Five Challenges Atheists Face and How We Can Overcome Them

[rug]

April 23, 2015
by Hemant Mehta

Today is Openly Secular Day and Tom Krattenmaker uses the opportunity to bring up five challenges atheists still face.

I wanted to summarize his points and add a few thoughts of my own:

1) Even though we’re despised in some parts of the country and discriminated against in some ways, we don’t really get bullied or picked on. That makes it harder to gain sympathy for our views.

Krattenmaker is right (and I’m glad he is, because the alternative would be awful). We often make a lot of comparisons between our movement and the LGBT movement, and this is one area where that just falls apart. LGBT individuals have it much worse than we do on this front. (For that reason, I don’t buy the notion that the treatment of atheists is “America’s last prejudice.”)

That said, how do we make people more likely to trust us or consider us electable? Atheists who have the opportunity to do so need to talk more about their values and share stories about what they’re gone through. We have to find a way to get people who might disagree with us about God to be on our side in other ways. That doesn’t happen if we spend a lot of our time insulting them (publicly or otherwise).

2) We have a shitty reputation.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/04/23/five-challenges-atheists-face-and-how-we-can-overcome-them/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/04/22/open-securlar-day-krattenmaker/26081691/?AID=10709313&PID=6157437&SID=i8us1mk32c00xkod00dth

[guillaumeb]

1. I have never seen this site. Thank you.

The five points discussed are quite good. In order
1) Many people of faith do discriminate against atheists. Insisting on prayer at a public meeting is one example, but not the worst.
2) Reputation is a problem, but I personally would no more judge any individual atheist by the behavior of Richard Dawkins than I would judge any Christian by Pat Robertson's behavior.
3) Morality to me means behaving well toward your fellow humans. Do unto others is simply the best way to behave.
4) People who agree on goals should welcome everyone who shares the goals. That seems obvious. Does not always work out because some people do insist on a litmus test for people who should be natural allies.
5) Yes, be neighbors, co-workers, interact with everyone. And people of faith must also ACCEPT atheists as well.

[rug]

2. Patheos is a very informative site.

It has "channels" focused on various religions and atheism.

Hemant Mehta, who was raised Jain, is one of their best writers.

[Yorktown]

8. Not sure these 5 points are real long term problems

1) Many people of faith do discriminate against atheists.
2) We have a shitty reputation.
3) Too many people think God and morality go together.
4) We dismiss religious groups that might otherwise be natural allies
5) We have to stop being the “others.”

• 1 and 2 only reflect the fact militant theists have the upper hand in the US, and try to prolong that state of fact by demonizing the atheist out-group. But this is bound to crumble, sooner or later. Because as more and more educated generations arise, religions will be cornered into having to bring forward justification for their scriptures. Which is Mission Impossible.
• 4 is a minor point: just tactical, and limited to small religious groups.
• 5 is mostly a consequence of 1 and 2.

The real snag is 3.

People have been taught that fuzzy notion that religion is the furthering of good on earth by good people. And then, we have a vicious circular prophecy: people who are really good from a young age are attracted to religion by this crazy idea that religion is where good people go.

Tough cookie.

[guillaumeb]

9. I disagree on number 4.

Not every person of faith is a theocrat. There are many religious groups that work on social justice issues. All who work for civil rights, or the rights of workers to organize, or who work for LGBT issues are natural allies.

[Buzz cook]

3. We ain't monolithic.

So when the author uses the word "we" it doesn't mean much.

And that's the problem.

While there are some atheist organizations, they are few and far between with very little interaction. That makes it difficult for individual non-believers to find find like minded friends and then form communities.0

One of the reasons the gay analogy is not better is that even when it was relatively underground there was a gay community. Even if it was just a dingy bar you could meet people like yourself. It was the attack on one of those communities that caused the Stonewall riots.

Where the gay analogy works is more inspirational than comparative. After Stonewall gays started opening up and that as most people know led to great changes in how gays are perceived by society.

So imho the greatest challenge atheists face is building communities and coming out to the world around us. The rest will evolve naturally.

But on to the challenges.

1) Even though we’re despised in some parts of the country and discriminated against in some ways, we don’t really get bullied or picked on. That makes it harder to gain sympathy for our views.

While its true we don't get lynched, that isn't why we aren't seen as sympathetic. Its because most people don't know that someone close to them is a non-believer.

2) We have a shitty reputation.

The media loves controversy and conflict. As long as that's the case anyone speaking out against the conventional society will be portrayed as an asshole.
As far as I've seen in debates and lectures, its the other side that has been more assholish.

3) Too many people think God and morality go together.

Well religion has had a big head start. Once again knowing atheists that live moral lives goes a long way toward ending that belief.

