In God We Must - Why won’t the U.S. accept its atheists?

[amused]

Not everyone agrees that this is the way to go. The neuroscientist Sam Harris is one of America’s best-known atheists; his 2004 book, The End of Faith, sold over half a million copies. He agrees that the situation for atheists is “analogous to being gay and in the closet for many people”, and it is striking that virtually every atheist I spoke to talked the language of being “out” or “in the closet”. Nevertheless, Harris argues “it’s a losing game to trumpet the cause of atheism and try to rally around this variable politically. I’ve supported that in the past, I support those organisations, I understand why they do that. But, in the end, the victim group identity around atheism is the wrong strategy. It’s like calling yourself a non-astrologer. We simply don’t need the term.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/ft/2 ... ists_.html

[Tyrannical]

We don't trust them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Sam may be willing to give up, but so what?

[Bella Fortuna]

Thanks for posting this, amused - I read it the other day and meant to, but forgot.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm still of the opinion that Americans are atheists 167 hours a week.

[mistermack]

My tactic has always been to leave believers to it, so long as they leave me alone. But as soon as they come out with any god stuff, I make it clear that it's just a ludicrous superstition.
If they get offended, I can just say "you started it".

When the world pushes religion in my face, I feel entitled to ridicule it.
Except at funerals and weddings. ( Which I do my best to avoid ).

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My tactic has always been to leave believers to it, so long as they leave me alone. But as soon as they come out with any god stuff, I make it clear that it's just a ludicrous superstition.
If they get offended, I can just say "you started it".

When the world pushes religion in my face, I feel entitled to ridicule it.
Except at funerals and weddings. ( Which I do my best to avoid ).

I think the fundamental political tenet of atheism is "Keep your god out of my life".

[mistermack]

I think the fundamental political tenet of atheism is "Keep your god out of my life".

Me too, except that I like to say "superstition" in place of "god".
It doesn't even deserve that much respect.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think the fundamental political tenet of atheism is "Keep your god out of my life".

Me too, except that I like to say "superstition" in place of "god".
It doesn't even deserve that much respect.

"Keep The Great Sky Fairy out of my life" works pretty good to piss them off.

[apophenia]

There’s another reason why atheists might be better off out than in. Researching his PhD, the sociologist Chris Garneau of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found that, although people who self-identify as atheists are more likely to experience stigma than other seculars, such as agnostics and humanists, those who are out are significantly less likely to report psychological distress than those who struggle to keep their dissent silent.

Whole lotta whining going on.

I don't know how much of this has to do with religion per se so much as just social phenomenon. Yes, religious groups, as a matter of course, aggressively compete against those who might hold or advocate a competing worldview. But they're not alone. And a lot of what is discussed in the article is just the social discomfort of being an undesirable minority in the midst of an aggressively self-promoting and self-protecting majority. I can't speak from experience, but a small Asian woman might feel just as out of place and excluded renting in Harlem. Or a liberal in some of the dyed in the wool conservative states. Or black in a town that has yet to admit the south lost the civil war.

I spend most of my social time (well, maybe half) with people who would, in Bella's terms, be described as "bloodcurdlingly atheist". We get along because I hate the same things they do, laugh at the same things, and so on. I'm probably one of the more materialist persons you will meet. But when I recently had a rediscovery of my Hinduism, I was scared senseless; I didn't know whether to come "out" about my Hinduism or not. I was afraid I would be shunned, or no longer accepted as "one of them". Granted, as a group, atheists and skeptics are a lot more open-minded than most, but the pressure of the group is still there. And I would say 9/10 of the article is about just that — discomfort over the social realities of being a minority in a community whose majority isn't supportive of who you are.

And before I leave, I'd just like to say that Sam Harris is an ass. He's a knee jerk intellectual; every time his knee jerks, out comes a new opinion.

[Tero]

Link is now messed up.

But they are now afraid of athism. We are the new gays. They are afraid of things that will take their teens out of their control. So they must not become drug addicts, whores, alcoholics, gays or atheists. Thus, homeschooling and abstinence.

[amused]

Link is now messed up. ...

Still works for me.

[amused]

... And before I leave, I'd just like to say that Sam Harris is an ass. He's a knee jerk intellectual; every time his knee jerks, out comes a new opinion.

Not one of the atheist/secular/humanist 'leaders' will ever have a uniform set of characteristics that appeals to all of us*. We're too diverse for that. If we dwell on the parts of each one that we consider to be flaws, then nobody can ever be good enough.

The thing that I like about Harris is that he has taken dead aim at answering that question - Without religion, where do we get morality? That is the last column propping up religion and once it topples we can make real progress toward a secular humanist approach to co-habitating on this spec of rock.



*friendly rabid atheists (mostly)

[apophenia]

... And before I leave, I'd just like to say that Sam Harris is an ass. He's a knee jerk intellectual; every time his knee jerks, out comes a new opinion.

Not one of the atheist/secular/humanist 'leaders' will ever have a uniform set of characteristics that appeals to all of us*. We're too diverse for that. If we dwell on the parts of each one that we consider to be flaws, then nobody can ever be good enough.

The thing that I like about Harris is that he has taken dead aim at answering that question - Without religion, where do we get morality? That is the last column propping up religion and once it topples we can make real progress toward a secular humanist approach to co-habitating on this spec of rock.

This is actually one of the reasons I'm not keen on Harris, his book was a weak screed against religion masquerading as philosophy and science.

The atheist philosopher Simon Blackburn, reviewing the book, described Harris as "a knockabout atheist" who "joins the prodigious ranks of those whose claim to have transcended philosophy is just an instance of their doing it very badly"

In my opinion, morality, at this level, will not yield to rational analysis, and people who think that it will or that they have done so are simply thinking badly.

[apophenia]

The thing that I like about Harris is that he has taken dead aim at answering that question - Without religion, where do we get morality? That is the last column propping up religion and once it topples we can make real progress toward a secular humanist approach to co-habitating on this spec of rock.

Oh, and I found this in another thread. Please tell me how the two can be reconciled.

An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma. To begin with, he does not have a fixed truth—truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing. He is a politcal relativist. He accepts the late Justice Learned Hand’s statement that “the mark of a free man is that ever-gnawing inner uncertainty as to whether or not he is right.” The consequence is that he is ever on the hunt for the causes of man’s plight and the general propositions that help to make some sense out of man’s irrational world. He must constantly examine life, including his own, to get some idea of what it is all about, and he must challenge and test his own findings. Irreverence, essential to questioning, is a requisite. Curiosity becomes compulsive. His most frequent word is “why?”

Alinsky, Saul (2010-06-22). Rules for Radicals (pp. 10-11). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.