Atheism Without Antagonism
-- Toward Slanderers
Nathan A. McQuillen
From: "Nathan A. McQuillen"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Atheism without antagonism
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 05:01:43 -0000
Dear Cliff (or Mr. Walker, or whatever),
I am writing for several reasons. To begin, I must preface further comments by confessing that I am appalled and disturbed by the general attitude of your site and the tone of your correspondence with those who do not share your rather narrow beliefs. I found myself wondering whether you would be any less dismissive or antagonistic toward someone who did -- say, a fellow atheist such as myself -- who levied critiques similar to those submitted by those you seem to have written off due to their religious beliefs. So I thought I'd find out for myself.
First off, I don't understand why you feel persecuted as an atheist. I've never been so much as squinted at for having no religious beliefs, nor have I ever witnessed such discrimination. On the other hand, I have witnessed tremendous discrimination against friends and family with a variety of religious beliefs, from institutionalized biases (such as the common unavailability of kosher and vegetarian foods) to out and out persecution and violence (such as I witnessed directed toward a friend who joined the Hare Krishnas, or such as I have seen innumerable individuals perpetrate in reaction to street evangelists and the like).
This hatred and violence has not been done by members of other religious faiths or sects. It has been done by those who feel that conformity to societal norms (in the case of the U.S., a wholly secular lifestyle, with no "silly" or incomprehensible rituals, dress or requirements that might frighten the xenophobic and inconvenience the free accretion of capital) is more important and necessary than following one's own beliefs and discoveries. It is to the best of my knowledge the selfsame persecution that has taken so many lives, wearing so many disguises, religious and secular, since history began.
To me, being a 'freethinker' means being unafraid to hold onto your beliefs in the face of societal stricture, whatever those beliefs may be.
I cannot imagine where, or how, you have lived your life so as to encounter persecution for claiming no religious affiliation. You would do me a great service if you could shed a little light on this. I have only encountered this accusation as a smokescreen for indignation from those who feel that religion is something that should only be practiced in private, out of the public eye, and who would prefer even to that a sort of fatwa against those who profess to any "unscientific" faith at all, a movement to "debunk" and "expose" religion -- which absolutely fails even to address the basic facts of what religions are, how they work, or what they're good (or bad) for. Save this sort of ignorance, I do not knwo what one would have to fear from other peoples' religions, even when they impinge upon our religion-free lives.
To take one common example, as a freethinker and a historian, I grant myself the freedom to acknowledge that the word "God" on my currency refers to what the founders of this country associated with the word: a mechanistic creative force essentially identical with the unstatable first conditions of a Big Bang universe, which (or "who") served to maintain the rigid set of physical and social rules that defined the paradigms of the time. I do not feel the fetishistic need, which others seem to demand of any atheist, to object in principle to the use of the word.
Likewise, I could not possibly, as a freethinker, find anything wrong with taking an oath where I ask, "so help me God," or swearing on a holy book, or in any other way petitioning the emergent order of the universe for assistance in divining the truth of a matter. It would require sizeable doses of both ignorance and spite for one to refuse to do such a thing: ignorance because the purpose of such an oath is clearly to invoke certain interpersonal social forces, in order to create a favorable environment for a suite of sub- or semiconscious forces that manifest themselves more clearly under stress and in situations of deception; and spite because the other function of such oaths is one of cultural tradition, and in order to function in a society as freethinkers we must first realize the arbitrary nature of all signs and symbols, clothing and words no less than gods or holy books, and follow this realization with a choice to either leave that society or operate within its bounds, appreciating and respecting the clockwork of its symbology at the same time as we walk through its ideological walls.
Nevetheless, some atheists seem to think that, by believing in god(s), others are slighting, hurting, depriving, insulting or menacing them. This, to me at least, makes no sense whatsoever.
It seems (and you must have heard this one a lot from other atheists who're irritated at your approach) that you have managed to turn an absence of belief in social constructions into an equally strong counter-credo, with its own socially constructed "rational" worldview, with little or no room for personal exploration of, or belief in, the infinity of unproveable but personally viable beliefs out of which we all build our individual selves.
