bible stuff seriously. So, as I sometimes do, I dove into it, learned what I could about it, chewed through the history of it at a rate that would have earned me some good marks in a history class… and reached the conclusion that anyone who takes that too seriously probably doesn’t understand how it became what it is. And then I mostly stopped caring about it, because I don’t really know any people who are terribly religious… and that includes the preacher down the lane.
All this drama is the height of ridiculousness to me. So some youtuber got drunk and made an ass of himself… so what? I’ve done that, and it wasn’t exactly front page news.
It strikes me as the is-ought fallacy. PZ is saying that movement atheism* should be more than just non-theism, but should embrace certain goals in concert with its non-theism. Ayn Rand might be an atheist, but PZ would rather that movement-atheism not look like Objectivism.
* Note the adjective. I’ve known plenty of non-theists who just don’t care about religion (even being atheist), but joining a movement implies some sort of social goal, even if it is ‘fight encroachment of secretarian beliefs on society at large’ or ‘have a friendly place to chat with like-minded people’.
@19 Radium Coyote
Oddly, as atheism or general disinterest in Christianity (In the US, especially) becomes more accepted, the unifying effect of rebelling against the system becomes less of a cohesive act. In the area where I grew up, for example, only a tiny, tiny fraction of the right-wing majority is non-religious. Conservatism and Christianity are so closely tied – explicitly and intentionally so – that there is essentially no difference between casting aside their religion and battling against their politics. Certainly there are some folks who manage to adopt liberal political stances while retaining supernatural beliefs, but they shave away a ton of religious dogma to get there.
In other parts of the country – especially in more affluent areas where libertarianism is indistinguishable from a “Survival of the Fittest” type justification for gross economic inequity – the link between conservatism and religion isn’t nearly as strong.
But, of course, PZ was very clear that his assessment of “atheism” was aspirational: “aim higher”.
I am becoming less sanguine about the possibility of that happening…
A guy made a video on YouTube. Another guy criticized that video through his blog. I don’t really see this as drama. It’s just the way conversations take place in the modern world.
I didn’t watch the video (I could have, but it’s a pain.) The opening text “they’re right, you’re wrong” put me off right away. I don’t know if it was posted as an example of what is right with capital-A Atheism or what’s wrong with it, but the text alone comes across as smug, self-righteous, and condescending. So why bother?
That’s the problem with Atheism for people like me, who don’t really care what supernatural beings people believe in or don’t believe in, but care very much what they do to other people and to the world we live in.
If Atheism is about feeling smug and superior because of what you don’t believe in (similarities to many born-again Christians are, to paraphrase Böll, “unavoidable”) and incidentally (or not so incidentally) supporting their own privilege and the exploitive and oppressive systems that maintain that privilege, then as far as I’m concerned, the sooner Atheism ends up in the dustbin of history, the better.
On the other hand, if the “Atheist” label is mainly worn by people who are working to make the world a better place, people whose actions show they care about people who are suffering and oppressed, then I’d be more inclined to support and encourage Atheism.
A philosophy/religion/ethical system is judged by the behavior of the people who subscribe to it.
So far, though, with the exception of those I’ve encountered at FTB and the Skepchick collective, my experience of capital-A Atheists has been mostly in the first category. (I notice that Libby Anne, of “Joy, Love, Feminism” won’t call herself “atheist” because of the bad behavior of so many capital-A Atheists.)
@15: ‘sfunny, but when I was one of those moderate Christians, there came a point when I realized I had way more in common with moderates and progressives in other religions, or no religion, than with my nominal brethren in the conservative end of the church. And now I’ve got this strange feeling of deja vu….
I’ve now been an atheist for about 13 years. And almost from the beginning — basically, as soon as I got used to the fact that this god business was over and done with, permanently — I thought: OK, now let’s get on with something meaningful. Because “doesn’t believe in God” isn’t really a very interesting fact about me.
It must be around midnight there, because you were just comparing it to not liking hamburgers, unless buried somewhere in that rambling is a “yeah, my mistake, you’re right, still dawning on me” which I missed.
It’s not just “Bible stuff” either, for fuck’s sake. People think this is about ethics itself, the very nature of meaning and purposefulness and love and beauty and truth and yadda yadda yadda, who we are, what we should look like, who we should talk to about what, how we all should live and think, what kind of laws we make, what we do with our genitalia … the most fundamental issues we can possibly contend with, along with a big heaping helping of total nonsense that gets peddled like it matters just as much. Then they’ll turn it up to eleven and say that even they can’t comprehend how mysteriously their mysterious forces work — they just know that they do anyway. If you can think of something big, this is bigger to them. If they can’t think of something big enough, it’s only their failure, as the idea is so much bigger, you understand. It must be. Congratulations on being totally sheltered from all that horsehit, but that’s not going to make for a convincing argument.
Naked Bunny With A Whip @#18–
I suspect (this is it for me, anyway) that it is the result of two competing narratives. In one case, it’s the old “it takes more faith to be an atheist” and “atheism is just another religion, and thus should not be in schools”… the notion of the privative definition of atheism counters these nicely, but it is bedfellows with the “dictionary atheist”. Some people are not defending dictionary atheism in the context of the present social justice discussion, but in the context of these idiotic claims.
But the distinction that PZ makes–we work for social justice *because we are human* (or mollusk), works for me, although it is a completely different narrative. If “religion poisons everything”, working for unpoisoned everything is worth doing. Without a particular dogma to assert that [insert “other” here] are inferior, frankly, the burden of proof is on those who would assert such inferiority. We *should* have a head start on being good people, BUT of course we have lived all our lives in a poisoned culture.
It’s not for us to get used to the poison, or justify it, but it certainly seems some of us do. And are supported by the poisoned culture when we do. (I had “them” and “they”, but then…)
Semi-off topic, but every single time I see that particular picture of Hitchens, I think it’s Momus.
@24 consciousness razor
Yes, I WAS comparing Christianity to liking hamburgers. The really big issues you’re talking about, life, death, ethics, what holes you’re allowed to stick your wang in… all deserve a better framework than the latest reboot of a death-and-resurrection cult. I understand that some people take this very seriously. I simply can’t. Which brings me to your latter statement:
” Congratulations on being totally sheltered from all that horsehit, but that’s not going to make for a convincing argument.”
