My fiendish plan
But seriously.
What makes all these pious advice-givers think that we (we gnus) can’t bring people together (or build bridges and help people cross them) around shared values? What makes them think that gnu atheism is obviously and inherently and always a coalition-preventer? If I wanted to bring people together or build bridges with others (which I don’t, because I’m a nerd), I would just do it. I don’t want to because I’m a nerd, but if I did want to, I could. I could find out how to do it, and do it. I don’t have two heads, or twelve legs, or eyes that shoot sparks.
What do they think we do, anyway – quiz every human being we come within ten feet of about their relgious beliefs? Ask everybody we meet if they are theists? Wear ATHEIST on our shirts at all times no matter what? Have big giant neon signs securely fastened to the backs of our heads, that say ATHEIST – ATHEIST – ATHEIST?
In other words do they really think we can’t form or join a coalition with a bunch of people to do a particular thing without dragging atheism into it? If so, what the hell makes them think that?
And then, the bit about wanting to convert everyone is wrong too.
When a large and vocal number of atheists say that their number one goal is convincing people to abandon their faith, it comes as no surprise that our community is construed as extreme and aggressive.
I don’t think a large and vocal number of atheists do say that. I don’t say that. Here’s what I do say: I say 1) I want atheism to be an available option for people who want it, and 2) I want people to abandon the expectation that religious claims will be treated with automatic deference.
In other words I want us to be able to say what’s wrong with religious claims, instead of having to smile politely or look at the ceiling or examine the gravy for termites while everyone else is “saying grace.” I want to get away from the situation where public religious claims are fenced off from disagreement.
I want, in that sense, to put religious people on the defensive. That’s aggressive, if you like. I want people who like to talk nonsense in public – whether John Haught or Francis Collins – to realize that they are going to get pushed back now.
But that’s all. I don’t want to convert them. I want conversion to be wide-open to them, not hidden away in the back attic under five rolls of geometric-pattern wallpaper and a rusty trike. I want it to be right out there in the open, where they can grab it if they want it. But I don’t want to force it on them. And if they want to join up with me to fight violence against women, why, I’ll join up with them – or I would if I weren’t a nerd.
As a reasonably vocal gnu atheist – but you should have heard me 40 years ago!- I somehow manage to co-operate on a project to save a local beach here in Taiwan from development with a fundie Christian missionary, a Bahai, and a Rajneeshi – all of whom have been my good friends for 20 years. We somehow manage to work together with the local Catholic Church, and Buddhist and Taoist temples against the greedy outside developers, without engaging in Holy War against each other.
I guess I must not be a proper gnu after all.
Yes, let’s hear it for not being schemingly accommodating while wearing our nonbeliefs on our sleeves!
Apparently you don’t know the right gnu atheists. I am an ass and a dick no matter what I do, and no matter what the topic of conversation I start each statement with the phrase “As an atheist who hates religion and thinks we should eradicate all religions, I think..”
I was talking baseball the other day with my buddy after the Twins got knocked out by the Yankees (again!) and he asked me what it would take to get past the Yankees to get to the World Series. I told him, “As an atheist who hates religion and thinks we should eradicate all religions, I think they need to trade for more power pitching and starters.” It’s the Truth. When I go to the drive-thru, and the machine asks to take my order I respond “As an atheist who hates religion and thinks we should eradicate all religions, I think I would like to have a six-inch roast beef sandwich on eye-talian bread.”
Everywhere I go, everything I do, I am a dick for atheism. I will never co-operate with a liberal if I have some inkling that said fellow liberal is not a religion-hater. Fuckers just aren’t worth my time.
Seriously.
I have seen your picture and you dont wear thick eyeglasses, you arent a nerd , so there!
When a large and vocal number of atheists say that their number one goal is convincing people to abandon their faith.
My number one goal is to get at least two urgent software projects finished. Or perhaps its to get the lawn mowed before winter.
But that’s all. I don’t want to convert them
But I don’t want to force it on them.
Oh, I do want to covert them. I think theism is a ridiculous belief that harms society. But I want to try and convert in a friendly way. I want religion to be treated like politics. In the same way, I want to convert people who don’t have liberal views to liberals. But there are ways of converting, and a time and place for it, and certainly not involving force or coercion. Perhaps ‘convert’ is the wrong word. I want to change people’s minds.
