As if we were compelled to march in step
Paul Braterman doesn’t like being told what he can say. I know the feeling.
(Mind you, there are some things I think people shouldn’t say. I think most people think that, whether they admit it or not. I frown on personal insults. But I also know the feeling when people try to exercise close-up control of what I say.)
I’m an atheist, and I’m feeling insulted
Insulted by Greta Christina’s article, “9 Answers to Common Questions for Atheists – So You Don’t Insult Us By Asking.” Insulted by the condescending and preachy answers offered on my behalf. Insulted that the author presumes to speak on my behalf at all, as if she were the privileged custodian of some kind of atheist credo. But above all, insulted by the suggestion that I am so intellectually fragile as to find the questions insulting.
I’ve never liked Greta’s air of being a privileged custodian of all the subjects she’s taken under her wing (or into custody, so to speak). I never voted for her for that role.
Ok, then, here are the questions to which Christina objects (I think it’s fair use in a review like this to just copy them), which she doesn’t want to hear again because she believes she has answered them once and for all, and, for what they’re worth, my own answers, which I promise you are a lot shorter than hers:
- How can you be moral without believing in God?
- How do you have any meaning in your life?
- Doesn’t it take just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a believer?
- Isn’t atheism just a religion?
- What’s the point of atheist groups? How can you have a community for something you don’t believe in?
- Why do you hate God? (Or ‘Aren’t you just angry at God?’)
- But have you read the Bible, or some other Holy Book, heard about some supposed miracle, etc?
- What if you’re wrong?
- Why are you atheists so angry?
Some of them are very well-worn, of course, and answering them doesn’t seem to make any difference to anything, so if you spend a lot of time arguing for atheism you get tired of them. It doesn’t follow however that any one answer is definitive, not even if it’s Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris uttering it. Actually especially not, because they share that unfortunate habit of acting like privileged custodians of some kind of atheist credo.
Braterman gives his own, non-custodial, non-definitive answers to the questions.
Saving the worst till last
But maybe you could do a little Googling before you start asking us questions that we’ve not only fielded a hundred times before, but that have bigotry and dehumanization and religious privilege embedded in the very asking.
No, I do not expect people to do an online search before I condescend to talk to them about my beliefs, or the lack of them. Perhaps, after all, they want a conversation, are interested in seeing how an actual person responds, want to get to know me better, or simply want to spend time over a pint. And I detest the collective “we”; it should be obvious from the above examples that the way I field these questions is very different from the way someone else might. We are, after all, discussing questions about how we as individuals view the world, rather than questions about how the world is. So it is the height of arrogance for any of us to speak for the atheist community, as if we were compelled to march in step.
Well guess what, bub, we are compelled to march in step!
Hahaha just kidding, but there are those who think we are. I prefer the other kind.
I have never cared for Greta Christina, even when I read many blogs at Freethoughtblogs in the “old days.” She spent so much time advertising her books that I began to feel that her blog was mainly a vehicle for self-aggrandizement.
My meet up group had the pleasure of entertaining several students from my college last spring. They were in the Comparative Religions class, and were required to visit the services of some faith tradition not their own. They were interested in finding out about atheism, and we enthusiastically invited them to visit us. During their visit, they asked many, if not most, of those questions. We did not condescend to tell them to Google before we talked to them, and we did not all answer them the same way. They listened, engaged, and took notes. I suspect it was a lot more useful way to present atheism than in the high hat, authoritarian manner that seems to come breathing through in Christina’s post. If we had answered like that, or presented that as a document for them, they would have shut us out and not listened. As it was, the students ended up with a better understanding of atheism and the depth and breadth of what counts as atheist thought than they would have gotten in such a simplistic presentation. We told them from the beginning that we spoke only for ourselves, as atheism has no central dogma.
I wish people would quit making pronouncements about what I am (or am not) supposed to believe. Quit assuming that all of us have the same thought processes and value systems. I joined the atheist community because I wanted to breathe, not because I wanted to be strait-jacketed. I could depart the community for the same reason. I’ve been an atheist for a long time; I’ve been a movement atheist for only a decade.
Happy to see myself so well understood, even if you mis-spelt my name
I have seen many atheist bloggers, authors, videographers and such tackle the ‘X Questions That Will Stump Every Atheist’ sort of thing so often that it is practically a trope. Many of them have pointed out that the questions tend to be passive aggressive, or that they imply certain insulting things. But this is perhaps the first I have seen that couches it in terms of taking one for the team to save the rest us from the insult of being asked.
Questions #3, 4, and 6 come with embedded assumptions that some might find insulting and I find mostly annoying and tiresome. I’m all for asking questions, but they should be honest questions, not rhetorical points disguised as questions. I suppose if you’re dealing with an acolyte of Ken Ham or his ilk, Greta’s “Oh please–just google it” attitude might at least discourage pests from clouding honest conversations with their pestiferings.
But there are probably still plenty of people who grew up in very insular communities who ask those questions honestly, because any way of thinking other than the one they’ve learned from the cradle is just foreign to them.