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I don’t go door to door selling atheism. And I wouldn’t think that was a very helpful activity. Nobody likes it when the Jehovah’s Witnesses show up to hand you a Watchtower. Who would welcome someone going door to door shouting “God is Dead!”
I guess if I had a question, it’s: where does this combativeness come from? If you consider it a fight at all, this is not a good way to win.
sez radium coyote @19: “I guess I just don’t see atheism in the context of a huge battle.”
Perhaps you haven’t been looking, or even haven’t opened your eyes to see the huge battle?
If you’re a Dictionary Atheist, such that lack-of-god-belief is just this isolated meme floating around in your mind, and you’ve never bothered to tease out any of its implications/consequences/corollaries? Then, sure, you very probably wouldn’t see a battle, huge or otherwise. Because, hey, religion is just this quaint little habit that some people follow, and it’s no different than drinking coffee every morning, amirite?
But consider how things might look to a different god-belief-lacking person… say, a god-belief-lacking person who notices how common it is that religions directly command their adherents to do shitty things, and how common it is that otherwise-good religious people decline to fight against stuff that they know is shitty, when those religious people believe that said shitty stuff is “godly” or “sacred” or otherwise supported by their religion. Such a god-belief-lacking person might well think that religion is not just a quaint little habit, yes? Such a god-belief-lacking person might conclude that religion is actively harmful, that active opposition to religion is actively helpful. And such a god-belief-lacking person might even decide that maybe they ought to seek out other god-belief-lacking people for the purpose of working together to ‘defang’ the ‘beast’ that is religion.
Of course, such a god-belief-lacking person probably wouldn’t make any difference to a Dictionary Atheist whose lack-of-god-belief is just an isolated meme floating around in their mind. That sort of Dictionary Atheist probably wouldn’t care about the ‘activist’ god-belief-lacking person, nor would they care about the activist activities of said ‘activist’ god-belief-lacking person, because it’s all just quaint little habits, and some people do ‘atheist activism’ the way some other people drink coffee or wear purple hats, you know?
It clearly wouldn’t make sense for such a Dictionary Atheist, an atheist whose unbelief is an isolated meme, to oppose, or even complain about, ‘activist’ god-belief-lacking people, because. To a Dictionary Atheist, lack-of-god-belief isn’t a thing on whose basis people can or should bond together, and whatever an ‘activist’ god-belief-lacking person does, that other person’s activities cannot have anything even vaguely like an adverse effect on atheism, which (to a Dictionary Atheist) consists solely and entirely of the bare notion that there ain’t no gods.
Curiously, some people who do identify themselves as Dictionary Atheists—as people to whom lack-of-god-belief just plain is an isolated meme, without any associated implications or corollaries or consequences—feel the need to visit Pharyngula and leave comments about how atheism is just an isolated meme, and they therefore think that ‘activist’ god-belief-lacking people are somehow hurting atheism. The Dictionary Atheists who do this sort of thing are uniformly unable to proffer anything like a clear explanation of how ‘activist’ atheists are hurting the isolated meme of lack-of-god-belief, nor do they ever explain what’s so bad about the prospect of ‘damage’ to this lack-of-god-belief meme which, they believe, is isolated and has no wider consequences/corollaries/implications.
[shrug]
Some people like to drink coffee every morning; some people like to get themselves all concerned-like over the possibility of ‘harm’ done to a thing which, by their own admission, can’t be harmed in any way. It is a mystery.
I used to think it would be a good thing to get rid of religion, so we could throw out the parasite class and the baggage that comes with belief.
Nowadays I think that won’t work. I’m all for a more secular society, but atheism specifically has shown to be a terrible vaccine against bullshit in general.
Try running for office. Or maybe see the polls where large swathes of the American public say they trust atheists less than rapists and felons.
If you’re concerned about atheism being about more than your own, personal, compartmentalized view of it, then there’s nothing to worry about. Right? No one is trying to force you to get on board with ethical concerns. Trying to persuade you? Yes, absolutely.
But you’re not into it. OK.
All you need to do is nothing at all. You don’t need to leave comments here. You don’t need to object to other people construing their atheism more comprehensively.
You do understand that, right? You do understand that you still have the freedom not to care, right?
So what the hell are you belly-aching (and moaning and moaning and moaning and moaning) about here? What?
@7, consciousness razor:
I want to defend my nonconviction of the existence of a deity, and that position happens to be called atheism. My nonconviction also happens to influence some of my moral choices, but it doesn’t dictate any morality in itself. It is not a moral premise, it’s a statement of fact.
Either you make a new word for ‘nonbelief in a deity’ or you make an effort to distinguish the social justice movement from atheism.
Someone once compared me to Stalin, because ‘he was also an atheist’. In my response I said that atheism has nothing to do with values.
Was I wrong about the definition of atheism?
If atheism means more than ‘not convinced that a deity exists’, then, depending on what values atheism represents, I might stop labelling myself as atheist. But, AFAIK, atheism does not mean anything more than that.
I screwed up there, I apologize. I meant to say “It’d be nice if atheism also correlated with ‘being a decent human being’. It doesn’t. Maybe it did in the past, but it doesn’t now.”
Yet PZ says “that maybe atheists ought to aim a little higher, and not insist on reducing every atheist to the same feeble common denominator.”
Maybe I’m just complaining about terminology, but it IS confusing.
Yes, I want to be part of a group of people that stand for a certain set of values. How do you want to argue that atheism stands for social justice and at the same time say that atheism doesn’t force any values?
Ironically, the words of Kent Hovind come to mind: “definitions win debates”. Sorry, but he sort of has a point there. And then I see the word atheism used in ways that only make sense if atheism is somehow more than a lack of belief. And then I’m like ‘… the fuck?’
I can tell a christian to not lie, because of the 9th commandment. I can tell a person that he should adjust his behavior, because he has responsiblities as a person. But I can’t tell a someone to behave because of the fact that he is not convinced of the existence of a deity. Yet the word ‘atheism’ keeps popping up in these conversations. Why? How is it relevant?
If you want to tell people to behave because they live in a society together with other people just like them, so they better cooperate or suffer the consequences… Yes, that’s a good argument.
If someone asks me to do something for them, and if it’s something that benefits us all, then yes, that’s a good reason for me to do it.
So, do you define an atheist as ‘One who is not convinced that any actual deities really exist.’ (I like Aron’s definitions)
And do you appeal to ‘not being convinced that any actual deities really exist’ as an an argument for social justice? Not just as part of an argument, but as an entire argument in and of itself?