Uh-oh. Now you’re in for it. “When Grandpa started saying grace, Ophelia threw mashed potatoes at him and screamed in his face. Then she jumped on the table, peed on the turkey, and sacrificed little Jimmy to Beelzebub. I was there. I saw it.”
Chris Stedman’s column is a classic of the genre. He complains about the intolerance of new atheists (why, Sam Harris’s book had the title “The End of Faith”), and, then, when the point comes to present evidence for his thesis, he quotes Reza Aslan. Circle jerk.
Aw, gee, ain’t you our kind of atheist. Clearly, this is a guy who has no personal experience with religion. He seems to think that belief must be fun, a kind of fantasy play. He doesn’t understand that the believer must believe, and is expected to suffer for any doubt. And surely will, if they aren’t Managing Director, ‘State of Formation,’ The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue.
Everything was fine here in Mississippi ’til y’all came along tryin’ to cause trouble.
My wife recently represented the humanist viewpoint on a “diversity” panel, along with a bunch of very nice, seemingly-progressive people from various religious traditions. As she put it, why was the atheist the one who got asked the question: “Why do you think you are right and everyone else is wrong?” Yeah, we had lots of “shared values” about peace and social justice and human rights and furry kittens, and good on us for all of that. (The Muslim woman in particular did some most impressive cherry-picking to tell us how very woman-positive the Koran really is). But there seemed to be this (overt or tacit, I’m not sure) consensus to not mention that all the traditions represented there make different claims about gods, or which prophet or holy book to pay attention to — basically to pretend that there is no disagreement (mind you, I think some of the panelists were far enough into mythicism that they don’t, in fact, “believe” anything that could be argued against). But that’s where some of this “fundamentalist atheist” bullshit comes from — the fact that we might try to convince people of our position makes us, well, just like the Billy Grahams and Ray Comforts of the world.
I think this “let’s pretend we all agree” attitude, however convenient, is silly — childish, even. Surely we can all march on Parliament Hill for peace or women’s rights or gay rights or whatever — and still have a great argument about God over beers afterwards. We’re grownups, ferchrissake.
@Steve Zara
On time , reliable , scalable, performant, secure? you might as well pray :)
I work with my husband who really does manage to get software that good! That’s one of the reasons I worship him, not Jesus.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: My fiendish plan http://dlvr.it/7G1rb […]
If independent verification were possible, id worship him too!.
Well, I got something like that impression, late last year in the Oliver Kamm thread, the one where people came out of the woodwork to approve of his claims that new atheism could be defined as hostility towards religion. IIRC, that was the thread where (foreshadowing Caspar) I said that the Kamm-like stance was boring and reactionary.
But okay, yes, there’s a vaguely pro-social sense in which affirmative atheists are hostile to religion. They identify themselves as hostile to religious beliefs, not religious people. Fine. Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that religious people identify with their beliefs, and everybody knows that. As a result, as far as the naive observer is concerned, the distinction between people and beliefs is academic — to impugn the belief is to impugn the person.
Hence, we have all kinds of monstrously inconsiderate and incendiary metaphors. The title of Philip Kitcher’s new essay in Applied Philosophy, “Militant Modern Atheism”, speaks volumes. One imagines Richard Dawkins in jungle fatigues, clutching his bowie knife in his teeth, crouching in the bushes and waiting for the perfect moment to pounce upon a vicar.
This is not to say that it’s ineffective or wrongheaded to continue being hostile towards religious beliefs. There’s something very toxic involved in the presumption that it is rational for people to simply identify themselves with their ideas. But until you make any headway on *that* issue, people are going to think the gnus are anti-social.
Chris Stedman writes: “We have come to a point where we can continue to express our legitimate frustrations in a way that alienates the religious, or we can look inward to find a comfort in our own convictions that will enable us to begin the courageous and important work of looking outward to respectfully engage with others….
“Is our top priority trying to do away with religion altogether, or is it trying to make the world a better place? If it is the latter, then we must change our approach, reach out to religious liberals and moderates and work together.”
