Writing for Religion and Politics, Alfredo Garcia chronicles the lonely movement called American atheism. For one, while they do agree on the triumph of reason and the banality of religious beliefs, they do not agree about how to go about demonstrating it to the other 90% of Americans that believe in a higher power. It has been difficult for atheists to find positive common ground on which to build community and cause. Life isn’t easy for non-believers in America:
Atheists are viewed more negatively than any other U.S. religious group, with less than half of Americans (45 percent) holding a favorable opinion of them. It can be a lonely existence…What has not changed much, though, is the image of the non-theist that O’Hair left in her wake. It’s the image of the atheist out to pick a fight, the unbeliever who is constantly seeking the next debate. As Fidalgo from CFI put it, O’Hair was an “extremely polarizing” figure who “gained visibility for American Atheists but may have been integral in forming the image of atheism in the U.S. as arrogant.” More recent non-theist leaders (like the late Hitchens) are often perceived as relishing these same antagonisms.
It’s at least hard to see how one could be very enthusiastic about a movement whose highest aspiration is the demise of many others.
Read more here.
May 25th, 2012 | 10:59 am
I don’t see any reason why atheists would feel the need to have organizations or, lacking them, feel “lonely.” For, say, Christians, Christianity is the focus of their lives (allegedly). For atheists, atheism is not what life is all about. Also, to their discredit, many believers are hostile to nonbelievers and look down on them with smug superiority. I am not an atheist, but quite frequently I express skepticism of about some fairly well established religious concepts. There are two basic ways people respond. One goes along these lines: “You raise some interesting points. So-and-so discusses that in his book/essay/blog. Here’s how I understand it. I think you’d really be interested in what so-and-so has to say.” (Nothing makes me happier than a recommendation for a good book.) At the other extreme is sarcasm. I am amazed at how often skepticism is met with sarcasm. I am growing very tired of sarcasm, although it is the easiest thing in the world to fall into, and I sometimes lapse into it myself.
I think the reason so many Americans have an unfavorable opinion of atheists is that many believers are uncharitable and hostile. Also, I sense that many believers feel threatened not by atheists and what they might do, but just by the fact that some people are nonbelievers. I think it worries some believers and makes them feel insecure when others simply dismiss what the believers believe. One sometimes gets the impression that many believers consider their own religious views something like a house of cards. If one thing they believe in should be called into doubt, the whole edifice is in danger of collapsing.
Madelyn Murray O’Hair was an obnoxious and offensive person, but of course Christians are called to love their enemies, and if they can’t do that, at least they can refrain from sending death threats!
May 25th, 2012 | 11:27 am
From the linked article: “Dawkins, for one, told the crowd to “ridicule and show contempt” for religious people.”
What he actually said: “Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated and need to be challenged and, if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt.”
In other words: ideas, not people.
Seems the message of the rally was – rather explicitly – pro reason and evidence, not anti-religion per se. Those would seem to be things people could be enthusiastic about.
May 25th, 2012 | 11:57 am
Of course, David, it couldn’t possibly be that many atheists (most, if not all of the famous ones, and the majority of the ones I’ve run across on blogs) look at believers as a species of superstitious idiot. I doubt the fact that, when they speak of the “triumph of reason” over religion, they are implying (and often outright stating) that believers are irrational has anything to do with it either. And as for sarcasm, perish the thought that any atheist would, oh I don’t know, suggest that atheists mock and ridicule Christians. Oh wait. http://online.worldmag.com/2012/03/28/richard-dawkins-encourages-atheists-to-mock-and-ridicule-christians/
Nah, you’re right. It’s all the fault of those closed-minded, bigoted believers.
May 25th, 2012 | 12:50 pm
“I think the reason so many Americans have an unfavorable opinion of atheists is that many believers are uncharitable and hostile. Also, I sense that many believers feel threatened not by atheists and what they might do, but just by the fact that some people are nonbelievers. I think it worries some believers and makes them feel insecure when others simply dismiss what the believers believe. One sometimes gets the impression that many believers consider their own religious views something like a house of cards. If one thing they believe in should be called into doubt, the whole edifice is in danger of collapsing.
