But I do have to say I did not write the title, A Nation of Growing Atheists Still Wouldn’t Trust One to Run the Country. I keep picturing an atheist grown to Godzilla size running for president. You will vote for it, or there will be rampaging.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
That was excellent.
The only thing that would have made it better would be an online poll to Pharyngulate…
I guess you can’t have everything. ;o)
I have no trouble voting for anybody who is wishy-washy or even non-existent on religion. All it means is that they can think through a problem, rather than applying the unthinking sloganeering seen on the religious right these days.
That headline made my brain hurt. The Luce’s must be spinning in their graves.
Congrats, PZ. Great article.
Ooo, Mr. Mainstream Media! Congrats. :)
“I keep picturing an atheist grown to Godzilla size running for president. ” Saturday Night Live beat you to it (sort of).
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ppepsi.phtml
The article itself was fine, a nice succinct statement, but were the headline writer and the editor both 12 year olds working for their dads so nobody had to pay them? There was at least one egregious typo in the text and the headline was completely garbled.
Hey, I’m dieting.
Wut?
Evidence.
Smashing, PZ. I’d like to think of it less as “selling out” and more like…infiltration. Heh.
Surely you would only be a sellout if you did it for PuffHost, as Professor Ceiling Cat refuses to do?
Good work, PZ!
Minus the question mark on my comment no 12 please. Also, great article.
Also, if I may ask, what happened to your last great sellout(tm) to The Guardian, I remember awaiting your next column in anticipation alongside Ben Goldacres ‘Bad Science’.
@Nerd,
I think danl.s wut refers to the fact that that there excerpt is nonsense. There is something missing, such as a “I have experienced firsthand how”. The editors were a bit sloppy.
PZ, in your well-written article, I feel use of the word ‘conversion’ with respect to atheism is a mischaracterization similar to the uncritical use of the word ‘belief’ when talking about things factual (as in the belief that global climate change is real–the facts and science speak for themselves; the space for a grey area of ‘belief ‘isn’t necessary).
Coming to conclusions on subjects thorough reason, thought, rational examination and fact doesn’t seem to involve the need for a religious equivalent of ‘conversion’.
I guess I just don’t like the tone, implications or intellectual appropriateness of the use of that word when addressed to atheism–too much religious baggage attached.
@ kreativekaos #17
I’ll agree with your observation about “conversion” but for some reason get the feeling it may have been edited to that state from “deconversion”.
The only thing is that the first few paragraphs make it sound like distrust of atheists is rising. It may still be high, but isn’t it falling simply due to exposure?
Otrame @ 7,
…”were the headline writer and the editor both 12 year olds ….”
Maybe they were females, you know how they are….oh, wait…. we don’t do that to women anymore, black maybe?…..gay maybe? Geeze, there’s hardly anybody left……ah…….. the young are still available for pissing on.
Or, y’know, both.
Wut?
Evidence.
The point was that the sentence quoted in comment 9 is completely garbled and needs an editor. A “declining religiosity” is vivid, and it “speaks a fair amount at atheist conferences”?
…Let me try again. *sigh*
The point was that the sentence quoted in comment 9 is completely garbled and needs an editor. A “declining religiosity” is vivid, and it “speaks a fair amount at atheist conferences”?
Like Tom Lehrer did?
Selling out (I’d rather call it compromise)
Is easy to do (Sometimes you have to close your eyes)
It’s not so hard (Being rich is no disgrace)
To find a buyer for you (Put on your shoes and join the race)
When money talks (It has a very soothing voice)
You’re under its spell (It’s up to you to make the choice)
Ah, but what do you have when there’s nothing left to sell?
(Before you know it there’ll be nothing left to sell)
David Marjanović, here in these Benighted States it has long been apparent that even book publishers no longer employ copy editors. Let’s not even talk about magazines or, FSM help us, newspapers.
Nice article — BUT the opening paragraph has a typo:
Can you (or have them) fix that?
doublereed wrote:
Not sure. My perception is that anti-atheist rhetoric has increased, but this may be due to the fact that those who partake in this kind of anti- rhetoric find that it’s no longer socially acceptable to spit their venom at several other former targets. You can often hear the cries of outrage about how they’re no longer allowed a social free pass to denigrate gays, for instance. As the internet meme goes, “haters gonna hate”, and it seems their hate doesn’t go away when they’re no longer socially allowed to publically hate a particular group.
@26
Anti-atheist rhetoric rising probably has more to do with it being more of a hip popular topic. The Rise of the Nones was a shocking report to many religious organizations throughout the religious and nonreligious world. The point is that it’s not like more people distrust atheists more than ever before. I mean, if almost everyone distrusts atheists, then does anybody really need to say they distrust atheists? I would think that the main ones to openly vocalize their distrust that would be the closeted athiests.
But if there’s a demographic rise of atheists? Then you have to start yelling, yammering, and ranting about outrage and degradation of morals and such.
My google-fu is failing me right now. So I’m not sure if distrust has been rising or falling. I would put my money on falling.
Also, there was huge distrust of atheists during the Cold War, but as PZ points out that was mostly due to the conflation of atheist and communist.
I’m sure Henry Luce would have turned purple over the mangled English, but given that he was willing to pass off Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, who were Confucianist petty tyrants, to his readership as (to paraphrase Barbara Tuchman) “virtually being Presbyterians,” I doubt that he would blink about a headline with manipulative religious content (not that this particular headline qualifies).
@29: Yeah, it was the mangled English thing I was referring to.
You go, PZ!
This is an excellent post. Not even the liberal religionists can honestly complain about it due to its clear reasonableness and utter lack of anything approaching “stridency” or “militantism”. It is remarkable in its clarity.
@32,
Liberal religionists have set the bar for atheist “stridency” or “militantism” so low you couldn’t even trip over it. Merely being recognised is enough.
playonwords@18:
Thanks for the observation and comment.
…including many, likely most scientific journals. Nature Itself, based in the UK (it’s not just the US!), published a “tuberocity” in 2001 and has never gone back.
On the other hand, the journal I submitted my latest manuscript to has a house style that says “no Oxford comma”. The manuscript had a few (because the style is either secret or too hard for me to find) – and in the page proofs, every comma that happened to have an and behind it was gone! I had them restore some to improve legibility. Having a copyeditor doesn’t mean having a competent copyeditor.