It seems to me that both of the above statements are false dilemmas. It isn’t a matter of this or that or else. We may well continue to express ourselves in a manner that “alienates” believers. How could we not? That’s courageous in itself, isn’t? Yet Stedman seems to imply that the gulf that requires bridging between theists and atheists is sufficiently narrow and that “respectfully engaging” will get us half way—half way to what it’s not so clear. The second false dilemma is worse than the first: I’m certainly in favor of making the world a better place, and while doing away with religion may not be, simultaneously, a “top priority,” as Stedman puts it, improving things may, nevertheless, require being more like, say, Denmark., no?
I am currently on a trip to Jamaica (brother getting married in a destination wedding later this week), and today, during the nearly-three-hour van ride from the airport to the resort, our driver regaled ten of us American tourists with a comedic patter about life in Jamaica that was laced with repeated virulent homophobia, explicitly grounded in Christianity (and Genesis in particular—he actually dragged out the moldy Adam/Eve/Steve line, as well as a winning line about another van “backing up into me” and choice comments about the proper uses of rectums and penises). This evening, I’ve looked up the Wikipedia article on GLBT rights in Jamaica, and I’m a little freaked out by the country I’m spending several days (and several hundred U.S. dollars) in. But that aside, sitting in a van as a captive audience for multiple hours, “the expectation that religious claims will be treated with automatic deference” very much came to mind. Utterly randomly, I happened to be wearing a Dawkins OUT Campaign scarlet-A t-shirt and reading The End of Faith, though I don’t think anyone but my wife noticed the contrast between the driver’s patter and the messages I was silently sending. Confronted by this anti-gay freak (and also an anecdote about confronting some would-be rapists in Prague that Harris tells midway through End of Faith), I was distressingly conflicted about what, if anything, to do. I decided I would not tip the asshole; I wanted to give him a piece-of-my-mind explanation of why, but in the end I just chickened out and left. I imagine he now thinks I’m just cheap—ugh. Expectation of automatic deference indeed.
Dammit, that comment had nice paragraph breaks before the comment software nuked them.
Here’s what it looked like before the mangling (ignore the following if you don’t want to read it again):
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I am currently on a trip to Jamaica (brother getting married in a destination wedding later this week), and today, during the nearly-three-hour van ride from the airport to the resort, our driver regaled ten of us American tourists with a comedic patter about life in Jamaica that was laced with repeated virulent homophobia, explicitly grounded in Christianity (and Genesis in particular—he actually dragged out the moldy Adam/Eve/Steve line, as well as a winning line about another van “backing up into me” and choice comments about the proper uses of rectums and penises).
This evening, I’ve looked up the Wikipedia article on GLBT rights in Jamaica, and I’m a little freaked out by the country I’m spending several days (and several hundred U.S. dollars) in.
But that aside, sitting in a van as a captive audience for multiple hours, “the expectation that religious claims will be treated with automatic deference” very much came to mind. Utterly randomly, I happened to be wearing a Dawkins OUT Campaign scarlet-A t-shirt and reading The End of Faith, though I don’t think anyone but my wife noticed the contrast between the driver’s patter and the messages I was silently sending.
Confronted by this anti-gay freak (and also an anecdote about confronting some would-be rapists in Prague that Harris tells midway through End of Faith), I was distressingly conflicted about what, if anything, to do. I decided I would not tip the asshole; I wanted to give him a piece-of-my-mind explanation of why, but in the end I just chickened out and left. I imagine he now thinks I’m just cheap—ugh. Expectation of automatic deference indeed.
Talk of pushing one’s belief into somebody’s face, I have noticed that some religious people flaunt a miniature symbolic copy of their God being tortured to death at all times. Others wear special clothing or clothing of a special colour or sport a distinctive haircut. Outward and visible signs of an inner conviction. And we won’t go into special diet, special holy days, special (forbidden) language or pictures.
How would these people react if atheists wore a special piece of jewellery (any good designers reading this?) or bright red-and-black (colour of the devil) clothing? Would we be accused of thrusting our beliefs into other people’s lives?
How about a special grace before a meal on the lines of “I have worked hard to earn the money that pays for this food, and I am thankful for the rest of humanity, those living now and the many generations before me, for helping me to do so”.
Could we have special buildings which were guaranteed free from religious symbols where atheists could rest their weary feet and find inner peace. Buildings of a special design with the atheist symbol prominently displayed and with an air raid siren on the roof to announce the absence of a god.