Not to be sarcastic – but could there be just a bit of smug superiority in that paragraph? Pot, meet kettle.
May 25th, 2012 | 1:58 pm
I don’t see any reason why atheists would feel the need to have organizations or, lacking them, feel “lonely.”
I believe atheists are a subset of humanists.
If you look at what they do believe – instead of what they don’t – the differences between atheists and other humanist is what, exactly?
The sort of atheist who “relish[es]…antagonisms” are only a subset of all atheists; I believe it would be more accurate to label them “militant materialists”, because not only are they humanists and atheists, but they are also joined by a negative motive: the desire to see everyone else join them in rejecting both religion and the people who refuse to reject religion.
May 25th, 2012 | 2:51 pm
Also, Ray, I believe you’re being a tad disengenuous. The rally was pro-reason and not anti-religious? So I suppose the thought of Augustine, Aquinas, Collins, Polkinghorne, MacIntyre, Plantinga, and Ken Miller were well-represented and well-received, right?
May 25th, 2012 | 3:23 pm
Fred,
I am at once taken aback and gratified that you respond to my message in exactly the manner I described. I hate it when people say this to me, but you proved my point.
What I don’t understand about believers who have your attitude is that part of your belief is that the laugh is on those who would criticize you. They are, in your opinion, so wrong about what they say that in the opinion of many believers (possibly including yourself) they will suffer for all eternity while you experience eternal bliss. Jesus said: “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Jesus said to lover your enemies. He said to turn the other cheek. Doesn’t any of this mean anything to Christians who immediately become hostile and sarcastic when they feel they are being insulted?
It seems to me that the deeper one’s faith, the more serene one ought to be in the face of criticism or even ridicule.
May 25th, 2012 | 3:36 pm
Not to be sarcastic – but could there be just a bit of smug superiority in that paragraph? Pot, meet kettle.
Steve Billingsley,
Let me correct one word in what you quoted. I should have said, “I think one of the reasons so many Americans have an unfavorable opinion of atheists . . . .”
There might indeed be a bit of smug superiority in what I wrote, but what of it? I don’t count myself in either category (believer versus atheist, atheist versus believer) so if I have any smug superiority, it’s from considering myself above it all. But in any case you didn’t really respond to what I said. You just made a personal observation about me that may or may not be true. And when the pot calls the kettle black, just because the pot is black doesn’t mean the kettle isn’t.
May 25th, 2012 | 3:49 pm
Blake – Would it be fair to label Christians ‘militant theists’, since they have the negative motive of arguing against other religions and wishing to see everyone else join them in Christianity?
Or perhaps you could just label ‘antagonistic’ atheists as ‘evangelical’?
Just wondering…
May 25th, 2012 | 3:49 pm
I believe atheists are a subset of humanists.
Blake,
Stalin? Mao Zedong? Ayn Rand?
May 25th, 2012 | 3:56 pm
Fred –
Harry and Blake, frequent commenters here, regularly and with passion ‘outright state’ that atheists are irrational. Should I have a bad impression of Christians in general because of that?
And atheists don’t claim to be free of irrationality, just that they work toward that. (Even as… obstreperous an individual as P.Z. Meyers specifically stated that not two days ago.)
May 25th, 2012 | 4:35 pm
Ray, Having read your comments here for quite a while now, I have to say, you are unusually civil, calm, and rational (albeit a bit condescending at times) in these kinds of debates. Still, you have to admit, movies like “Religulous,” rally’s like the one you mentioned, books like those of the “New Atheists,” and the attitude, certainly of most atheists to whom I’ve been exposed, are not conducive to rational debate. They are, in fact, dismissal designed to avoid rational debate. Are there fanatical, irrational Christians? Certainly. But does that mean Christianity itself is irrational? Certainly not. Yet if there are atheists who believe Christianity is rational, if mistaken, I’ve yet to meet them, in real life, on the internet, or on the bestseller lists.