I think in general those who have adopted atheism as a faith unto itself tend to a degree of intolerance commensurate with any other religious zealotry. I for one find no need to proselytize to the religious, to defend my rather obvious and straightforward belief systems, or to attack those whose beliefs, while contradicting my own to the best of my knowledge, do me no harm and pose me no threat.
On the other hand, there are tactics and techniques adopted by many dogmatic groups that I feel prompt the conscious individual to take action against those tactics and toward an understanding of the generic self-similarity of all dogmas. Maybe you will attack me for asking for explanations, and perhaps I will be dismissed as yet another incorrect thinker, but if not, I would truly appreciate your help in determining some of the psychological roots and phenomenal dynamics of your brand of dogmatic atheism. I am not one to oppose movements or beliefs without reason (the very grounds for my refusal to condemn religion per se), but so far your particular brand of atheism has presented reasons in spades. Please clear this up for me.
The fact that most intolerant atheists seem to be converted past believers in other faiths, many with abusive histories, seems to me to partly explain why normal personality traits and human responses to the unknown seem so inexorably linked in such individuals' minds with organized religion and the convenient, guilt-free fiction of the predatory belief system or "cult."
I think the following explains further why we must be mindful of these trends and cognitive strategies and do our best to at least be honest about our involvement in a matrix of atypical associations, where some of the terms associated with hope and good for so many become instead associated with shame, pain and fear. It is simply linguistically impossible for many people to posit a godless world, because their definition of god(s) is not what ours, as atheists or past believers, happens to be: they have defined god(s) as a function of the living world around them, not the fixed external fiction that we tend to have encountered. I would say, however, that unless one has been raised atheist and has never been involved in any religion whatsoever (and here I would have to flag myself as fitting those criteria), one probably shares more psycholinguistic traits with a born-again Christian than with anyone, theist or atheist, who has never struggled against an externally defined religious worldview.
The reason is this. It is comforting to believe that one has moved beyond some particularly painful time or worldview, to believe in one's own progress and improvement and liberation. Indeed, this ability to shed selves and rearrange our most basic truths is one of our most successful and useful traits, and the trait behind our ability to make easy transitions in times of crisis. The fact that we are merely switching one set of arbitrary interpretations for another does not generally seem to give us pause -- whether it's "growing up" or being "born again," or just "finding ourselves," we substitute symbol systems and in the substitution, whatever the systems lost or gained, we find solace and truth and meaning. So, whether one has found "truth," or "salvation," whether the world one discovers be worldly or otherworldly, a promise of resurrection or a rescue from oppressive "imposed" beliefs -- psychologically, it's all very much the same sort of passage, from externally to internally defined worldviews. It's a normal passage, for all that early trauma tends to intensify it, and result in more radical adherence to new belief systems; similar passages occur often several times during any person's life.
Therefore, whether your rhetoric is Christian, Jain, or atheist, if you advocate a shift in worldview, if your fellows have undergone this passage of conversion, you are part of the same sort of system. All dogmas are structurally similar, including their resistance to criticism and change. Dogmas are syntactic tectonics, moving under the roots and assumptions of lexical mapping, invisible to direct survey but wielding chthonic power and having catastrophic importance to the consciousness that lies above them.
We all have dogmas, as the acceptance of impermanent, unprovable truths is pivotal to the formulation of a fixed self, a conscious 'I' -- what is crucial, to us as individuals as well as to the world as a whole, and what will, if the project of huamn inquiry is not stopped in its tracks by our current sociopolitical crises, prove our redemption as a species, is the ability we have recently begun to develop, by primary virtue of high-speed transportation and communication and recorded history, to acknowledge that all dogmas operate on the same level of discourse and serve to actualize similar psychological needs.
