darth_ender said:
CatBus said:
TV’s Frink said:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/way-more-americans-may-be-atheists-than-we-thought/
That’s interesting. In spite of the Protestant idea that everyone discovers their own religion, it usually passes down through families, and so religion usually has an ethnicity component. Denying religion can mean, in part, denying your ancestry.
I know lots of people who don’t believe in God. But, if asked, what religion are they? Catholic. Jewish. Southern Baptist. One’s even a minister. Because, to them, religion is more than just a belief in God. It’s an identity, it’s a community. And it’s a set of values and beliefs that are perhaps surprisingly unrelated to the existence of any deity. They see no reason to abandon all that just because they don’t believe in God. And, if they did, which community would they be trading their friends and family for? Dawkins? Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
I can see why the phrasing and format of the questionnaire could lead to wildly different conclusions.
I am curious what the atheist perception is regarding bigoted treatment. I mean, sure, there may be sociological structural difficulties, but actual, in-person bigotry…I just don’t see it being like racism, particularly among African-Americans, where racism has not only been institutionalized, but also was blatant and in your face.
I truly appreciate your disdain for Dawkins, because to me he represents the exact opposite problem: anti-religious bigotry and snobbery. I can only imagine atheism growing in our nation and the world, and when it supersedes adherents in numbers, I believe that the bigotry from that side will become a bigger problem. It’s simply the fact that atheism is a minority at present that the Richard Dawkinses and Bill Nyes of the world are allowed to act as they do without repercussion. I appreciate that there are many respectful atheists/agnostics, such as yourself, who do not see a need to be holier (what’s the atheist eqivalent–skepticaler?)-than-thou while maintaining their stance.
While there is an appeal of religion to the under-educated and an appeal of atheism to the educated, there are really many very intelligent people who still believe in God (and many uneducated atheists as well).
Well, I’d like to preface this with a “whenever I’m asked to speak on behalf of my entire ethnic/religious/racial group, I half want to do a respectable job and half want to hide under a table until everyone goes away.” I can’t speak on behalf of all atheists. Maybe moreso than any other religious group, we all followed very different paths to get to this point in our lives. But with that in mind, I’ll try to give you the best answer I can.
Anti-atheist bigotry isn’t something I’ve got a lot of personal experience with. There’s something called the “heterosexual assumption”. If you see a man walking down the street, you assume he’s heterosexual unless you see some evidence to the contrary. Statistically speaking, it’s a good assumption, even if there’s no reason to make the assumption in the first place. Same thing with being atheist in the US. The Christian majority does not have any visible defining characteristic–nor do atheists–so if I’m walking down the street people assume I’m part of that majority. Basically, I “pass” for Christian. All the damn time, without even trying.
It’s easier in a big town, and I’ve always lived in small cities or larger. In a super-small town, everyone goes to church on Sunday and you weren’t there! So this super invisibility trick doesn’t work for all atheists, everywhere. It’s also gotten better over time. When I was growing up, one of the neighborhood families stopped by our door every Sunday to ask if the kids would like to join them for Sunday School. My parents (bless them!) opened the door wide, stepped aside so everyone could see everyone else’s faces, and asked us “Hey kids, would you guys like to go to Sunday School today?” We’d look at each other and answer an incredulous and emphatic “No” and they’d leave us alone for another week. I bemoan the lack of neighbors who know each other just as much as everyone else, but I can’t see this scenario being nearly as common today.
Now, assuming you get found out, things get trickier. Sometimes, as with the neighbors in the previous story, you become a project. You are a wayward soul that they can straighten out. Happens to any other minority religious group too. Or it’s assumed that you became atheist with the specific purpose of offending Christians. One minister we met found out I was atheist and tried to start the so-clever-I’ve-heard-it-a-million-times argument by saying “I don’t believe atheists exist”. I think he was actually disappointed I had more important things to talk about, and left the bait on the hook.
Then there’s your family/community. I was “born atheist”, with an atheist dad and an agnostic mom. But for people who decide at a later age? Watch out, it can get ugly. Like I mentioned earlier, proclaiming atheism can seem like rejection of family/community/ethnicity and that occasionally goes very badly. And that’s why a lot of people stay “in the closet” so to speak. They go to church every Sunday, honestly wish they could believe, but simply don’t.
So by virtue of being born atheist and staying out of small towns, I’ve really only personally dealt with pretty small-potatoes bigotry. As I see it, the bigotry that’s out there is mostly in terms of impersonal structural things that favor the religious, from school voucher programs to the Hobby Lobby case and so on. But I’ve heard pretty terrible things about being atheist in the military these days, for example, so my experience really might not match up with someone else’s.
As for Dawkins, etc. The guy is an ass. Can I say that in a thread that’s supposed to be civil? A-S-S ass. I am hoping (without evidence) that Dawkins and his ilk are a case of “the zeal of a convert”. There are probably more converts among atheists than any other religious group. The coming-out process may have been particularly nasty and left a lot of spite and anger. Maybe a few generations down the line people will be more chill. But this is religion we’re talking about, so probably not.
