Miri Mogilevsky, blogger at Brute Reason, wrote an article called 5 Microaggressions Secular People Often Hear – And Why They’re Wrong, which appeared on Everyday Feminism. Rather than discussing the content of the article, I wish to point out the framing. Atheism is one social justice topic, just like any other. Miri doesn’t just refer to microaggressions, but also the language of privilege and oppression.
In contrast, consider how PZ Myers responds to an article written by Dennis Prager, a religious apologist. Prager is not so far off from the microaggressions in the listicle, but he’s not treated as such. Instead, he is another kook proudly showcasing his ignorance of atheism. He is an object of mockery and derision.
Going further back, consider how various bloggers responded to “10 questions for an atheist to answer”. One of the questions asks if we are free to murder and rape without God, which is taken straight out of Miri’s list. Bloggers chose to answer that one in earnest.
This makes me think about atheism, and its relation to social justice. In the past several years, there has been much discussion about whether atheists should address social justice issues, but sometimes I wonder why atheism isn’t itself considered a social issue already. Modern social justice discourse seems to include so many topics, from feminism to disabilities, to race, and sexuality. Atheism is different from any of the standard social justice topics, to be sure, but the standard social justice topics are all so different from each other.
It’s not as if being gay gives you any special insight into racism *cough*. Rather, to be taken seriously as a gay social justice advocate, you also need to know a little bit about all the other social justice topics. After all, some gay people are also disabled, trans, or of color, and gay advocacy should include those people. And yet, atheist activists are not expected to know a bit of every social justice topic, nor are social justice advocates expected to know a bit about atheism. This seems a shame.
Although, I can see why microaggressions aren’t a popular way to think about anti-atheist comments. So many myths and misconceptions about atheists are propagated in the context of debate. So when someone asks where we get our morals from, we take it as a rhetorical challenge rather than an expression of privilege. And if we were to treat it as an expression of privilege, outsiders would likely interpret our response as trying to dodge the challenge.
There’s also the obvious issue that many atheists are opposed to coexisting. As a gay person, I don’t have any particular wish that everyone else become gay, but as an atheist, I do advocate that everyone leave the major religions. I don’t want or expect religious people to be my “allies” in this goal.
Still, I think it is useful to think of atheism as another social justice issue, if only to provide one more lens to view our own cause.
Totally agreed.
The problems that atheists have with society with respect to justice issues are very often of similar kind to those in other social justice situations. Stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, social narratives that are untrue and damaging…
This could be an excellent place to show how the problems people face as atheists result from the same general kinds of problems of belief, thought, and behavior that produce different specific problems for other groups.
Sincere Kirabo also says this rather well.
I agree that movement or activist atheism is a social justice movement. It’s people seeking out fellows who differ from the majority which treats differing beliefs as having greater or lesser stigma. It’s people looking for acceptance and solidarity, and discussing outreach and consciousness-raising.
I have some quibbles with this, though.
1) I don’t think that atheists are, or should be, opposed to coexisting. While the end goal of atheism might well be that no-one should believe false things (like the gods of most religions), the only way to reach that in the face of the overwhelming majority of the population being theists of some sort is to promote tolerance of differing beliefs. Or in other words, coexistence.
2) You might not want everyone else to become gay, but surely you would agree that you want everyone else to become gay-accepting/tolerant of different sexualities/anti-homophobic/non-bigoted (not sure which is the best phrase), yes?
3) You can advocate more than one thing, I think. On the one hand, I agree that religious people will not agree with the belief that religion is false. But I hope it might be possible to persuade them that the belief that religion is false is not in and of itself harmful, and should not be stigmatized, and can be advocated on the same footing as their own putative belief that religion is true.
@Owlmirror,
1) As a factual matter, I believe that the atheist movement predominantly sees itself as opposed to coexistence. For example, see this bumper sticker. Whether this is the way that the movement should see itself is another issue. I don’t see why they should.
2) But when people talk about “coexistence” with respect to lgbt people, they aren’t trying to suggest that lgbt people should coexist alongside homophobia/transphobia. Whereas when people talk about coexistence with respect to religions, they are precisely suggesting that atheists should coexist alongside various religions. And they aren’t suggesting it as a temporary measure either.
3) It is true that the atheist movement has many goals, some of which are entirely compatible with the idea of “coexistence”. But that one goal, the goal of ending religions, is enough to disrupt the whole framework. If an atheist activist were to advocate coexistence, it might work for them in whatever they’re doing, but it would sideline the work of other activists for the sake of respectability politics.