Or is your argument like this:
If that’s the case, (please confirm if it is), then yes, I do accept your argument. Atheists are persons, and persons ought to behave. What I don’t understand is why you’d focus your message on ‘those who are not convinced of the existence of deities’, or why you would hold atheists to a higher standard. The world is bigger than that and some atheists are apparently stubborn mysoginists. We can’t change them, so let’s look for an audience that we CAN reach.
@18 Naked Bunny with a Whip:
Because you are messing with the definition of atheism. If someone expects something of me because I am an atheist, I want to know what definiton they are using. If someone compares me to Stalin, do I still get to tell them that they’re wrong because atheism doesn’t promote values? Or do I have to tell them that they are wrong because Stalin promoted different values than those promoted by atheism? Is Buddhism still and atheistic religion?
And, more important to me: how did I end up with the wrong definition of atheism? What mistake did I make, how can I improve? I can’t reflect on myself if I can’t verify that I’m wrong and for what reason.
Words. Fucking words.
I want to use a word without ambiguity – and, by the nine, if such a word doesn’t exist, I will make it exist.
@23 Eamon Knight:
Yes. I feel there is a ‘group’ I want to be part of, it’s the group of ‘people who care about social justice’. And a lot of those people are theists.
I’ll supply the answer:
You have a set of concerns. They’re restricted, right now, to bolstering your confidence in not having to apologize for being an atheist in a religion-soaked culture. I get that. Most of us have been there. You don’t want any *additional* pressure because you think you have enough on your plate.
That’s the charitable reading. The less charitable one is that you resent even the most subtle social pressure to stick your neck out for anything bigger than your workaday life. You don’t like other people setting a higher standard because you think it’s a direct judgment on your apathy.
No, wirebash, it’s not confusing. It’s very straightforward. Lots of us here want atheists to be about more than lack of belief. That’s not confusing. It’s NOT confusing. At all. You may find it objectionable, inconvenient, stupid, misguided, or frustrating-to-your-own-personal-projects.
But it is not confusing. Stop claiming it is. If you need to object to it do it honestly. You’re trying to put the onus on the rest of us by pretending that we’re making a confusing discursive move. You’re doing this so that you don’t have to directly, candidly object to the project. Nope, it’s not that you have to defend your own project, it’s that other people are just “confusing” you.
Shorter: You actually are obligated to defend your stance on its own terms, wirebash, even though you’re trying to avoid having to justify your objections to a social justice project.
Sorry. You are so obliged (if you’re going to start the argument, which you have, of your own free will). No free pass.
@31 Josh
My original concern was that you were trying to bundle me into your ill-considered War on your War on your War on your War on Anti-Atheism. My view is not odd, in this regard. Many regard atheist infighting as idiotic.
Now my concern is that you’re looking for a FIGHT with anyone. I wasn’t looking for a fight with you.
The doublethink in the atheist movement is goddamn hilarious. Does anybody else remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson mocking the atheist movement? He likened it to having a movement for “non-golf players,” or something to that effect. And he’s damn well right; if atheism is nothing more than disbelief, and if the movement is to focus on nothing more than disbelief, then there is no need or even use for a movement. Every aspect of the movement includes another value that we, as a group hold: the right to religious freedom, giving safe spaces to people to scared to come out in their everyday life, giving aid to kids who’s parents disown them, promoting scepticism, etc. All of those require extra values beyond believing that there is no god.
Tyson was soundly criticized for that stupid comment, because of course we all don’t sit around just disbelieving. Yet when someone suggests the atheist movement adhere to a new value set, suddenly that becomes our on and only feature.
@26 UnknownEric the Apostate
Whenever I see it in this collage it’s easy to miss the thing in his hand, and so it looks like he’s praying or something.
Don’t be dishonest. This is not “infighting.” We are talking about the core moral values of how other people are treated and mistreated in our society. This is not a parochial election of petty, personal concerns.
And don’t cast your interlocutors as “looking for a fight” when they disagree with you and tell you why. That’s a passive-aggressive power play. You understand the difference between argued disagreement and fighting. Stop pretending you don’t.
No one here is waging a “War,” which, along with “fighting,” you are working hard to define as “a partisan project only of concern to power-hungry people who want to defend their tribal affiliations without regard to the larger question of the good of society.”
Stop doing that.
@32 wirebash
There’s your problem, right there. We’re not asking atheists to be held to a higher standard. We’re saying that atheists AND theists AND deists AND apatheists AND those totally ignorant of the basics of a/theism should be in favor of whatever social justice issue you care to mention. Everyone. Equally. Without prejudice as to their god-belief.
We discuss these issues within the atheist community because this is the community we belong to, by virtue of self-selection. Like discussing the issues of race relations in Cleveland because we live in Cleveland, and not discussing the issues of race relations in Birmingham, Alabama, or Birmingham, England — because those people aren’t at hand and aren’t listening to a word you’re saying for the simple reason that they don’t even know you exist. You can impact the people within your community much more strongly than the people outside of your community. And even if you could impact the community beyond your own — it’s pure hypocrisy to attempt to do so if your own community hasn’t cleaned up its own act. “Motes and beams” I believe is the appropriate biblical reference.
You influence the audience you have, not the audience you wish you had.
It feels to me that some atheists are asking to be pigeon-holed as if being an atheist is their sole identity with no need for other facets to their personality such as ethical, moral, creative…. Sure it would be nice to have that golden ‘get out of jail’ free card, but labeling oneself an atheist, or any adjective, doesn’t do that. You might be an atheist, as I am, but that doesn’t mean I live in a bubble devoid of any human contact. I live in context of a planet filled with other people and I’m responsible for what happens around me whether I want to be or not. Not believing in a God actually increases my responsibility because there is no ‘daddy or mommy’ figure that will save the day for me. This is partially why when I blog my poetry I use the keyword label atheist quite a bit to show that atheists are part of all aspects of life, arts, and the sciences.
@34, Josh:
Fair enough, thank you.
First atheists (succesfully) convince me that no gods exist. They tell me all I was told about atheism was wrong, that atheism was nothing more than nonconviction. Now I see some atheists that apparently want atheism to be more than nonconviction.
It’s great that you want to do more, but calling it atheism makes my brain hurt. I can’t think of a reason why you’d want to start a social justice movement and call it atheism.