4) We dismiss religious groups that might otherwise be natural allies on a host of church/state separation issues.

Again with that all inclusive "we". I have yet to see an atheist group opposed to working with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State just because some of the people involved are religious.
https://www.au.org/

5) We have to stop being the “others.”

OK sounds like a good idea to me.

[rug]

4. I think it's also because it's invisible, as most intellectual opinions are.

It's not marked by skin color, gender, language, dress or ritual. It's simply an opinion, an intellectual conclusion subject to change, that, on its own terms, impels nothing further. In other words, it's easy to pass and often does. I suspect the controversy begins when the "we" is announced. Then, the "they" react.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Neither is the nation. *I* don't get bullied here in Seattle, over being an atheist.

I couldn't expect to live as openly as I do in some other parts of the country, and remain unmolested.

[cbayer]

5. Thoughtful and right on, as usual.

It's time to put down the swords and pick up the plowshares. Those who insist on continuing the wage the war will be further marginalized, while those who recognize that Mehta is right will move ahead.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. You'd be surprised how far I can throw a plowshare.

[Fumesucker]

10. "We don't get bullied or picked on"...

All I can really say is that the author is not paying attention to a community he evidently thinks of as his own.

Just because certain behaviors aren't the obsession of the mainstream news don't mean they don't happen. People are quite willing, eager even, to bully and pick on atheists when those atheists are stupid enough to speak up and reveal themselves.

http://www.alternet.org/story/153803/why_is_an_atheist_high_school_student_getting_vicious_death_threats

If you take away just two things from the story about atheist high school student Jessica Ahlquist, and the court case she won last week to have a prayer banner taken out of her public school, let it be these:

The ruling in this case was entirely unsurprising. It is 100 percent in line with unambiguous legal precedent, established and re-established over many decades, exemplifying a basic principle of constitutional law.
As a result of this lawsuit, Jessica Ahlquist is now being bullied, ostracized and threatened with violence in her community. She has been called "evil" in public by her state representative, and is being targeted with multiple threats of violence, rape and death.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/08/atheist_that_spoke_against_in.html

Here are just a few of the messages that were directed at Scott on Facebook via comment threads or even to her personal inbox, provided to AL.com. AL.com also verified each comment and chose to withhold the names of the people who wrote them.

"Shoot her for treason."
"Go jump off a bridge."
"I believe in God. 'In God We Trust' should not be an issue. I bet that if she was [sic] fixing to be raped or murdered she would be asking God to save her."
"Get a rope."
"I think this lady is just trying to get some attention, because no guy wants to go out with her."
"Saw her on the news, she's just mad because one of the seven deadly sins is gluttony."
"If you don't believe in God, how can God or the word God offend you? I wish people like this would walk into traffic."
"What's her motto, in McDonalds we trust?"
"She can take a flying leap off Canal Bridge."
"Dump her off at the Iraq border, tell her she's home hit the road."
"Whatever happened to stoning people in the city square?"
"What do I think? I think she will burn in Hell when her time comes."

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/08/08/atheist-author-cancels-seattle-appearance-after-receiving-death-threats-signed-by-gods-little-helper

This weekend, the Atheist Alliance of America is hosting their 2014 national convention in SeaTac. Prominent atheists, including Stephen Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein, are headlining a full docket of panels and banquets and field trips. One author, who publishes under the pseudonym Horus Gilgamesh, was scheduled to attend the convention in support of his new book Awkward Moments (Not Found in Your Average) Children's Bible, a study of the Bible's most contradictory and cruel episodes intended for adults, but presented in the guise of a children's book. At the last minute, Gilgamesh canceled his appearance at the convention after receiving two death threats in the mail this week.

On Monday, Gilgamesh opened the mailbox at his Washington state home to find a letter addressed to both his real name and his pseudonym. The letter, which arrived with a Tacoma-Olympia postmark, began "Do I have your attention now? You think your [sic] so safe to hide behind a fake name to spread lies about God and attacking Christians? You aren't." This is followed by a lengthy quote about putting idolaters to death from the King James translation of Deuteronomy 13. The verse warns that if anyone you know "serve[s] other gods," you should "surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death." The letter ends: "I'll see you up in Seattle next week. You wont [sic] see me." It's signed "God's Little Helper."

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/school-cancels-bible-man-visits-atheist-mom-receives-threats

"At first he did not know that he didn't have to go," she told reporters. "As he got older, it bothered him that he had to sit through this because it's not his religion."

After hearing of the complaint, the Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote to the school warning them that the visits from Bible Man violated the Constitution.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation works "as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church," according to their website.

Since the removal of Bible Man from the schools, the atheist mother has said that her family has received threats on social media, including a picture of a burning house on Facebook.