"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson
Title at IMAO: "What Do You Call a Group of Atheists?"
Answer: if they're
evangelical atheists, then I like to call them "assholes".
As a non-evangelical atheist, I feel compelled to distance myself from these nutjobs, much as non-crazy Muslims need to speak out against terrorists.
First, from the article:
"We feel the only way to fight the stigma toward atheists and agnostics is for people to feel like they know them, and they're your neighbors and your friends. It's the same idea as the out-of-the-closet campaign for gay rights."
Look, I'm not embarrassed about my atheism, but I have no interest in shoving it in people's faces like a gay rights advocate, either. Count me out of the Pride Parade.
And yeah, there's a stigma attached to atheism, but that's because it's atypical, and all atypical things have stigmas.
The normal shorthand way that Americans proclaim that they adhere to a standardized moral code regarding their treatment of other people is to acknowlege membership in a religion. If you don't have such a membership, sensible people will rightly wonder whether you have ANY moral code. Until you convice them that you do, folks have a right to be a little leery of dealing with you.
So I have to explain that I think the golden rule is a good idea, and that I think there are very sound non-religious reasons not to lie, cheat, steal, murder and adulter. After that, I get tossed into people's mental "eccentric, but harmless" bin, and the subject of my non-belief doesn't usually come up again.
The groups' leaders say they are trying to marshal secularists at a time when the religious right and politicians who say America is a "Christian nation" are on the march
Um... America IS a Christian nation. And since Christianity is a healthy, functional religion, this is a GOOD thing.
"We must denounce politicians that contend U.S. law should be based on the Bible and the Ten Commandments," said Todd Stiefel, a retired pharmaceutical company executive who is underwriting most of the ad campaign that cites alarming Scripture passages. "It has not been based on these and should never be. Our founding fathers created a secular democracy."
First, they created a secular
representative republic. Big difference.
Second, I'm not familiar with any politicians who contend that US law should be based on the Bible or the Ten Commandments. The plain fact is, there ARE some Biblical precepts that also make good law in a modern American secular society, just as they laid a solid foundation in an ancient Jewish tribal society. Baby. Bathwater. Don't throw it out.
Honoring your mother & father would probably make a lousy constitutional amendment, but apparently those "politicians who must be denounced" have figured that out, because no one's pushing for it.
On the confrontational end of the spectrum, American Atheists, which was founded in 1963 by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, will just before Thanksgiving put a billboard on the busy approach to the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey heading into New York.
It features a Nativity scene, and the words: "You Know it's a Myth. This Season Celebrate Reason."
OO! Here's a better idea! This season, don't be an asshole who goes out of his way to suck the happiness out of other people's lives. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is a myth, too, but it's an uplifting story and people enjoy it. Let them.
Another running throughout the South shows Butterfly McQueen, the late actress who played Scarlett O'Hara's maid in "Gone With the Wind." The billboard says, "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion."
Religion isn't slavery. It's a useful belief system that helps people cope with tough times and celebrate good ones, and it works pretty well. I've got a different system, but I'm not dumb enough to believe that everyone would be as comfortable in it. I don't go around insisting everyone else should use it for the same reason I don't go around insisting that everyone wear size 12 shoes like I do.
Next up: some comments at IMAO:
You have to ask the question: "Why is killing someone bad?" How would an atheist answer that question? Because people have said so? That's not very convincing.
Because when you kill someone, you can't work together with him in a reasonable fashion to accomplish mutual goals, which is one of the main benefits of people living in groups. That said, there ARE some times when killing people is good. Stopping an armed robbery, for example.
Atheist's tend to believe that out of nothing something appeared. Over the years it became something else, then something else, then something else, then eventually a rock, then a tree, then... me.
...and they say believing that it was all created is far fetched. Yeah, I'm the wierd one.
Cosmological origin and evolutionary theory don't preclude the existence of God. Any atheist that claims otherwise is an idiot.
I wonder what atheists think when they die and go to wherever God sends to determine who goes up or down. "Oh crap, did I have this wrong! I hope Hell has a Starbucks."
Yeah, that'd pretty much be my reaction. Although I much prefer the coffee at Dunkin Donuts.