There are ways of knowing the world that are practical in different human situations. Sometimes one has need of a micrometer, other times a telescope, other times stillness and a sense of the unity of things; we are not fixed points, and we are never wholly circumscribed by our dogmas or our languages. There are by definition gaps in knowledge in the material world. There are best guesses we make that sometimes turn out wrong, and there are risks we take that pay off. I am not advocating a religions or an atheistic dogma, because we simply have too little time to pretend to know more than what we know. Those whose beliefs lead them to decrease suffering, to increase knowledge, to bring better times to pass, whatever the beliefs may be that led them to do those things are immaterial. Their beliefs are unreal to anyone but them. It is their deeds that live on.
In summary, I feel that you do a great disservice to the idea of freethought and atheism by continuing to empower, as a reactionary, the terms and syntax of religion, condemning religious belief, seeking to discredit faiths whose experiential data is as solid as your own, and demonstrating less than no understanding of the sociolinguistic functions and meanings of religious and other dogmatic systems.
It is interesting to me, as a historian of social discourse, how you have followed a typical pattern (and one which I am working on mapping in post-oppressive subgroups such as Israelis and women in Generation X) of reactive mimicry: you have succeeded in creating a religion in the negative image of others, with a fear of "theism" as strong as any "god-fearing" believer, and intolerance far outstripping any I have experienced from a wide range of religious individuals.
Honesty requires me to confess my biases directly, and I truly hope you can see past any initial negative reactions that might compel you to discard this letter, and insetad find the time to respond to me in some depth. I am curious how you have dealt with criticism from other atheists in the past, and how you respond to the clear similarities between dogmatic systems that cause me, and no doubt has caused others, to place your belief system in the same ideological basket as all you seem to detest.
Thank you very much for your time,
Nathan McQuillen
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Nathan A. McQuillen"
Subject: Re: Atheism without antagonism
Date: Thursday, February 22, 2001 9:29 PM
I found myself wondering whether you would be any less dismissive or antagonistic toward someone who did -- say, a fellow atheist such as myself -- who levied critiques similar to those submitted by those you seem to have written off due to their religious beliefs. So I thought I'd find out for myself.
As a man who honors truthfulness, if you wish to levy "critiques similar to those" that I have written off as containing slander, unfair charges, false information, distorted history, logical fallacy and the like, then my response will be the same to your "critique" as it has been to the ones who have offered "similar" critiques. If your "critique" is groundless because it is based on a false premise, I will treat your "critique" the same way that I have treated the others. Calling yourself an atheist does not impress me, as I treat all people by the same set of standards: if you wish to make a case before me, if you wish to try to win me over to your viewpoint as one of truthfulness (because mine is based upon falsehood), then I'd better not find any lies in your "critique." Otherwise, you will find out the same thing that the others have found: I don't go for that behavior.
First off, I don't understand why you feel persecuted as an atheist.
I don't understand why you would slander me like this: I never said I felt persecuted as an atheist. I even address this very slander in the letter from Duane Hutton. The term persecute has a unique and very specific meaning. For you to put this word into my mouth is patently dishonest.
The only thing that even remotely resembles persecution that I have endured was when I was jailed for refusing a court order to undergo religious instruction in a faith-based partnership known as the Twelve Step Program. Once I agreed to go, and once I became willing to express my atheism in that Program, I was beat up once, threatened with physical violence numerous times (I can remember at least ten instances), and even after I quit, I have been threatened since then, through messages left on my telephone and via U.S. Mail. I even quit working for Rational Recovery as a direct result of the numerous threatening telephone calls I'd receive: they finally got to me. But in the interim, Oregon state agencies are no longer allowed to send someone to a Twelve Step program unless there is a secular alternative: the victims must have a nonreligious choice or the Twelve Step program is not an option. I don't know how firmly this is enforced, but these are the rules nonetheless.
Of course I was shunned as a child for not believing in God, and held after school for refusing to pray in class. I have been "bad-vibed" out of bars, as recently as a few months ago, after it became known that I am an atheist. One print shop I'd been using for over a year suddenly cancelled our contract when a new manager came aboard. One of the workers suggests that it was the title of our magazine that got him going.