I’m sorry if I came across as opposing any social justice project. It just that calling it atheism seems so incredibly stupid. Certainly now, now we’ve found out that some atheists don’t want to cooperate.
Did I voice any objections other than the name?
Why call it atheism if it ain’t atheism, goddamit. That’s all.
@41 Kevin,
In that case, that’s another misinterpretation on my part, I apologize. Yes, everybody should be on board with social justice.
But we’ve just seen many atheists that don’t care about or oppose social justice, and responded negatively to attempts to ‘convert’ them. It seems so futile. On the plus side, yes, you indeed have impacted me, and that’s a good thing.
But why shouldn’t we try to reach out to a bigger audience? Who cares about hipocrisy? Or is the cure worse than the cancer?
For the love of PETE STOP IT. No one is trying to change the dictionary definition of atheism. Jesus Christ, I’m trying to be fair to you, but this doesn’t take that much thinking. Really.
Argueing about what the movement currently is misses the point being contested. The response to people claiming these things aren’t part of atheism (or even The Atheist Movement) can be “but this is what I want our movement to be”. They then have no opportunity for pedantry, and the conversation is then clearer, and more able to move forward to what the movement should be and why, rather than what it is or must necessarily be.
So this seems to be a good strategy to me. Anyone else?
Brian, experience tells me it won’t matter. Like those who claim it’s merely the tone or the curse words that turn them off, you can re-frame it as benignly as possible and they will still complain and shriek. It’s not actually about anyone being confused—don’t extend that much benefit of the doubt. It’s about I Don’t Want This To Be Happening.
@44, Josh, Official SpokesGay
It’s not that people are trying to change the definition. It’s that the same arrangement of symbols are being given two different definitions, and this is confusing.
I can’t hold it againt anyone for disliking something that causes semantic confusion. It really is awful.
Welcome to the reality of human language.
Get used to it.
@46, Josh
There is pedantry from self-proclaimed sj people in these threads.
I’m not saying that people who don’t care suddenly will. Just that the dispute will be clearer.
wirebash @ 43
How about because old, rich, cis-het white dudes are not the only atheists on the planet? There are gay atheists and trans* atheists and women atheists and atheists of color and all kinds of combinations thereof. And they’re being driven away in droves by movement atheism. Movement atheism laments that and wants to know what can be done about that. We need to increase our numbers if we’re going to get to a point where we’re not reviled by the rest of society. Well guess fucking what? Doing something about that necessitates giving a shit about social justice. It means you have to recognize that you and your organizations are as biased as anyone and fucking fix it. If you’re not interested in fighting for social justice, you’re not interested in making atheism something that everyone can get behind. That or your definition of “everyone” is really fucking narrow.
You know, back when I was a young and stupid Catholic conservative, I was constantly reminded, by several sources (i.e. my parents, right-wing talk radio, right wing magazines, etc), that if you scratch an atheist you were going to find a race-card-playing, femi-nazi, tree-hugging, wealth-redistributing, commie liberal underneath.
Now, after rejecting theism and capitalism and realizing what a turd I was on social issues, I discover that a significant chunk of atheists–including it’s high profile memebers–are made up of people who complain about race-card-playing, femi-nazi, tree-hugging, wealth-redistributing, commie liberals.
I can’t fucking win.
If you choose to believe a deity exists because some atheists are also fucking pieces of fucking trash, then I don’t care. If you choose to believe no deities exist because atheism is filled with nice people, I don’t care either.
I know many christians who are interested in fighting for social justice. They will never get on board if the social justice movement is called atheism.
Trying to apply the name atheism to something it isn’t, is harmful and not helpful in any way.
That doesn’t matter. If they see movement atheism as a socially unjust movement, then they are right to stay away from it. And now we, we can either try to fix the atheism movement. Or leave the atheism movement for what it is – a bunch of people arguing against religion – and fight for social justice from our own side.
What are you most interested in? Improving the quality of life for everyone? Making everyone atheist? Making everyone support social justice?
If you want atheism as a movement to grow and you see that people are driven away by antisocial elements in the atheism movement, then yes, you should try to fucking fix the atheism movement.
But is it about the atheism movement for you? Or about social justice? Or do you want to have it both ways?
If changing the atheism movement takes more effort than abandoning it, we should jump ship.
@wirebash
So do you think atheists are scared away from caring about disadvantaged people because churches care about disadvantaged people? I don’t think your argument works in reverse and I have seen the opposite in practice. Churches will do service programs with secular groups, atheists, UU and I have seen it. But I don’t see how you are so confused as to think people want to redefine social justice as exactly the same word as atheism.
It is pretty simple. Atheism is lack of belief in jobs. Atheists are people who care about things. Canned food is nowhere in the bible, but churches routinely have canned food drives. An atheist group may form because people want to be around those who share their lack of belief, but then they decide to adopt a mile of highway and pick up trash, or have a canned food drive. If it became known that a member of this atheist group was littering on the highway, people would talk to him and try to change his values. If he was doing something worse, the group would stop associating with him. He would no longer be a member of that group, but would still be an atheist. (A church can kick out a member, but they cannot stop them from being a christian) What you are seeing is the internet version of this.
People are saying the bigots are not part of the community of atheists that they are in. They may not phrase it this clearly, because it shouldn’t be this confusing. Of course they are not saying the bigot is no longer an atheist. They are an atheist, but they no longer represent me or my group. In the same way the bigot kicked out of a church no longer represents that church.
wirebash @ 52
If at some point you’d like to stop pretending this is a conversation about changing the dictionary definition of atheism or applying the label atheism to unrelated things, do let us know.
In the strictest literal sense, “atheist” just means lacking belief in gods, and in that sense even Buddhists are atheists.
However, as the term is generally used, “atheist” means someone who rejects religion. The thing is that religion is a large package— God is the feature advertised on the box but there are a lot of other things in it; a community or “tribe” to belong to, a set of rituals, a set of social values, and more.
A lot of people in the atheist movement have rejected the central part of that package and only the central part— they’ve broken up with God and told him to move out, but his luggage is still strewn all around their house. In the strict literal sense, of course they’re atheists, but in the actual sense that the term is used, I’m not sure that they’d qualify. After all, if you figure out that the religious authorities are lying about God but you continue to believe in the inherent superiority of men solely because those religious authorities claim God ordered it – whether you know that’s why you believe it or not – can you really claim to have abandoned religion?