And, frankly, I stand by my assessment that you are being a bit disingenuous when you say things like atheists are attacking ideas and not people. Saying my ideas are ridiculous and contemptible logically entails that I am the kind of person who holds ridiculous and contemptible ideas. What kind of person is that? I can think of several: morons, lunatics, bigots, ideological fanatics, ingnoramuses. At which of those implications am I not supposed to take offense? That would be true of any ideas, but it is particularly true of ideas that people hold passionately and that form part of the very core of their being. And assuming, arguendo, that Christian ideas are, in fact, ridiculous and contemptible, pointing that out, especially in the snide and superior manner in which atheists tend to do so, will not endear you to believers. And when believers comprise the majority of those surrounding you, you can expect the loneliness Misulia writes about in this post.
May 25th, 2012 | 6:11 pm
But does that mean Christianity itself is irrational? Certainly not. Yet if there are atheists who believe Christianity is rational, if mistaken, I’ve yet to meet them, in real life, on the internet, or on the bestseller lists.
Fred,
Catholicism is a religion of mysteries, and mysteries within Catholicism itself are described as “above reason.”
I am not quite sure what it would mean to say, “Christianity is irrational.” But I am not sure what it would mean to say Christianity or any other religion is rational, either.
To be continued . . .
May 25th, 2012 | 6:56 pm
propositions are either true or false, arguments are either valid or invalid, and terms are either clear or unclear.
contra dawkins, ridicule and contempt towards ideas and/or the people who hold them should have no place in public discourse.
May 25th, 2012 | 8:35 pm
Andrew, what’s bad about ridiculing ideas?
May 25th, 2012 | 8:39 pm
andrew said: “contra dawkins, ridicule and contempt towards ideas and/or the people who hold them should have no place in public discourse.”
Hmmm…. I don’t agree. You said propositions are either true or untrue. You have cases where people intentionally believe untrue propositions – Lunar Landing Denial, Holocaust Denial, Barak Obama Birthers, etc. In those cases ridicule is quite appropriate, no? You certainly don’t want to treat nonsense as anything more than nonsense.
Now, how do you treat the belief that a cataclysmic war or a global environmental disaster are good because they signal the return of the Messiah? Imagine such beliefs entering seriously into public policy. What is the proper response? I think that ridicule, designed to marginalize such beliefs and equate them with “Elvis causes crop circles”, is a perfectly rational response.
May 25th, 2012 | 11:42 pm
“true of ideas that people hold passionately and that form part of the very core of their being”
Are you making an argument that Christian anti- homosexuality is, after all, targeted at the person, not the sin? If so, I see your point. The complaint made by many gay and lesbian people that an attack on their ideas is received as a personal attack.
But I can’t help it. Some ideas are truly ridiculous and deriving of mockery…and First Things frequently engages in mockery, outrage or ridicule directed at ideas it deems irrational or ridiculous.
That’s certainly valid. If people have so thoroughly “become” their idea, it’s not my problem. They are not entitled to insulate their ideas from criticism merely because those ideas are part of their personality. That’s telling other people to Shut Up– passive aggressively but with the same goal.
May 26th, 2012 | 9:51 am
Blake – Would it be fair to label Christians ‘militant theists’, since they have the negative motive of arguing against other religions and wishing to see everyone else join them in Christianity?
No, but it would be fair to label groups that are organized primarily by negative attempt as such.
That is, for example, what makes Fred Phelps different (and repugnant) to the overwhelming majority of Christians in America.
May 26th, 2012 | 9:56 am
Catholicism is a religion of mysteries, and mysteries within Catholicism itself are described as “above reason.”
Whereas humanism deals with the same things that are inherently unknowable, and either pretends that it can speak meaningfully about these things when it can’t, or (when you call ‘em on it) acts like its ability to speak meaningfully about it is going to occur in the future.