But I don't know if this is rightly called persecution: as close as I get would be the court order to undergo religious instruction (Twelve Step "treatment" and meetings), and the sometimes violent response of the religious people who were authorized by the court to provide that instruction (the members of the Twelve Step program).
I've never been so much as squinted at for having no religious beliefs, nor have I ever witnessed such discrimination.
You are very fortunate. Read some of the letters -- actually read them -- and hear the stories of those, for example, who live in the Deep South, or the person whose extended family consists entirely of Jehovah's Witnesses. Read the stories of the many teenagers who are being coerced by their parents to undergo religious instruction and, in one case, is expected to kneel during prayer and to enunciate the words of the prayers. The reason I tend to believe these stories is because I have watched it happen: One woman boasted to me that she forced her teenagers to attend her fundamentalist church if they lived in her house. Atheists, all, I tell you! Atheists all!
Also, how vocal are you in opposing, say, the slogan, "In God We Trust" on our money? Do you cross it out at the check stand? Do you have one of United States Atheists' money stamps? and do you use it on your money? -- "every dollar of it"? as the Abbot and Costello routine goes? Do you have any bumper stickers on your car? Would you, if ordered by a court to undergo religious instruction, object on religious grounds? Would you, if ordered by a fourth-grade teacher to recite a prayer in unison with the rest of the class, remain silent, lips not moving, because you thought it was weird?
When people inquire as to your religious persuasion, do you use the word atheist or mask your atheism with "nicer" terminology?
On the other hand, I have witnessed tremendous discrimination against friends and family with a variety of religious beliefs, from institutionalized biases (such as the common unavailability of kosher and vegetarian foods) to out and out persecution and violence (such as I witnessed directed toward a friend who joined the Hare Krishnas, or such as I have seen innumerable individuals perpetrate in reaction to street evangelists and the like).
I agree: the Christian majority (or any majority, for that matter, they happen to be Christian here) does not single out atheist over and above other forms of non-Christian lifestyles (though atheists tend to have it worse than believers, as even liberals -- and lately Wiccans -- will shun an atheist, whereas a fundamentalist will tend to shun anybody not in the group). You wouldn't have had to read very far to notice that we make many statements along these lines. I have come to the defense of: Satanists; Wiccans; Baptists (May, 2000 issue); Jehovah's Witnesses; Muslims (August, 2000 issue); Pantheists; and many other cases.
Mostly, though, I boldly assert that I not only demand that people have the right to believe whatever they want, I go so far as to respect the fact that they'd want to believe that way (without crossing that line of respecting the belief itself). This is one of the core elements of our Mission statement, "What Is Positive Atheism?," the very first item in the list on our front page called "Overview of this Website."
So, for you to make this statement in the context of comparing your viewpoint against mine is, I think, dishonest and quite unfair. You come off as someone who has given our website a fair look, but it is quite clear that you have not seen much of what we have to say.
This hatred and violence has not been done by members of other religious faiths or sects.
Ah, but if the violent ones are not members of religious sects, that makes them atheists! Do you see what you're saying, here?
I realize that you are trying to make a point about social norms, but the sorry truth is that many of those social norms are based in religious belief. Also, the tendency toward fundamentalism is fostered, for the most part, by the press to keep a religious dogma alive.
And I promise you that most of the ones committing these crimes are religious simply because statistically, most Americans confess religious faith (notwithstanding the Roman Catholic notion that someone who confesses but is disobedient is, by definition, an atheist).
To me, being a 'freethinker' means being unafraid to hold onto your beliefs in the face of societal stricture, whatever those beliefs may be.
I hold a different definition for freethinker, but agree that this is one element. However, there occasionally comes a time (such as my experience with the Twelve Steppers) when one is tempted to place physical safety before the right to openly declare one's position.