I am baffled as to how you think that link supports the thesis, given that the author used the actual words: “Coexisting is fine. I’m all for that. […] By all means, treat religious people with respect.” (bolding mine)
The elided text refers to a putative additional connotation of the sticker; the inference being made of “not criticizing religion”, and rejects that — not coexistence in and of itself.
I genuinely don’t understand what you think the actual alternative to coexistence is — mandated thoughts and beliefs? Literal thought police?
I am genuinely ignorant of movement atheism, and if there is an actual statement of goals by any group which includes “ending religions”, I would be most interested in seeing it.
And again, how are religions supposed to be ended? By coercion? If not coercion, then what?
@Owlmirror,
In general, the way the atheist movement thinks of itself is similar to the way you might think about politics. I mean you could talk about liberals and conservatives coexisting with each other, but why would you? Even if liberals and conservatives are in fact coexisting, isn’t it besides the point? Furthermore, there is nothing baffling about how liberals intend to fight conservatives. (Thought police? Coercion? How about just persuasion and political maneuvering? This isn’t hard to figure out.)
I’m annoyed that you say you know little about the atheist movement, and yet won’t take my word for it. I’m not your tour guide you know. Here’s a post from Greta Christina’s old blog–I didn’t check to see if it precisely addresses whatever issue you had with the previous link, but I’ll note that Greta Christina has written about a dozen essays covering all sorts of related nuances, all linked on the sidebar.
Because talking about not coexisting gives the strong impression that you want for those who don’t agree with your politics to not exist.
If a conservative politician started saying that “conservatives should oppose coexisting with liberals”, would you be fine with that, or would you see it as eliminationist rhetoric? That’s what it sounds like to me. Maybe you think it would be awesome and not at all implicitly threatening.
No. It is very much part of the point of a society being able to contain those who have more than one set of opinions on how people should live.
This is really not rocket rhetoric.
And what happens to those who refuse to be persuaded, if you are “opposed to coexisting”?
Look, I’ll charitably accept that you don’t actually intend a dominionist, eliminationist implication when you write “opposed to coexisting”, but intent is not magic.
An excellent post. I would agree with her point that the ecumenical movement, in seeking to have alliances with different religions, is doing something wrong in rejecting criticism of beliefs to the point of rejecting whether it matters that their fundemental religious claims are true.
But she herself writes, near the end: (And, in fact, while I disagree pretty strongly with ecumenical believers, I’m happy to share a world with them, to work in alliance with them on issues we have in common, to sit down at the dinner table with them and enjoy a long evening of food and booze and conversation. As long as we don’t talk about religion.)
Which looks to me exactly like she’s saying that she is willing to coexist with them.
The issue that I had with the previous link, and now with this one, is that nothing in them supports your extraordinary claim that “many atheists are opposed to coexisting [with theists]”.
I think we’re done here. This conversation has gone off the rails and into the weeds. I had hoped to evoke discussion that might better support the idea of atheism as a social justice movement, but that’s not going to happen with this particular semantic confusion continuing to cloud the original topic.
I think you’re taking a very literal reading of “coexistence”, against all evidence that the literal reading is the appropriate one in the OP. I was not remotely surprised when you pointed out that my links included statements in favor of coexistence, because I realize that “coexistence” has multiple meanings, including ecumenicalism. Whereas you were baffled by my statements and examples, which suggests that you believe “coexistence” can only have one meaning, and that I am incorrect to use any other meaning.
No. Polysemy.
Incidentally, I don’t think we did get sidetracked, exactly. In my experience, the whole coexistence thing is in fact one of the biggest barriers to people conceptualizing atheism as just another social justice issue. I’ve had many encounters in queer activism where other activists, of their own accord, said or implied that they thought it was inappropriate for atheists to contradict religious beliefs, or to ever try to persuade people. I remember attending an inclusivity workshop at Creating Change where the facilitators basically said that atheists should shut up about their beliefs to be more inclusive.
And yet, when I raise the issue, activists tend to deliberately misunderstand. You want to coerce believers? No, I want to be able to persuade people, or at the very least speak about my views. This one definitely belongs in the list of anti-atheist microaggressions.
Siggy, you said: ” I mean you could talk about liberals and conservatives coexisting with each other, but why would you?” and I think that epitomizes it perfectly.