We are surrounded on all sides by messages from the God-fearing, and when we finally protest we are accused of thrusting our beliefs by force onto other people.
@Rieux
I’ve been told on many occasions that Jamaica is by far the most dangerous country in the Americas in which to be gay. Given this, I can hardly blame you for not saying anything! I imagine that criticism of homophobia is not generally welcome either.
I’m really tired of dealing with the automatic deference thing as well. Many people in my extended family think it appropriate to give long Christianity-themed rants about politicians and evolution and gender roles and miracles and gays and all kinds of things (oh, and there’s usually some choice racist bits whispered to the white family members, *nudge*nudge*wink*wink*).
Yet I’m the awful critical negative person for being unhappy with these things.
Steve:
I don’t want to convert people because I really don’t care what they believe. If people want to believe obviously stupid things, it’s up to them. It’s not as though I’m likely to pull off many conversions anyway so it’s not worth my time. The idea that converting people from religion could be my top priority is as hilarious as it is arrogant. It’s really quite a long way down my list.
It’s only when the religious start telling everyone what to do and teaching creationism and institutionalising and covering up widespread child rape and telling me I’m evil that they get my attention.
Not that converting everyone wouldn’t help fix those problems, but it seems the long way round.
I care what other people believe because I have to share society with them, and because they get to vote.
So all evangelical religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are extreme and aggressive. Thanks for letting me know. That is a good enough reason to conflict with them then.
All the confrontationists (gnus) that I know of are confronting and criticising religion for philanthropic reasons and not malicious reasons. Christopher Hitchens book God Is Not Great is not meant as a malicious attack on religion for no reason, but because he wants everyone to live better lives.
Accommodationists seem to think that pretending there is no conflict is philanthropic, but all they’re doing is ignoring the problem. Then they malicious attack those who are trying to end the problem through rational means.
As PZ said at TAM London last week, you can focus on similarities all you want, but sooner or later you have to get down to the disagreement.
I do want to ultimately change everyone’s mind (iff I am correct, of course), but I *also* want to make sure it happens in the correct ways – so that means no authoritarianism or violence, etc. To say to someone that they are extreme because they want to persuade everyone (or a large group) of something … crazy, as far as I am concerned. I am also perfectly aware that the goal is sort of a regulative principle; I wouldn’t expect to be ever quite finished.
It’s impossible to accomodate a belief in god unless you believe in the supernatural. If you leave no space whatsoever, no little crack in the natural universe, where a god could find a home, then you are a threat. You’re a threat to the great god they serve, first and foremost, by daring to impune his very existence. And your a threat to the person who holds these mistaken beliefs by confronting him with the possibilty that the very measure of his self-worth is immaginary.
If you’ll just please make a little room. Give them some sort of agreement in some sort of woo. It might even be enough to confess a belief in uncaused free will (that might be close enough to a soul). Just a little bit of woo, and we can all get along.
Good accomodationists give good woo.
Some years ago when there was a serious local flood, an outspoken atheist I know decided to help out. She first went to the Red Cross but quickly became disturbed that they were checking people’s status (a good number of the victims were not government ‘sanctioned’). She would up working with the Salvation Army who did not ask people if they had a green card.
The SA knew she was an atheist, but did not care. Indeed she had a number of interesting discussions with some of them.
It occurs to me that the longest “bridge-building” conversations have engaged in with theists have come about because I refused to just nod my head and give ‘due’ deference to religious comments. “Well I disagree with that entirely!” has led to some of the most fruitful conversations in terms of finding common ground with believers.
To say otherwise, as others have pointed out many times before about the accomodationists, is patronizing and condescending. “I don’t think you have the emotional fortitude to discuss your beliefs with me, so I’m just going to nod my head and smile.” Yeah, that’s respect. Suuuuurrreee…..
Argh, Rieux, that sounds horrible. We’ll pray for you – so to speak.
There was an acrimonious controversy about a homophobic Jamaican rapper in London when B&W was an infant – I remember posting news links on it.
Leaving aside the generalisation here – I am more about people abandoning faith as a basis for beliefs than the specific beliefs themselves….
Most religions instruct their followers to proselytize – to convert the heathen. I mean it is something of a religious duty isn’t it?
And political parties want to, idealy, convert people to their ideologies too. One more vote you know?