I cannot imagine where, or how, you have lived your life so as to encounter persecution for claiming no religious affiliation.
Again, this is slander and slander: I never said I encountered persecution (except one oblique suggestion that the court order to undergo religious instruction might qualify as persecution); I never said that I encountered any problems for claiming no religious affiliation. My problems stem mostly from my use of the word atheist in describing myself. In fact, I have stated repeatedly that my parents solved this problem by telling people, "Oh, we're not religious," when asked about our affiliation: this served them just fine. I go much further than my parents in that I am not afraid to suffer the consequences of using the word atheist. I am not afraid to boldly oppose such institutions as court-mandated Twelve Step involvement, and to work so hard as to seriously impact policy in a way that the Steppers could no longer let the government do their recruiting for them. I am not afraid to stand there with my pen and cross out the word God on my money at the bar or the checkout stand (and most people give me a "thumbs up" -- but those who have become offended have become really irate with me, even going so far as to give me merchandise for free so I won't do it again, and, later, beginning a campaign of extremely lousy service, such as the woman who would not take my order for food the next time I showed up).
You would do me a great service if you could shed a little light on this.
I cannot help you unless you become willing to be more truthful.
I have only encountered this accusation as a smokescreen for indignation from those who feel that religion is something that should only be practiced in private, out of the public eye, and who would prefer even to that a sort of fatwa against those who profess to any "unscientific" faith at all, a movement to "debunk" and "expose" religion -- which absolutely fails even to address the basic facts of what religions are, how they work, or what they're good (or bad) for.
I cannot speak for the motives of others, and will not try. However, as stated above, this "smokescreen," as you call it, is not something you have encountered in the context of a the Positive Atheism Magazine editorial position: you have not heard me give this position.
Save this sort of ignorance, I do not knwo what one would have to fear from other peoples' religions, even when they impinge upon our religion-free lives.
Well, I do not fear religion itself (and don't know where you came up with the idea that I do, or that I use this straw-man "fear" of yours as a "smokescreen" of some sort).
To take one common example, as a freethinker and a historian, I grant myself the freedom to acknowledge that the word "God" on my currency refers to what the founders of this country associated with the word: a mechanistic creative force essentially identical with the unstatable first conditions of a Big Bang universe, which (or "who") served to maintain the rigid set of physical and social rules that defined the paradigms of the time. I do not feel the fetishistic need, which others seem to demand of any atheist, to object in principle to the use of the word.
Ah, let me get this straight: Your a historian, but you connect the slogan "In God We Trust" to the days of the Founding Fathers? I may be a layperson, but I have read the United States Treasury's official history of the slogan that appears on our money (a lie that purports to include me as one of the "We" who allegedly "Trust" a "God" of some sort). I have not encountered an instance of this slogan in any of the writings of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, or Paine. As far as I can tell, the slogan became popular during the Civil War, and was the result of lobbying by devout Christians, particularly the Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, who invoked Christian reasons for placing a slogan honoring the Christian god on our coins.
Finally, for you to assert that I have "written off" people "due to their religious beliefs" is pure slander on your part. I only ever write off people who have threatened me with physical violence or who have stolen something from me. I never even marginalize someone for their religious beliefs, but will hold someone accountable to truthfulness when trying to convince me to go along with those beliefs.
Likewise, I could not possibly, as a freethinker, find anything wrong with taking an oath where I ask, "so help me God," or swearing on a holy book, or in any other way petitioning the emergent order of the universe for assistance in divining the truth of a matter.
To expect an atheist to swear a god-oath on some holy book (or to require a Muslim to swear on a Bible, for example), is not only morally wrong, in my opinion, but is, as far as I can tell, unconstitutional. Regardless of any decisions that have come down, I feel it an infringement of what I understand to be my First Amendment right to religious Liberty.