Humanists have their own articles of faith.
14 Q: Can we comprehend all the truths of Faith?
A: Yes, we can comprehend all truths, period, because if we don’t know, Ockham’s razor tells us what we can take as true (even without proof)
15 Q: What are mysteries?
A: Mysteries are things we can’t explain. Yet. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know everything. It just means that half of what we know now will be proved wrong (at which point, we will correct ourselves, so at no point in time will we ever be wrong.)
16 Q: Why must we not believe mysteries?
A: Because accepting the existence of mysteries takes away the natural superiority that is the essence or core of our very identity. If mysteries are real, we’re nothing.
17 Q: Are mysteries contrary to reason?
A: No, because Ockham’s Razor tells us everything we need to know about mysteries (until such time as someone edits the appropriate Wikipedia page – see above).
May 26th, 2012 | 2:19 pm
contra dawkins, ridicule and contempt towards ideas and/or the people who hold them should have no place in public discourse.
andrew,
It seems to me the George Weigel’s On the Square piece titled Critter Prayers and Transhumansim” mocks the Episcopal Church in a way that one would probably not see the Catholic Church mocked on First Things.
While not grossly offensive, I think if one were to make a similarly dismissive remark about Catholics in a comment in this discussion, Catholics would take offense, and justifiably so.
May 26th, 2012 | 2:46 pm
Humanists have their own articles of faith.
Blake,
Whereas some people argue against straw men, you have a straw group! But even if the “humanists” existed just as you describe them, your denunciations of them would not move this debate forward. What we are really debating here is science/materialism versus religious faith. In a serious debate, you try to look at the best of both sides, not the worst. If your humanists do indeed exist, they nevertheless don’t represent the best proponents of materialism.
Whereas humanism deals with the same things that are inherently unknowable . . .
Actually, what I was referring to as mysteries were issues like original sin, the incarnation, the trinity, and so on. Materialists actually can’t deal with mysteries, which are by definition “revealed truths,” because materialists don’t believe there is such a thing as revealed truth. I wouldn’t consider theories about the origins of the universe or the origins of life to be mysteries in the sense that I was talking about. Christians don’t consider the concept of God as the Creator to be a mystery that is “above reason.”
May 26th, 2012 | 2:55 pm
andrew said, “contra dawkins, ridicule and contempt towards ideas and/or the people who hold them should have no place in public discourse.”
Whereas there are certainly ridiculous ideas that it is not wrong to ridicule under certain circumstances, when people come together to seriously discuss their differences (including in a forum like this), I think it is rare that expressions of sarcasm, ridicule, and especially contempt are appropriate. Catholics, for example, have a profound disagreement with Jews about who Jesus was, but when there is interfaith dialog between Catholics and Jews, we don’t expect either side to engage in sarcasm or ridicule. When two or more groups who disagree with each other seek to exchange ideas and define where they differ and where they agree, they are making a tacit (or explicit) agreement to respect each other despite their differences.
May 26th, 2012 | 3:16 pm
It’s at least hard to see how one could be very enthusiastic about a movement whose highest aspiration is the demise of many others.
Wouldn’t Catholics love to convert every atheist, agnostic, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Anglican, Baptist, Jew (maybe!), Mormon, Wiccan, etc., etc., to Catholicism so that the only religion left in the world was Catholicism? Isn’t it the goal of Christianity to convert all nations?
May 26th, 2012 | 6:07 pm
Wouldn’t Catholics love to convert every atheist, agnostic, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Anglican, Baptist, Jew (maybe!), Mormon, Wiccan, etc., etc., to Catholicism so that the only religion left in the world was Catholicism?
You are saying there is no difference between positive and negative beliefs, but that is not the case.
There is a difference between someone who is passionate for the Pirates vs. someone who is moved by a passionate hatred against the White Sox.
May 26th, 2012 | 6:30 pm
But even if the “humanists” existed just as you describe them, your denunciations of them would not move this debate forward.