Religion invented the idea of innate superiority— God over men, men over women, women over people who can’t be readily classified gender-wise. Rejecting religion means rejecting that idea. Declaring that God is a lie while reveling in your high position on the Great Chain of Being is a bit like blowing up the Death Star and assuming the rest of an entire galactic empire will just sort of stop existing without it.
These same folks won’t get on board unless the social justice movement is religious in nature. That is why atheists need their own social justice movement. So it doesn’t get swamped by the religious.
What the fuck do you think these series of posts by PZ are for. To help fix the movement. And here you are getting in the way. Either be part of the solution, or you are part of the problem. Make up your mind, but dictionary atheists are part, if not the major part, of the problem.
@8 David Wilford
Just quickly: it does almost by definition. You care about being treated justly by society despite being a nonbeliever. And that’s true of almost everyone who openly acknowledges a label such as atheist.
But to dig in deep, this debate is usually terrible and mired in the Linguistic Battles in the War of Definitions. But if you get right down to it, there are two groups of people, those who don’t care about social justice, and just ignore any public discourse on the matter, happy to live their own lives minding their own business in whatever bubble they live in. Then there is everyone else who participates in online discussions, posts comments, surfs social media, makes videos, writes blogposts or argues with people at the pub, bar, Irish-pub, guesthouse, bed-and-breakfast, water-hole, domicile.
Just as there is no statement or action pertaining to the proper organisation of society that is not in some way political, there is no expressed opinion concerning the various advantages, disadvantages or cultural realities of people in that society that includes moral opinions that does not concern Social Justice.
As soon as you say: “Don’t touch mine and I won’t care for yours” you’re expressing your opinion of social justice. Unless you shut up, you’re participating in the social justice debate, and if you’re shouting your opinions out loud, then unless you’re an outright troll who does everything and anything to derail the conversation, irrespective of the facts and basic human decency, you’re a fuckin’ Social Justice Warrior.
Pat Condell is a SJW, Richard Dawkins is a SJW, PZ Myers is a SJW, even the fuckin’ Pope is a SJW. They just all have radically different notions of what a just society would look like. SJW is only depreciating due to the fact that all of us look a little silly when our facial extremities redden from the exertion of all that much-needed shouting, but having (or pretending, or excusing, or being able to convince ourselves we have) a just society is important to almost everyone.
I do not identify as an atheist though I am totally lacking in a belief in any gods other than the types occasionally encountered in Star Trek . Truly more powerful actual beings or computer programs run a muck but not any where near like the gods of religion.
I do not care what anyone believes and can support anyone who can be called a Social Justice Warrior. It would be great if there was such a movement that would truly embrace full social justice for all but it seems to be mostly fragmented into smaller related and sometimes allied concerns. The idea of social justice and democracy which in my mind go hand in hand did not originate in any church I know about but has grown out of free thought and the Renaissance, that is my impression at least from my days of studying church history in H.S.
religion supports authority by nature even while it challenges the current authority and tries to supplant it as the new authority OF GOD. As such
It sure sounds like what some atheist are doing. They reject God as idea and reject the authority of religion and wish to supplant religious authority with there own. phuuy !
No gods no kings no priests
PZ is correct they have stopped asking questions.
When making the realization that all religion and gods are mythology and they are living in a vast mysterious universe without any gods to protect them they seem to have embraced the status quo sans religious authority. They still are not aware of reality though they reject god and are in the fucking way!
uncle frogy
My take on this whole thing is contained in the question “What is Religion?”
That capitalization is deliberate. Religion as a phenomenon objectively exists regardless of the beliefs that do not reflect reality. You can find it in social psychology and even neurobiology. Something is happening in those brains and it has to do with our social behavior and social memory processes.
What is Religion? We can’t really oppose something, or avoid it without knowing what it is. If it’s plain old human behavior that can legitimately be found in the hard sciences why the fuck are we opposing it and organizing around it’s disbelief? The answer is of course human symbolism and historical contingency. “Atheist” is an object that we all tie to real brain processes. Of course we are sensitive to it. If we (on a human level) can be sensitive to fuck, and racial epithets, and if we can see people act awful upon hearing feminism, I can accept that we apes that care about the word will all get just as sensitive. But it’s still useless as a principle to organize communities around. I’m afraid that the religious know more about that then us even if they don’t really know why.
Atheist is important because of history, and the fact that we are rallying around convenient symbols that happened to be useful as we all tried to work against other social groups. We strategically organized around a negation of what we opposed. But now that we find ourselves trying to socialize around that word we are discovering that it was a mistake. We have people that we do not want to socialize with in our midst. And more importantly we can’t know if we are really free of religion unless we know what it is. To do that we need to understand how people became atheists, and what social damage from religion we individually oppose. So we need to look to social justice among other things.
Anyone trying to socialize around that word, and define themselves with it in any serious way is really risking something. You may be more religious than you realize, and you may end up with people displaying the sort of behavior that helped drive you from religion in the first place. In fact given what we see in “the community” (new symbol yet to be chosen) right now I guarantee it.
Seven of Mine: Shrieking Feminist Harpy
Exactly. And there are different issues that come up being an atheist depending on oppression you face. Like if you’re poor or black or raising kids without religion, etc. It’s not just seperation of church and state issues. When you’re working with religious on social justice issues, they don’t want to hear that shit. Religion is seen as the default so you’re kept quiet in those space to not get in the way of good work and push away allies. So where exactly to those non-privileged atheists supposed to go? Atheist don’t even want to hear calls for more diversity at conferences, ffs and hate you just as much as the rest of society.
Just like I fight against white feminists that tell POC feminist they’re “dividing the movement”, I will fight against privileged atheists who are doing the same damn thing.
Or you leave the movement and you join or create another movement: A+, Atheism plus we believe in equality. We don’t stop being atheists; we just stop patting ourselves on the back and put our hands to the aid of others who have been disadvantaged by this society and its traditions. It’s that simple.
As the number of atheists in society grows, the term will grow ever more useless as an indicator for what actual beliefs a person holds. Whatever correlation that seems apparent for you guys across the pond now will dwindle, the religious rhetoric will cease to be effective – and political discourse will become less obviously religious as secularism (not much can be said to follow from atheism, but secularism does), but there will still be racists, communists, libertarians etc. One can only hope that in an environment of secular discourse, you guys will becomes less of a danger to the rest of the world.