Hypothetically, if liberals or conservatives were literally trying to not let the other group exist, via threats of death or thought police or anything scary like that, then yes, you’d talk about it. As it is NOW, in the current cultural landscape, the fact that both exist and will continue to be “allowed” to exist is “a given”, is presumed, so no one talks about it. “Why would you?” is a reasonable rhetorical question to ask. When the implication behind coexistence is “the right for everyone to exist completely unchallenged, their minds at peace” then yeah, NO, you wouldn’t talk about that, and likewise as an atheist activist I would not purchase one of those bumper stickers – in fact, seeing one of those stickers on people’s laptops when I was in college or just seeing them around, wherever, is a big indicator to me that the person sticking it somewhere is NOT an atheist. “All religions are equally valid” or something is not how I feel but it’s what that sticker conveys to me.
It’s a perplexing perspective to *me*, as someone who cares about getting down to the truth, that people can be content to not challenge others’ beliefs, to simply “co-exist”, when often what they believe is pretty extreme – like there is a God that will answer prayer and I pray to “Him” with a very specific idea in mind of what he is capable of, and other people are praying to the wrong ideas of God.
I’m in favor of co-existing in the sense of yes, I support freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom to “Be wrong” on issues, and I don’t simply wish people who aren’t atheists out of existence. But the way “Co-existence” is typically used, it means something very different than what I want. I don’t “just” want to exist side by side. I want my voice to be heard, essentially. I want people to consider my views. I don’t really want it anymore but when I was very new to atheism, I even wanted someone to try to talk me out of my own stance, wanted to engage in those kinds of debates and somewhat “heated” conversations! 😛
@Siggy, #7:
OK, I think I see where things went wrong. I hate to be all prescriptivist, but actually, in point of fact, “coexistence” does not have a definition of “ecumenicalism”. I checked ten dictionaries, just to be sure, and thesaurus.com. They are not synonyms.
Now, some of the definitions do talk about “peaceful coexistence”, but I don’t think that that is what you want to go on the record as opposing either. As best I can tell, peaceful coexistence just refers to groups agreeing to not engage in armed conflict. I don’t think that “not criticizing beliefs” is implied — Protestants and Catholics can and do peacefully coexist while nevertheless still criticizing each others’ beliefs.
For that matter, I am not sure that “opposing ecumenicalism” is the correct phrase either, despite Greta Christina’s essay. Indeed, looking over her essay, she points out that the problem for her is that “a commitment to ecumenicalism all too often leads to intolerance and hostility towards atheists” — a more complex statement than opposing ecumenicalism qua ecumenicalism. Her feelings about ecumenicalism — in the sense of finding the theological common ground between different sects of a religious denomination, and/or between different religious denominations themselves — are more that it is hypocritical bullshit, and could be ignored if it weren’t for the problem she outlines above.
Re #8: If you are using “coexistence” and “ecumenicalism” as synonyms, I am confident that any misunderstanding is not deliberate. I am sorry that you had problems getting an atheist perspective heard; I have no suggestions other than to emphasize that you promote the common ground of shared humanity.
I know of at least one atheist who firmly stated that atheism should be promoted by force, and it’s not impossible for there to be more. And historically, there definitely were those who wanted to promote atheism by coercion — how would someone know that you don’t agree with that, if you are so unclear that your wording makes it look like you oppose the existence of theists?
I would recommend just not using the terms “coexistence” or “ecumenicalism” altogether. This whole semantic confusion could have been avoided if you had just written “many atheists oppose the idea that religious beliefs should not be criticized”. It’s a bit longer, but clarity is more important than confused terseness.
@Owlmirror,
Dictionaries are simply the wrong resource to use when determining the political connotations of a word (although sometimes Urban Dictionary is okay). I would go so far as to say that pulling out a dictionary is always a bad argument. The political connotations of “coexist” are dominated by that particular logo with the Jewish star and Christian cross.
This is a blog where I regularly criticize atheists, and I would say that the ones who advocate force are not the ones I worry about. I’m more worried about the ones who rely on dictionaries (see: “dictionary atheists”).
@Siggy.:
So how about the source of the bumper sticker?
“Coexist works in communities with a history of conflict to repair the divides caused by prejudice, hate and violence. By creating opportunities for people to work and learn together, we help build relationships, knowledge and common purpose to advance coexistence. ”
(cited from coexist.org/about)
Anything in there about not criticizing religious beliefs?
So. . . since the Urban Dictionary says that the campaign is “promoting the end of discrimination against all religions, as well as all discrimination”, someone who checked that site to try and understand what you originally wrote would understand you to have been saying that atheists should oppose ending discrimination; ie., atheists should support discrimination? And you think this would be okay?
If you want to continue to be misunderstood, please feel free to ignore my attempts to promote clarity.
Yes, we all know that if I spent more time arranging my words just so, you would be a tremendous and enthusiastic ally. Thanks for your concern.