I define humanists as people who embrace the assumptions of the Enlightenment. Specifically, I use two definitions – the definition offered by the ‘secular humanist’ association referred to in the Dover, PA “evolution trial” transcripts, and the Unitarian Universalist church.
Humanists are people who view themselves as “Enlightened”; this occurs as a result of their embrace of what they call “reason”. They believe that “reason” has replaced religion. They take as one of their primary articles of faith that “reason” is capable of answering metaphysical questions, defining human identity, clarifying human origins and purpose, and deriving the morals we should live by. The difference between what they call “reason” vs. what religious people call “reason” is that their “reason” is essentially without limits, and this unlimited version of “reason” enables them to believe in a future world where humans can have choice over every aspect of existence (but only if we’re very, very good).
As for whether anything I say “advances” the conversation, I can only say: I think some of the claims I’ve made could advance the discussion, but it would be better “for the discussion” if you could focus on what I say, instead of indulging your preoccupation with whether or not I should have said it. I read your comments and for all that you adopt a ridiculing tone toward me, I can’t see that you’ve actually offered a real refutation of any of my claims.
May 27th, 2012 | 8:42 am
Fred –
A human being?
Seriously, can you name any human in history who hasn’t held ideas that we now find ridiculous and contemptible? For a thousand or so years in the West, educated people (to take a non-random example, Aquinas, who was a devotee of Aristotle) believed that cognition happened in the heart and the brain was just a cooling system for it. Or, likewise from Aquinas: “As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.”
Humans have wrong ideas, even ridiculously wrong ideas, as part of being human. I’m positive that I have beliefs that will eventually turn out to be hilariously incorrect.
But I’d like to minimize that, so I… discuss ideas. Even put them to the test against other ideas. And when I find out one’s wrong… I try really hard to revise my ideas.
Daniel Dennett isn’t rude, or snide. The word that often crops up describing him is ‘avuncular’. He’s supposed to be one of the “four horsemen” of the New Atheist movement, which is supposed to be so terribly rude and snide… yet nobody quotes him. Is it possible that people cherry-pick passages from ‘New Atheist’ works and look for the worst possible interpretations? (I provided a Dawkins example above…)
The ‘offensive’ label really is overblown. Consider the billboard message “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” All it boils down to is, “atheists exist”. Yet in Cincinnati one had to be moved because the owner of the building it was on got death threats. Or there’s the case of the one-word bus ad, “Atheists”, that was rejected for being ‘offensive’. (From the same bus system that ran “God Bless America” on its scrolling tickers…)
So you’ll forgive me if I think that the idea of the ‘offensive atheist’ is rather overblown and stereotyped.
May 27th, 2012 | 8:45 am
Blake –
What about someone who’d like to reduce baseball attendance because they’d rather everyone share their passion for soccer?
May 27th, 2012 | 9:16 am
You are saying there is no difference between positive and negative beliefs, but that is not the case.
Blake,
No, I didn’t say that. Mark Misulia said, “It’s at least hard to see how one could be very enthusiastic about a movement whose highest aspiration is the demise of many others.” And I posed a rhetorical questions, asking if that was not the goal of Catholicism or Christianity in general.
I don’t think it is fair-minded to consider atheism a “negative belief” any more than it is for Muslims to consider non-Muslims “infidels.” If you posit that your own beliefs are correct, then I suppose you can describe anyone else’s beliefs as “negative beliefs.” Jews have “negative beliefs” because they don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah. To an astrologer, you (presumably) and I (definitely) would be considered to have “negative beliefs” because we don’t believe in astrology. It is only that theists are in the majority that allows one to get away with trying to characterize atheism as a “negative belief.”
There is a difference between someone who is passionate for the Pirates vs. someone who is moved by a passionate hatred against the White Sox.