Markita Lynda @62
I was thinking of Atheism+ while reading this thread. Specifically I thought about the people who were all up in arms because “yer takin’ away my atheism…I don’t want atheism rebranded…atheism doesn’t mean social justice….” I also remember all the A+ people saying “notice the + after atheism, that means it’s atheism plus other things.”
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
I think at least part of the issue is the intellectual cowardice involved in defining atheism as “only the lack of belief in gods” in order to score cheap rhetorical points in meaningless debates. So so SO desperate to define away the need to justify the atheist position that they’ve thrown away the baby AND the bathtub. This is what comes of (consciously or otherwise) seeing atheism in the context of YouTube videos devoted to pointing to theists and laughing at them for their “inferiority” and other phony ways that atheists think they’re better or smarter than other people. For at least some people, I think maintaining that bullshit narrow definition to cheat at online arguments (which often descends into harassing theists IME) is more important than just about anything else. Especially more important than worthwhile things like empathy, decency, and justice.
I dunno, Improbable Joe: most atheist/theist debates have the religionist come in will all sorts of nonsense like “on naturalism you don’t have morals” and “why aren’t you raping and killing?” Shutting that down with “atheist just means non-belief in gods, if you want to know what I think follows from that, ask me instead of making up strawmen” is often necessary. When arguing against theists, dictionary atheism as the basis to start your discussion is often crucial. In almost every other case however, there are much more interesting places to start, even in specifically atheist issues (church-state separation points can be made for instance, just by comparing/contrasting different religions).
A snarky point would be to note, the intellectual cowardace in defining atheism (and atheist issues) as “what white males in the West who don’t believe in gods think”. In a better world without reactionary conservative privilege, someone saying “doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, black or white, atheism is nonbelief in gods” would lead to “well I’m a black woman and this is what my nonbelief means to me” followed “as a fellow atheist, I’m listening.”
Seems like the same sort of issue as with Communism. Communists also have been atheists, and the founder of their creed is well-known for having stated that religion is the “opium of the people”.
I don’t understand how anyone can honestly say that atheism stops at not believing in gods. As soon as you reject your society’s gods, you’ve rejected a major source of and the authority behind your society’s morality, right? So atheism almost by definition HAS to be about more than just whether you believe in gods or not, and that’s before we even get close to “I want my society not to treat me as a pariah just for being different”.
I once made the proposal that all atheists should redefine themselves as
Freethinkers, because in my humble opinion the enemy is not religion as
such but specifically “revealed” religion, the acceptance of
“revelation” as a reliable source of knowledge. As far as I can tell,
religions that don’t make any claims to “revelation” (Deists, Quakers,
Pantheists, some Pagans) are harmless and may provide some people with
emotional comfort.
Nevertheless a number of activists have chosen the banner of “atheism”
rather than “humanism” or “freethought”, I think because they want to
make it clear what they are against. Who is the enemy? What is the root
of the evil we are fighting? These people are not primarily
philosophers, engaged in intellectual exploration for the fun of it.
They have seen organized religion doing harm in people’s lives and want
to oppose the harm that it does. Even granting that in a free society
there will always be organized religion, it is the role of atheists to
force religion to be benign, keeping it separate from the State and on
the defensive about its other irrationalities and injustices. I think
they do not call themselves “humanists” because they perceive humanists
as being on the defensive themselves, seeking to avoid confrontation,
often “wannabee religious” who can’t believe that stuff any longer but
still wish they could. It may be that it would be better for all
concerned if all these activist atheists were to redefine themselves as
humanists, but they are not going to.
There is no reason to take “absence of god-beliefs” as being THE one and
only “correct” definition of atheism. Words often have multiple
definitions, depending on the context in which they are used. The
philosopher’s definition may not capture what the word means in
practical life. Some use “atheism” to mean “rejection and denial of
god-beliefs”, some use it to mean “active opposition to theism”.
In real life and history, theism is not just the proposition that some X
or other exists. Theism claims that (1) at least one supernatural,
superpowerful person exists, (2) this person wants obedience from
humans, and offers rewards and threats (3) local human representatives
will accurately report this god’s wishes. Theism usually also makes
ethical claims; that this god is good, a loving parent and perfect
authority, that obedience to this god is right and virtuous, that doubt
of the god or the prophets is wicked, and so forth. Historically
religion teaches that the meaning and purpose of life lies in getting to
“heaven”, not in living this life well on this Earth. Prophets and
clergy have taught the value of “otherworldliness”. Believers not only
accept the above propositions, they embrace the values of faith and
obedience, they accept the moral superiority and authority of their god,
and their own relative inferiority to the god (but superiority to
nonbelievers.) They accept the role of obedient children, and “love
their chains.” The self-appointed “prophets” and their clergy operate
this swindle precisely in order to get that obedience.
“Active Atheism” is not just the rejection of the simple existence of
any god, it is the rejection of the whole package. As a practical
matter, rejecting religion requires replacing these other aspects,
acting differently in practice. Several writers and atheist
organizations have taken this larger view; I will quote a few in what
follows.
Religion historically includes theism, faith in “revealed” dogma, and
otherworldly ethics; so the practical challenge to it would include
atheism, a freethinking and scientific approach to knowledge, and a
well-defined ethic for living well in this life, on this Earth.
Instead of accepting revelation, we shall seek truth by the methods of
science. Jacob Bronowski has written a book, SCIENCE AND HUMAN VALUES,
(1956), in which he argues that the practice of science, doing the work
of science, implies and requires a certain (admittedly limited and
incomplete) set of values and virtues. There is a philosophical doctrine
that argues that science is “value-free”, that it does not presuppose or
imply or say anything about right and wrong, good or bad. Bronowski says
this view is radically mistaken. It is not the results of science that
imply or include values, it is the practice of it, the requirements of
doing the work. Aristotle wrote of the “practical syllogism”: if you
want X, then you ought to do Y. Bronowski writes: “Science seeks to find
out what IS; as a practical necessity, if we want to find out what IS,
then we OUGHT to act in ways that allow what IS to be discovered and
verified.”
Most obvious is “the habit of truth”; the seeking and sharing of truth,
the virtue of honesty, humility before the evidence and the possibility
of mistakes, the openness to new evidence and new ideas. Bronowski
argues that doing science requires independence in observation and in
thought; therefore it requires a tolerance for dissent. “And as
originality and independence are private needs for the existence of a
science, so dissent and freedom are its public needs. No one can be a
scientist, even in private, if he does not have independence of
observation and of thought. But if in addition science is to become
effective as a public practice, it must go further; it must protect
independence…. free inquiry, free thought, free speech, tolerance.