I always love how the first generation Atheist leaves religion but still retains some morals and principles etc.. and likes that their neighbors do but then cant convince their children why if there is no god that any of that crap matters. Even if I didn't believe in God, I would be glad my neighbors did.
Morals aren't crap. They're a requirement for living in a functioning human society. Christianity has a good set of them, so a lot of them get retained. Again: Baby. Bathwater. Don't throw it out. But a belief in God isn't necessary to enjoy the societal benefits of adhering to a moral code. On the other hand, it doesn't preclude it, either, so yeah, Christian neighbors are wonderful things.
Most cities have cop/citizen ratios of like 1/5000 or even 1/10000. Its not cops or ego-guilt that props up civilization, its that nearly all people have a conscious and worry that their deeds are known to an all knowing creator.
Me, I worry that my deeds aren't helping me get what I want out of life. As Zig Ziglar puts it "You can have anything you want in life if you will help enough other people get what they want." So I tend towards helping people out when I can. Ask my blogchildren.
Yup, I want to live my life believing that nothing I do matters, there is no purpose to anything, right and wrong are only illusions dictated by man and when I die I have no eternal soul! Sounds pretty cool to me!
Well, everything I do matters... to me. There is purpose - the one I choose. Right and wrong exist - people who habitually choose wrong tend to die early, so it's not a good long-term survival strategy. No eternal soul, though. When I die, it's just over, like turning off a light. So I'm trying to make the most of the years I have.
But how do I make the most of it? Let's put that in terms of "the big question". You know, the one that helps you figure out if an action is right or wrong.
For Christians, it's "would God disapprove"? If yes, then don't do it.
For me, it's "is this likely to make me worse off any time in the next 20 years?" If yes, I don't do it.
That's why I tend not to lie, cheat, steal, or kill. Sure it's got short term advantages, but afterwards I'd have to deal with the inconvenience of dodging the consequences. Long term, the straight & narrow path is easier & more fun.
It must also be comforting to know that you are no more than an evolution of some single-cell creature that crawled out of the primordial ooze like a gazillion years ago and eventually evolved from the Monkey!
In a way, it is. I'm living the American Dream, i.e. my life is better than the one my dad had, and his dad, and so on, and WAY better than the life of a single-cell creature.
Really how sad is it to believe that THIS is all there is to life? Why is it worth going on if THIS is the best it gets?
That would be VERY sad. And it wouldn't be worth it. But I believe that, as long as I'm alive, I can make choices that will make my life better and more enjoyable. I'm more of an existential optimist than a nihilist.
Each and every comment here attacks a straw man. I would be more than happy to clear up any misconceptions you have about atheism in a civil way. If you have any interest whatsoever in treating atheists like human beings and not just fodder for blog humor, I beseech you to send me an e-mail.
Get a blog and get clearing. I can help you with that. Send me an e-mail.
Remember, calling yourself an atheist and being able to ramble off a long list of things "we" believe is really really different than calling yourself a Christian and being able to ramble off a long list of things "we" believe.
Sarcastic, but point taken. A lot of atheists do end up sounding dogmatic when they defend their beliefs. Maybe it's because they haven't taken the time to clarify in their own heads WHY they hold the beliefs that they do, so they're unable to explain it off the cuff. Or maybe it's because they're dealing with a wide-ranging & complex subject that can't be adequately explained in pithy sound-bites. Either way, the conversation tends to get awkward and/or vitriolic pretty quick.
Which is the better person:
The one who does exactly what is expected of him by dictates claimed to have come from God
or
The one who can foresee consequences their actions would have and proceeds with the action that does the most good and the least harm?
Sorry, but Christians are just as much into weighing consequences as atheists. They're just weighing it on a different scale. Outside of stereotypes portrayed on liberal TV shows, Christians are not blind dogmatists. It just looks that way because most of the aphorisms they quote are all from the same book. But even atheists fall back on snappy-sounding quotations when making judgments. Heck, this post even starts with one.
Wow. The smug, angry, humorless atheists really taught us crazy fundamentalists.
Humorless atheists? Don't get too cocky, Frank. Remember when
I beat you up and stole your funny? :-P