And businesses generally want to get people to adopt their products, and if there is competition, they want their competitors customers. You know, basis of capitalism here?
So, what’s extreme about any of this this?
Seriously?
There is a new article on the New Humanist website “Time to start an atheist school? Your chance to get involved” which is a test case, I suppose, for whether humanists can get themselves organized in a positive way. There is a vote “Would you support the establishment of an avowedly atheist and humanist state school?” and the vote is so far looking a bit weak.
Of course, weakness is often perceived as strength in some circles. The constant befuddling, timidity, doubts: should we? shouldn’t we? Leaves us only aimless and goalless. What is important about the gnus (or what I call now confrontationists) is that we’re establishing goals, we’re becoming active and beginning to do stuff. It’s okay to debate and discuss among a herd of cats but there is also the need for a common goal of cats, and for other cats to just let them do it.
I personally don’t hold much faith in humanism, but I will watch this as a test case for a positive step forward.
That sounds like a terrible idea. While I understand that humanism used to be better organized, I think there’s a reason it no longer is. You don’t want to be exclusive, but that’s what philosophical societies are. And if not a philosophical society, what?
And there’s the whole “-ism” thing. It makes it sound like one is claiming some kind of extraordinary knowledge comparable to belief. From there, it’s a short way to, “What do they believe? I think they believe that science explains everything.”
And what do the accommodationists want? They basically want the automatic deference to remain in tact. Anything short of that deference “isn’t helping” or is “needlessly mean.”
A big part of achieveing #1 will be to change how people use the A-word. It’s still acceptable to talk smack about atheists in polite company. Often, this is done by people who would not tolerate even the slightest insinuation of bigotry toward any other minority group. These disgusting lies and slanders that are repeated over and over—atheists have no basis for morality, atheism is nihilism, atheists want to “do away” with religious freedom, etc—frequently go by without comment. This has always gone on, but the new atheism has sparked even more if it. New atheists dare to tell the truth about religion, all the while having to hear LIES repeated about atheism. I’m reminded of what Michael Douglas says to his nemesis in Oliver Stones new Wall Street movie: “Stop telling lies about me, and I’ll stop telling the truth about you…”
jan frank:
Or perhaps they’re just into s&m erotica…? ;-D
Barry Karr of CFI had a child of seven interrogating him while waiting for the school bus this morning – “Do you know who made you?” Seven. She was starting on Barry’s kid as the two got on the bus – he could hear her saying, “No, no, no – “
Yes. It’s when people do harmful things that I take an interest.
Re atheist schools: I’d support a school that was not affiliated with any religion, did not observe any religious practices and emphasised critical thinking, but I’m not sure what an ‘atheist school’ would be.
I’ll go along with that, but I also want to see change, to see less religion boldly proclaimed, to see less religious interference is secular life and law. I want to see the media taking less interest in the doings of religious people, to see them ignore brutish men like the pope and other reigious leaders. Religion is too dangerous. We can’t just have push back. It’s not enough. We need to redirect people’s attention from the idiocies of religion to saner and more rational ways of living, to show how shallow and inhuman religion can be, and expose it relentlessly. I lost most of a life to religion, and I don’t want to see it happen to others. So we need to push back hard.
The ideas of people like Julian Baggini really trouble me, this ready willingness to cozy up to people who believe the way that even religious liberals do, and the ways in which that impacts the lives of others. It’s not only conservative Christians, for example, who are opposed to assisted dying, and until I see the churches, mosques, and other conventicles humbled, I won’t be satisfied. I’ve just finished reading something by Margaret Somerville, the Christian ethicist from McGill University who dresses religious morality up in faux secular clothes. Religion is an evil, insidious force, and it needs to be defeated.
Relatively open-minded people (vaguely religious, perhaps mostly just believing in belief) have occasionally asked me what my prescription would be for nudging religions onto a self-sustaining evolutionary path to a non-dangerous form.
The best answer I could offer, so far: Convince “people of faith” to abandon two closely related ideas: (1) that the creator of the universe / world dictates the contents of books or inspires/inspired certain “prophets” (usually long, long ago) to write books that accurately record the creator’s “thoughts” or commands; and (2) that human beings can engage in direct, accurate communication with invisible beings who can act in this world. These are the elements that allow members of a self-appointed priesthood to claim that they are God’s spokespersons or official interpreter(s) on earth.