These values are familiar to us…. but they are self-evident, that is,
they are logical needs, only where men are committed to explore the
truth: in a scientific society. These freedoms of tolerance have never
been notable in a dogmatic society, even when the dogma was Christian.
They have been granted only when scientific thought flourished once
before, in the youth of Greece…. Tolerance among scientists cannot be
based on indifference, it must be based on respect. Respect as a
personal value implies, in any society, the public acknowledgements of
justice and due honor…. Science confronts the work of one man with
that of another, and grafts each on each; and it cannot survive without
justice and honor and respect between man and man… If these values did
not exist, then the society of scientists would have to invent them to
make the practice of science possible.” There is much else in his book;
the above is drastically summarized.
In the same way, rejecting the other aspects of theism involves acting
differently in practice. Instead of being obedient children, we will be
responsible self-governing adults. Instead of praying for benefits from
our Cosmic Parent, we will be self-reliant- as Marie Castle, past
president of the Atheist Alliance and founder of Atheists For Human
Rights, writes: “look to ourselves and to each other for the
satisfaction of human needs…. through the thoughtful exercise of
initiative, responsibility and mutual cooperation and assistance.”
Practical atheists must replace the supernatural theory of ethics with a
natural theory. If we do not understand ethics as obedience to our
(cosmic) parent, how can we understand it? In THE ELEMENTS OF MORAL
PHILOSOPHY, (an introductory textbook), James Rachels writes (p. 129):
“The key idea [of the social contract approach to ethics] is that
morally binding rules are the ones that are necessary for social living.
It is obvious… that we could not live together very well if we did not
accept rules prohibiting murder, assault, theft, lying, breaking
promises, and the like. These rules are justified simply by showing that
they are necessary if we are to cooperate for our mutual benefit.” Marie
Castle also follows this approach. She writes: “Atheism accepts the
evidence of the biological and social sciences that humans are social
animals, evolved to cooperate in social groups as a requirement for
survival. It follows that rules are necessary to achieve and maintain
social harmony…. Over time, rules that are basic to group cohesion and
survival (e.g., don’t commit murder, theft or perjury) may come to be
viewed as ethical or moral standards.”
In politics, religion has historically supported authoritarian rule,
either theocracy or “divinely anointed” monarchy. If you take “divine
revelation” seriously, then the local representatives of “God” would
logically carry absolute authority. The historical exception of the
United States actually proves the rule; the “Founding Fathers” were
influenced by Deism, which rejected the authority of alleged
“revelation”. Authoritarian religion has not gone away; theocracy is a
present and growing threat to democracy.
Instead of divinely ordained heirarchy, we will insist on equality
before democratically-written human law. Marie Castle has written (begin
extended quote):
“Atheism is more than a simple lack of god beliefs. It is a rejection of
the slave mentality inherent in deity worship; therefore, it is the
definitive condition of freedom and equality.
By freeing the mind from subjection to mythical all-powerful,
all-controlling gods, atheism requires us to control our own lives- to
look to ourselves and to each other for the satisfaction of human needs.
This can be accomplished only through the thoughtful exercise of
initiative, responsibility and mutual cooperation and assistance.
The logic of atheism is that, if one person is free to control her or
his own life, all must be free. To deny this would be to validate
enslavement at the same time one rejects it. This would be irrational.
Atheism, being incompatible with a slave mentality, rejects all forms of
tyranny, whether religious, political, economic or cultural. Atheism is
compatible only with democratic institutions. A nation of people that
frees itself of the slave mentality will never endure oppression in any
form for any significant length of time. Free minds ensure free nations.”
(end of extended quote.)
The same broad vision is displayed in the statement of purpose of
American Atheists, Inc., printed inside the front cover of American
Atheist magazine. It states: “Atheism is the weltanschauung
(comprehensive conception of the world) of persons who are free from
religion…. Atheism involves the mental attitude which unreservedly
accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a life-style
and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and the scientific method,
independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds….
Materialism restores dignity and intellectual integrity to humanity. It
teaches that we must prize life on Earth and strive always to improve
it. It holds that humans are capable of creating a social system based
on reason and justice.” It declares one of the purposes of that
organization is “to encourage the development and public acceptance of a
humane ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and
interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of
each individual in relation to society.”
Summing up: Active atheism must, as a practical necessity, include much
more than the absence of god-beliefs. It also includes a critique of
religion as both false and harmful, and must offer alternatives to
religious ways of knowing and living. As Karl Marx said, “The
philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point
is to change it.”
#69 tldr;
@wirebash, @Ryan Jean: What brings you to the conclusion that atheism is worth fighting for? How did you decide that it is something important to you? Is it because of your values, your morals or something different?
Nerd
#69 tldr;
seconded
If Religion is a natural human phenomena, and if it is about human group behavior, we need to learn to slice it up into bits so we can take the valuable parts. Especially since we are going to be religious in this context because we still do group behavior. The narrative is the least important part. Anyone who is just happy opposing the supernatural narrative is frankly a lazy shitty excuse of a human being from my point of view.
Yeah, Religion will have valuable parts in terms of how the group behavior works. We are still human, they are still good at forming social groups. There will be things that are ultimately neutral in Religion that we need to know, even want to know. There will be things we will want to use with understanding. The value of a unifying narrative. Group fellowship. Ritualized celebration. None of this is possible with just “atheist”*.
There will be things we want to put into the same bin as murder like victim blaming (there is some of that in atheism), and child molestation. Those are still perfectly natural human behavior (see bonobos on that last one), but we choose to be better than our brutal bloody origins as a group. We get to learn and use none of this knowledge without being willing to take a really close look at precisely what it is that harms people in religion, and comparing with everything else.
*I could get behind A+. I’m a little wary about how the name still uses non-belief as a foundation, but that does take advantage of the per-existing movement. New movements do take over the old ones by stealing things to make it more acceptable (see christianity and holidays).
@69:
Point taken.
There’s a conflict of interest between atheism (as a movement) and social justice. A social justice movement should borrow some elements from religion to reach maximal effectiveness, and atheism forbids this.
I also agree completely with Brony @73.
