Being an atheist is okay: affirming your atheism is also okay

In which Plastic Exploding comes out to his blog readers as an atheist (horrors!) and stands up for being forthright and frank rather than silent on the subjects of religion and atheism

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

The above graphic was posted to my personal Facebook page last weekend by a close friend, who got it from a mutual acquaintance I know less well.  I slept on the message within for several days, and concluded that something about it stuck in my craw, and that I should respond to it.

Talking about atheism has never been the primary emphasis of this blog, but it seemed best that I respond to it here rather than on Facebook.  For one thing, I only go online a few times a week, and therefore turning this into a threaded discussion of some kind is neither practical for me, nor, I feel, particularly necessary.  For that reason, and out of respect for my Facebook friends, I am not assuming either endorsement or agreement with the substance of the graphic, nor that it originated with either of them.  I am responding just to the ideas expressed above, without reference to anything they have expressed in the past, as though they passed it along to me in the spirit of "hmm, look what I found: your thoughts?"

Well here are my thoughts, and they come mainly from the first two lines of the graphic:

Being an atheist is okay.
Being an atheist and shaming religions and spirituality as silly and not real is not okay.

Okay, there are some assumptions behind this statement that I have problems with.  The people: One is that atheists are motivated by malice and like to mock and belittle believers just because they are believers.  This is a negative stereotype no less than the notion that all Muslims are terrorists.  No atheist that I know, or know of in the greater atheist community, bullies people on account of their beliefs.  None.

The message: Another assumption is that the atheist-humanist message is about shaming or making people feel bad.  You could, I suppose, summarize the atheist-humanist perspective as "religion is silly and not real," but this would be a gross oversimplification and also, again, attribute motivations to us that are not there.

The subject: Still another assumption is that anything touching on religion is so personal that religion must always be exempted from critical evaluation, lest someone be offended.

The take-away from all this is that it's fine to be an atheist, but not okay to discuss atheism in public.  You can say, "I'm an atheist", but not express why you are an atheist.

There are many reasons why atheists should not be silent, even if what they have to say is something you don't want to hear.  For the last several years, organizations like American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, the United Coalition of Reason, the Center for Inquiry, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, along with their local affiliates and allies, have worked together to raise the visibility of secular Americans, urging closeted non-believers to come out as non-believers to their families, friends, co-workers and community  In a diverse urban community such as the one I live in, it's not too difficult to be an out atheist.  But in many, if not most areas of the country, where open declarations of piety and faith are virtually required and one of the first questions people are asked is "What church do you attend?", atheists live in isolation and fear of shunning, mistrust and sometimes threats.  Their invisibility is part of what perpetuates the misconceptions that atheists are bad people, that church-state separation is some sort of evil plot to take religion away from believers.

People can be shamed, ideas cannot.  Anyone who derides anyone else because of their beliefs is simply being a dick, and no group has a monopoly on dickishness.  If you follow the atheist blogosphere for any length of time, you will find a wealth of dicks saying dickish things, preachers, pundits, and politicians impugning the character and motives of people who fight for church-state separation and freedom of thought and conscience.  Most of the dickishness comes not from atheists toward believers but from believers toward other believers, and it's more toxic and hateful than any honest inquiry about the existence of gods or the rationality of religion-derived thinking.

But one thing needs to be made clear: being an atheist and holding religious ideas up to critical evaluation is okay.  Just as an example, as an atheist and a proponent of freedom of thought and conscience, I support the rights of American Muslims, who are currently encountering the brunt of believer-on-believer dickery in this country, to practice their religion, to freely associate, and to live free of harassment, discrimination or intimidation.  This does not oblige me to refrain from criticizing the tenets and practices of Islam, or from supporting the rights of Muslims who are questioning their faith to leave their religion without fear of retribution or retaliation.  If I have critical things to say about Islam (which I would rather leave to such prominent ex-Muslims as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, Maryam Namazie, or Taslima Nasrin, who are much more qualified), they will stand or fall on their own merits, and to anyone who can distinguish between criticizing ideas and shaming people, it will be obvious whether or not I am saying something valid or just being a dick.  I have no reason or desire to flag down a passing Muslim and give him a hard time, or to have discussions he does not wish to have, but if I think I have something to say, I am going to say it, and I cannot worry about people being too sensitive to hear dissenting views.  The same goes for any other religious group.  Cogent and rational criticism is not bigotry, it is the quest for truth.

I hope I have clearly made my point as to why the above graphic sort of didn't set well with me, and why people like you should not be afraid of people like me.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog.

Reason's Greetings, everyone.