Oops! That was a typo as opposed to a misspelling – I got it right the first time. Apologies. [red face]
Atheism isn’t an ideology, it’s an opinion that there’s no evidence for a god, gods or the supernatural. There are no implications beyond that in regard to an individual’s political or social attitudes. There’s no sacred book of atheism with ready made answers, so no one can speak for another atheist. It’s easy for religious people to treat those celebrity atheists as proselytisers with an ideological agenda, some genuinely believe that because they have no other frame of reference.
In regard to the questions, I don’t object to answering them again and again, although (2) is not so easy to answer, apart from the reply that we must find our own meaning. Fantasing about a mythical Near Eastern sky god who has an incomprehensible plan for humanity isn’t a solution. Some believers ask in good faith others think that they are setting traps. There’s a psychological aspect to religious faith, I’m convinced that many people can’t be ‘reasoned’ with, they need to believe.
Having now read both Greta’s and Paul’s posts, I see that Paul addressed my point in #4.
I like some of Greta’s answers. But Jesus spindrying Christ, that “if you ask this you’re denying my humanity” framing is awful.
It’s authoritarian question-begging disguised as social justice. And of course atheism isn’t the only issue on which this framing gets used, by Greta and others.
I’m never insulted by being asked a GENUINE question. I actually feel kind of honoured that someone else cares about what I think or is interested in me as a person. Maybe Greta Christina is not fit for public atheism if she finds being asked basic questions about being an atheist insulting.
@Emily:
Agreed, and that’s undoubtedly the understatement of the year.
This high-handed attitude is prevalent in social justice circles generally and I find it unpleasant. Like Braterman, it annoys me most when I am part of the group that is supposedly being represented.
I gave lectures on non-belief to the Law and Religion classes at my old uni. Most of the class were religious. The tutor in charge of the module told me that most of them would never have heard the ideas I was talking about and it had given them a lot to think about. That could not have happened if people could not ask questions and by being there and giving that talk, I had agreed to answer questions.
I can understand that not everyone wants to debate and those who don’t should be respected but it’s a bit rich when people who set themselves up as spokespeople on a topic take this “It’s not my job to educate you” attitude that sees every question as an act of aggression. If you hear “you are not human” when someone asks the question about morality then you are going to be offended on a regular basis.
All this saddens me because I used to love Greta’s blog but it’s become so bloody precious lately.
Nobody tried to give it a chance? Just in case some believers checked in…
1. How can you be moral without believing in God?
Exactly the same way many people can be perfectly immoral despite believing in a god.
2. How do you have any meaning in your life?
The question is completely unclear to me (do I need any meaning for sleeping, eating, interacting, “in general” or “in particular”, no meaning is actually required). What do believers mean when they find meaning? What if the meaning is wrong?
3. Doesn’t it take just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a believer?
This question would only make sense if atheist were actively disbelieving whenever they knew a god actually existed. Else not-believing doesn’t require any faith in the sense believers do. Would any modern believer say they need to actively disbelieve in, say Horus of ancient Egypt, and that actually requires a fair amount of faith? Believing would really be exhausting then… So, no it doesn’t.
4. Isn’t atheism just a religion?
If “a religion” is a simple statement of belief then it might be. But I’m pretty sure people define religion much broader than that. That includes rituals and a lot of philosophical correlates that simply don’t exist with atheism. So, no it isn’t.
5. What’s the point of atheist groups? How can you have a community for something you don’t believe in?
Meeting other people interested in the consequences of a godless life, sharing experience, have social interactions with peers. I’ve heard about communities for stamp collectors, and I don’t think they need to believe in stampiness. It doesn’t require faith for a community to exist, just people with shared interests.
6. Why do you hate God? (Or ‘Aren’t you just angry at God?’)
That’s the most interesting question in my opinion, or at least the question that still makes me think about it after decades of godlessness.
On the one hand I think I’d love to meet any god for real, because I don’t really hate them (even if I pretend I’d ate one on breakfast everyday for the past twenty years). On the other hand I know if that ever were to happen I’d ask them to explain their complete failure to create a minima a treshold for basic justice.
Gods, please behave godly, good heavens!
7. But have you read the Bible, or some other Holy Book, heard about some supposed miracle, etc?
I’m a benevolent professional peer-reviewer by trade due to my job. I’d have to say I’m unconvinced by the evidence presented. Please state your hypotheses clearly, analyse data more thoroughly, frame the discussion of results in the light of alternative theories and keep conclusion based on evidence. “Reject without prejudice”.
8. What if you’re wrong?
The same as “what if you’re wrong”? Not a big deal. Being wrong is way more frequent than what you seem to think. Keeping it wrong in spite of available evidence is a more confusing strategy, but that’s your personal choice.
9. Why are you atheists so angry?
Gods are barely fit for consumption. They lack subtance. Oh, you didn’t mean “hungry”? Why are believers so sensitive? (especially given you are actually the ones more intrusive/pervasive of daily life).