@wirebash: I don’t see how you can reach social justice if faith and superstition are acceptable ideas to act upon.
me.
admit it, you would too, at least for the sheer novelty of it.
and yet, there are so many who disagree with you that they have even formed an entire movement linking atheism and social justice and given it a name.
A+
they make very compelling arguments. Much more compelling than yours.
funny, Brony said:
Are you confused about either the word “agree” or the word “completely”?
wirebash @ 74
I don’t even know how you get this out of the lines that you quoted. It’s as if you’re just picking random bits of people’s comments and then responding to it with a randomly chosen line out of a script you composed in advance.
yeah, that last post was definitely some leafy word salad.
since it was the only thing I hadn’t commented on as wrong yet, might as well dissect the rest of it:
Those “elements” would be absofuckinglutely nothing unique to religion, and besides, even if they were, why in hells would atheism “forbid” it?
fucking hell, you make ZERO sense.
I’m afraid we’re moving into the negatives here. Not just nonsense, but anti-sense.
Just to be safe, I’d steer clear of it. You wouldn’t want your sensibleness to be annihilated by it, and who knows what would happen to the rest of us if we’re near the ridicusplosion.
@doubtthat – 13 October 2014 at 11:50 am
Totally agree. This is especially true because religious political activists you meet on the south side of Chicago generally go out of their way to be inclusive to non-religious folks. So why wouldn’t I be inclusive back to them?
Perhaps I lack the philosophical bent of some atheists. In the end, all I really want is for things to go well, and for problems to be solved. I can’t find the title, but there is an ancient book that contains hundreds of arguments for, and against, the existence of gods. The book is said to be interesting, but also tedious in the way that it endlessly sets up arguments and then knocks them down again. And this book was written thousands of years ago.
I am an atheist, and I care about atheism. I get that lots of key political problems intersect with religion. I guess truthfully I’m more of a Marxist, though, in the sense that I’ve concluded that the best way to decrease religious madness is to ameliorate human misery.
DX @ 58:
IMO, what you’re talking about is tolerance in matters of religion. In the former Soviet Union the tables were turned and it was the believers who were persecuted. So no, just being an atheist doesn’t by definition make one care about justice.
@79 7of9: In the future, I will put more citations in my posts, if you want me to.
@77,78,80, Ichthyic:
I meant what I’ve said. I agree completely with @73.
I said in 52:
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
@75, F.O.:
I have no idea how some christians get good morals from a bad source, but they do have morals. I don’t care where they got their morals from, but I think these people can be a useful part of a social justice group.
@David Wilford #4 & others:
That’s just the “you people all look the same to me, I can’t tell you apart” argument. I think you can find plenty of interesting ways to answer that if you look around but if you want a hint: Anders Behring Breivik is Christian, the people in ISIL/ISIS/whatever say they’re Islamic, etc, etc, etc, add as many examples as you feel you need to. Let them respond to tell you that this shouldn’t lead us to think they’re representative of everyone who follows those religions (unless you’re just plain ignorant or being deliberately stupid). And you’re setup to ask an interesting question now. What makes these theoretical people think atheists are any more of a homogenous group than these religions? Now you can start to cure the ignorance that spawns these sorts of questions.
@74, wirebash
@69:
No there is no conflict between atheism as a movement and social justice. For you to think that requires that you equivocate between different meanings of the word “religion”.
Religion of the supernatural is what atheism is in conflict with. Does atheism or social justice need to borrow supernatural claims? No.
But if you simply use the word “religion” to mean a comprehensive and coherent philosophy, then every right thinking person should call themselves religious, or aspire to it. (The only alternative to this sense of the word “religious” is to be intellectually lazy and self contradictory) Similarly if “religious” extends from personal philosophy to keeping a community of similar thinkers, there is still no conflict. Therefore an atheist movement can indeed borrow some elements from religion: community as an example.
But it’s worse for you, because #69 you are responding to already specified what kind of religion they were talking about:
Does atheism or social justice need to borrow revelation claims? No.
So, wirebrush, try to read better and think more before posting next time. Even though it was indeed a long post that apparently no one wanted to read completely.
@86, Brian
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to me.
English is not my native language, and reading comprehension is not my strongest point :c
@87, wirebash
You’re welcome, hopefully I cleared things up a bit for you and others. (Also, I spelled your name wrong near the end of my last post, sorry!)
wirebash @ 84
I’m not asking for more citations. I’m asking for your responses to what you do cite to make some kind of sense.
@David Wilford #83
The political and cultural forces in control in the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries were decidedly anti-theistic and anti-religionistic not merely atheist. What I was talking about was the basic fact that when someone proclaims themselves part of a group by adopting a label, they are making a political statement which has implications on their own position in society as well as the ordering of society and their ability or need to make that statement in public.
Obviously in countries where atheists are the majority, or where there is little or no discrimination or mistrust against atheists, it becomes less of a statement about acheiving social justice by change, but rather an expression of one’s active engagement with a concept.
As a Czech I face almost no discrimination for being an atheist, but claiming that label often gets me into discussions surrounding equal treatment and social issues, especially since there are still many supernaturally-contaminated notions of justice floating around.
There’s another reason for atheists in particular to speak out and act against misogyny, racism, etc.: because so many of the “leaders” of the atheist movement are blatant racists, misogynists, rapists and rape apologists, etc., and in many cases proudly present their racism, etc., as being among the beneficial effects of atheism. They are busy making “atheist” synonymous with maintaining the systems of privilege and oppression that theists have built.* (As are those who use racist, sexist, etc., tropes in proselytizing for atheism.)
When theists (e.g., Christians) preach and promote horrible injustices and claim that they are what being Christian/Muslim/whatever is really about, and other members of their religion are silent, we assume that the silent members of the religion agree that these injustices are an essential part of _their_ religion, at least in practice. We take silence to be agreement.
Why should anyone expect people to see atheists any differently? If those who call themselves atheists are silent in the face of this crap, should it surprise anyone that people who aren’t part of the movement assume that racism, etc., are essential parts of atheism?
You’re either for this crap or you’re against it. To abstain — to be silent — to insist on silence — is effectively to be for it. So insisting that “atheism” must remain aloof from social justice is really to say that you are okay with this crap being what atheism stands for.
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
—-
* I’m not saying that they built these systems _because_ they were theist, since at that time, pretty much everyone who was anyone was a theist. But I’m not saying it _wasn’t_ because they were theist, either.