You Might Be an Uncle Tom Atheist If... [View All]

[rug]

Uncle Tom Atheists Exchange Liberty for Crumbs of Privilege

By Austin Cline, About.com Guide October 22, 2011

Are you truly committed to equality, liberty, and liberation for all atheists or are you more of an "Uncle Tom" atheist? Would you turn your back on working for real equality in exchange for a few scraps from the tables of religious theists so you can pretend you're being treated as an equal? Would you support increased privileges for Christians in the hope that a few of those privileges might drip down to benefit you personally? You might, and without even realizing it because some seemingly innocuous behaviors can do all atheists more harm than good.

So, You Might be an Uncle Tom Atheist if...

You "Accommodate" Believers' Demands to Have Special Privileges
Special privileges for one group is an indirect means of furthering the oppression of other groups, so an Uncle Tom Atheist cooperates with privileged groups by helping them defend current accommodations or acquire more. Privileging religious believers generally or Christians in particular means that secularism suffers and secular atheists become further disadvantaged. Uncle Tom Atheists, though, hope that their active cooperation will allow them to enjoy a few scraps dropped from the table of privileged believers. This is unlikely to happen in practice and when it does it only means that those atheists are kept even more under control, but for some the hope of such scraps outweighs any hope for genuine liberation.

You Allow Religion to Give People a Special Status to Speak on Moral Issues
One of the greatest lies perpetuated by religion today is the idea that religion, religious leaders, and religious institutions have any special authority on moral questions. This allows them to frame both moral and political debates in ways that further entrench religious power in society to the detriment of secularism and secular atheists. Uncle Tom Atheists cooperate with this by encouraging the perception that there is anything about a religious leader or religious institution which should automatically confer a stronger voice in public debates than secular leaders and secular institutions. This may flatter religious believers, but it sets back the cause of liberation from religious authoritarianism.

You Make Civility and Being "Nice" More Important than Condemning Immorality
Being nice to people is an important social value, but it's not the only social value and there are times when not being nice — like incivility or derision — is called for. This is most plainly the case when we are faced with gross immorality: we don't need to be civil when discussing racism, we don't need to be nice when discussing neo-Nazis, and we don't need to worry about the hurt feelings of White Supremacists. Uncle Tom Atheists dismiss this and insist on worrying about the hurt feelings of religious theists no matter what they are being criticized for. Uncle Tom Atheists put the feelings of religious believers first and the suffering of victims of faith-based crimes or immorality last.

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/tp/UncleTomAtheists.htm

Charming fellow.