Drop both of those ideas, or at least drop the first one, and it becomes doubtful that what is left deserves to be labeled a “religion.” Maybe what would be left is just the mix of joy, awe, wonder, and humility toward the order and the chaos of the cosmos, and the ability to feel or celebrate the “connectedness” of the individual to the cosmos and to the other organisms on this planet. I would not want to eradicate this residue, and I’m not sure that it could be done.
Hitchens was right: So long as even some tiny minority still fervently believes that a special old book contains the inerrant Word of God, it will always be possible for that minority (whether it’s Hassan Al-Banna’s or Sayid Qtub’s gang or Fred Phelps’s gang) to point to the text and remind the back-sliding, apostate majority that they have not been paying sufficient attention to God’s Word.
Eric – oh well I want all that too. When I said “that’s all” I meant something narrower than “that’s all I want” – or maybe what I mean is I shouldn’t have said that’s all.
Convert? No. Persuade? Of course. And one can’t persuade without speaking up…
As far as deference to ritual–I find it much more uncomfortable to choose not to recite the US Pledge of Allegiance than it is to not bow my head during prayers. It’s fun, during the latter, to look around and see who else is looking around…
–Diane
I don’t see anything wrong with evangelism in itself. It all depends on what you’re trying to get people to do. Do you want people to understand something or do you want them to believe something whether there is something to understand or not? It’s OK to spread memes if you are trying to get people to see how they might be true and not just reproduce them. So if atheists have an explicit goal of showing people how particular beliefs are extremely unlikely to be true, and that you don’t have to accept them in spite of the strong pressure to do so, that’s a legitimate position to advocate, and a laudable one.
Atheists who react negatively to strong advocacy are reacting to the wrong thing in my view. The resemblance of atheist evangelism to the religious form is not as important as the differences, not only in the substance of what is asserted but in the radically different means urged to judge how such assertions are to be treated. I’ve never heard an atheist say that atheism must be taken on faith, and just believed without making an effort to understand what it means.
I can understand the distrust of atheist evangelism by the religious and their accomodationist allies.
I think it must be similar to the feelings of disgust directed towards those people who are evangelical about the need for action in climate change and vaccination. I guess it must be similar to the reactions against those who are evangelical about insisting that only one side of the story of the holocaust is true (the side with all the facts behind it!).
It’s rather ironic that many of those who are ‘evangelical’ about the above causes not only engage in the same sort of confrontational behavior that is frequently decried when used by the gnus against religion, but that the loudest criticism of the gnus incivility frequently comes from those engaging in exactly the same behavior – simply aimed at other targets. If you want to increase your chance of seeing a skeptic mock an opponent you should avoid Pharyngula and instead visit the accomodationist Orac’s blog, Respectful Insolence (he’s practically trademarked the phrase “the stupid – it burns!!”). Or perhaps check out how civil Phil Plait is towards moon hoaxers. And its not even as though accomodationists stay clear of criticising all religious belief – no, there are plenty of deeply felt religious convictions that are quite open to mockery – just check out Josh Rosenau speaking on the subject of creationists, if you want to see what I mean.
It would, however be churlish to insist that all accomodationists are complete hypocrites. Matt Nisbet and Chris Rooney, the ‘Wham’ of accomodationism, broke up over the artistic difference of whether it is ever appropriate to use a clearly mocking term – “denier” (as in climate change denier, or evolution-denier). Mooney, clearly the George Michael of the group (“Oh you gotta have Faith!”), coming down on the side of those advocating the use of the term while Matt remained resolutely opposed.
Damn my lack of caffeine, I meant “Chris Mooney”, not “Chris Rooney!”
Thing is, the rules of engagement for this ‘bridge-building’ we’re hearing so much about are always set by the theists and their friends. It’s play nicely on their terms, ‘respect’ their faith, don’t argue with them, etc, or fuck off – but if you choose the fucking-off option, then you’re extreme and you don’t want to be friends and isn’t that so mean!
When one group (or one person) says to another, you’d better be real nice to me, don’t question what I say, don’t speak unless you’re agreeing with me, or I’ll tell everyone you’re mean and nasty, there’s a word for it: bullying.