This is not a helpful analogy, since the White Sox actually exist. :P
It’s actually not a helpful analogy for a number of reasons. Some atheists may have contempt for religion, but what defines atheists is not how they feel about religion but rather whether they believe in God (gods, the supernatural, etc.). It is quite possible to be an atheist and not hate religion, just as it is possible to be a Jew and not hate Christianity and all other religions or a Christian and not hate Judaism and all other religions. Not believing something and hating it are two quite different things.
May 27th, 2012 | 12:30 pm
It’s actually not a helpful analogy for a number of reasons. Some atheists may have contempt for religion, but what defines atheists is not how they feel about religion but rather whether they believe in God (gods, the supernatural, etc.).
Right.
They are united by what they reject.
If you look at what they accept, they are humanists. But they choose not to identify by what they accept (by what they do believe). They choose to be identified by what they don’t accept (by what they don’t believe). The difference between humanists and atheists is that humanists are people who define themselves by what they embrace/pursue/want while atheists are people who define themselves by what they reject or don’t want.
In that, they are to humanists what Fred Phelps is to Christianity: they are all about what they hate, to the point where their entire identity is about what they reject, rather than about what they love.
The question is whether it’s possible to do that and still be capable of loving anything that isn’t as negative as the hatred that one accepts as an identity. I don’t think it is. I think the difference between atheists and humanists is sort of like the “light side/dark side” scale in the Star Wars mmo: the more you go to negative side, the further away you are from the positive side.
May 28th, 2012 | 9:41 am
Blake, I find it fascinating that David Nickol quoted an actual Church document while you had to make up your own words to put in the mouths of ‘humanists’.
May 29th, 2012 | 11:50 pm
In that, they are to humanists what Fred Phelps is to Christianity: they are all about what they hate”
No, Fred Phelps is wrong. The for/against categorization is not helpful. To pick the most obvious example, if to be against something is somehow negative or tow the dark side, then we can presume all of “Protestantism” is defective as well as those who opposed slavery or who oppose abortion today.
May 30th, 2012 | 6:26 am
No, Fred Phelps is wrong. The for/against categorization is not helpful.
When you are obsessed with what’s wrong with those who disagree with you – instead of examining what you yourself are for, instead of only against – you become a “negative” person.
Which is why the term “negative” has such “negative” connotations, even though negativity has its place – and is every bit as important as its counterpart.
And also why Fred Phelps and militant atheists are oddly more alike than different.
May 30th, 2012 | 9:34 am
Blake –
Being pro-liberty required becoming intensely – even ‘militantly’ – anti-slavery. Were the abolitionists – secular as well as religious – ‘negative people’?
(BTW, what’s the definition of ‘militant’ you’re using in the phrase ‘militant atheist’? Is it the ‘passionate advocate’ sense or the ‘take up arms in enforcing’ sense? There’s kind of a big practical gap there.)
May 30th, 2012 | 3:15 pm
Being pro-liberty required becoming intensely – even ‘militantly’ – anti-slavery. Were the abolitionists – secular as well as religious – ‘negative people’?
Yes, as I’ve already pointed out, pointing out what is genuinely evil plays an important role in human progress.
So if Christianity in America is inherently evil the way slaveholding in America was inherently evil, then people will eventually forgive Richard Dawkins for being unpleasant just as they have forgiven some of the more “negative” abolitionists for being unpleasant.
BTW, what’s the definition of ‘militant’ you’re using in the phrase ‘militant atheist’? Is it the ‘passionate advocate’ sense or the ‘take up arms in enforcing’ sense? There’s kind of a big practical gap there.
I prefer the phrase “militant materialist”, actually.
I personally define “militant” as anyone who can’t live with “live and let live”, but feels the need to ‘wage war’ on those with rival beliefs.
The sort of people who talk of things like, for example, trying to ban Christian thought and speech from the “public square” (making it okay to be a Christian, as long as you are “in the closet” about it).
May 31st, 2012 | 12:11 pm
Blake –
Citations of people actually saying that? Haven’t run into that attitude. It’s at least as rare as the attitude that atheists have no right to promote atheist thought in the “public square”.
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