Theists and accommodationists are not behaving as though they want to sincerely build bridges between believers and non, they’re behaving as though they want to browbeat gnu atheists into shutting up. Since when has any theist of note been bothered about ‘reaching out’ to atheists? Quite the contrary, we’re regularly slandered by religious leaders, whether they’re calling us Nazis or not fully human or immoral.
It seems to be relatively easy for different faiths to build bridges with each other (even though their holy books say they ought to be murdering one another), but atheists are a breed apart, they’re the real out-group. Unless you’re an atheist willing to capitulate and play nicely and keep your opinions to yourself of course, then it’s fine.
If the bridge-building were a truly equal arrangement then speaking the truth would be allowed, and atheists would be able to say freely that there’s no evidence for god, and so on. Because it is the truth after all, that there’s no evidence for god. Imagine a mathematician being called mean for telling people that 2+2=4.
In terms of violence against women and other very important issues, of course I’ll try and do my bit as anyone would, but I refuse to play by the theists’ rules, and if they want to interpret that as me Not Helping etc then that’s up to them.
They’re the ones burning the bridges, not us.
@Andy (re#31) The problem with saying what “the accomodationists want …” is the same as that with saying “the new atheists believe…” In both cases the labels are applied with a range of interpretations and a statement which may be true of some in a category is not true of all.
I haven’t decided whether I want to be an accomodationist or not, but even if I do I will never want any automatic deference (to religious claims) to remain intact.
Has Chris also been frolicking with, um, ladies of the night?
“Has Chris also been frolicking with, um, ladies of the night?”
Hardly.
Chris is a very respectable young man, well educated, highly refined, a veritable Hugh Grant of accomodationism. I think he was simply a bit lost that time he was seen on Templeton street, giving Andrew Brown a lift.
Now there’s no need to drag Hugh Grant’s name in the gutter like that. He at least knows how to offer an apology when one is due.
As for Andrew Brown — ewww. I would have just told him to lift his own luggage. But I guess Chris is more accommodating than me.
Oooh Hamilton, excellent reference to that cleric whose name I forget who explained his gorgeous young male companion with a reference to lifting luggage. I’d forgotten all about him. Hilarious.
I was just going to make some dumb joke about not getting along with Alex Ferguson; good thing others got there first.
These gnu-atheist types do rather more “accommodating” than people seem to realise.
The National Secular Society worked with the Christian Institute and Evangelical Alliance in the campaign on the Religious Hatred Bill (http://www.secularism.org.uk/religioushatredbillcomesacropper.html).
Richard Dawkins had his “Atheists for Jesus” thing: (http://richarddawkins.net/articles/20), and also supports the 2011 Trust, which celebrates the King James Bible (http://www.kingjamesbibletrust.org/news/q/date/2010/02/19/richard-dawkins-lends-his-support-to-2011-trust/).
Hitchens has said that his attitude towards religious people sincerely praying for his recovery is “it’s fine by me, I think of it as a nice gesture.” (http://www.mediaite.com/online/staunch-athiest-christopher-hitchens-will-not-observe-everybody-pray-for-hitchens-day/).
Sam Harris refuses even to call himself an atheist (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/sam_harris/2007/10/the_problem_with_atheism.html) in order to “go under the radar”.
These are the best “militants” atheism has got? Pfft.
Dan
I guess taste in humor is always idiosyncratic. I thought my feeble efforts were lame in comparison to Sigmund’s gems (the ‘Wham’ of accommodationism, Templeton street, …).
And nothing can ever top this.
Well I meant Sigmund too! she said hastily. It’s just that the penny dropped with the luggage thing…I was wondering why that rang a bell, then remembered and fell over laughing. But Sigmund too, fer sher. And…[cringes, whispers] I’d forgotten it was Sigmund who did that video! [wipes running nose on sleeve] The bit about Madeleine…[weeps with laughter some more]
Excellent links, Dan.
The Milli Vanilli of Atheism? perhaps they are just lip-syncing their god(s)lessness.
How dare you destroy my cherished illusions? Next you’ll tell me I can’t have any sharks with frikkin’ laser beams attached to their heads.
Destroying illusions is central to my fiendish plan. Mwahahaha.
[…] kvetch that “it’s pointless to speak out”? The whole point of Gnu Atheism – if you haven’t been listening – is that those days are a distant memory. Non-believers have begun to speak up in unprecedented […]