It would require sizeable doses of both ignorance and spite for one to refuse to do such a thing:
I do not claim infallibility, so that makes me ignorant. I'm not sure what you mean by "sizable doses" of ignorance. However, I take offense at this, because the last time I appeared before a Grand Jury, I asked the District Attorney if I could "affirm" rather than "swear," which is my right. One member of the Grand Jury even remembered my activities in the Twelve Step program, when I'd demand dignity for atheists and would write articles along those lines for the local, statewide, and national Twelve Step journals. He looked at me and gave me a wink and a smile. I bumped in to him much later and he explained that he was real glad to see me "walking my talk" (as they say in the Program) even in the face of appearing before a Grand Jury!
While I can understand how he might think that it took quite a lot of guts for me to do this in the courtroom, I don't see it that way. For me, to go against what I think is right, or to compromise my dignity or to forego what I know are my rights, is what takes the guts. I don't think I'd have the nerve to invoke a god-oath in the face of my own conscience, which tells me that to put on the appearance of being religious when I am not religious is for me to tell a lie -- to mislead others into thinking that I go along with that travesty when I do nothing of the sort.
Nevetheless, some atheists seem to think that, by believing in god(s), others are slighting, hurting, depriving, insulting or menacing them. This, to me at least, makes no sense whatsoever.
This makes no sense to me, either. In fact, I have not encountered any atheists who think this way, leading me to suspect that this suggestion on your part is simply the product of a fruitful imagination -- perhaps linked to an agenda of some sort. You certainly put words into my mouth, though; you do not here or elsewhere describe my actual viewpoints in your "critique" of my views!
It seems (and you must have heard this one a lot from other atheists who're irritated at your approach) that you have managed to turn an absence of belief in social constructions into an equally strong counter-credo, with its own socially constructed "rational" worldview, with little or no room for personal exploration of, or belief in, the infinity of unproveable but personally viable beliefs out of which we all build our individual selves.
No atheists have accused me of thinking this way. No theists have accused me of thinking this way. This is a charge that only you have lodged against me (at least that has come to my ears).
In fact, I cannot even tell what you're trying to say. And I'll bet I'm not alone.
I think in general those who have adopted atheism as a faith unto itself tend to a degree of intolerance commensurate with any other religious zealotry.
I don't understand how the very lack of faith is rightly called a faith. I get this slander all the time from theists, but you're the first atheist who has leveled this charge against atheists.
Then again, more than one theist has written to us claiming to be an atheist (or, rather, not to be a theist), but who have later admitted to us that they were lying, that they were Christians after all. Gregory Auman did this, as did Chad Baxter.
Also, some forms of belief that are technically atheistic in fact contain many of the key elements of a religious dogma save one: a belief in a supernatural deity. Communism is a classic example of an atheistic philosophy which had many elements of a fundamentalist religion in trying to protect its supremacy as a viewpoint among the people. The World Church of the Creator is a godless "religion" of the White Supremacist variety, whose rhetoric about "mud people" and the like differs only from the Christian White Supremacists in that it denounces faith in a deity. The Raëlians are atheistic creationists whose anti-Darwin rhetoric would make a fundamentalist Christian proud.
I for one find no need to proselytize to the religious, to defend my rather obvious and straightforward belief systems, or to attack those whose beliefs, while contradicting my own to the best of my knowledge, do me no harm and pose me no threat.
I don't either. My target audience consists of people who are already atheists, as is clearly stated in several key points in our webiste. You cannot navigate very far without encountering this statement.
As such, I clearly and repeatedly and vigorously advocate that my fellow-atheists stop trying to de-convert theists from their religious views. I have done this in my monthly editorial column, and repeatedly in the Letters section. I even state as much in our FAQ section.
So, for you to make this statement in the context of comparing your viewpoint against mine is, again, patently dishonest -- notwithstanding the fact that you have cloaked the focus of your statement in the terms of "in general." You have introduced yourself as "an atheist" who is offering "a critique" of my views. But it is clear by this that you are either almost completely unfamiliar with my views or that you deliberately intend to slander me for some reason or other.
I will say that if you actually are an atheist, you are the first one who has gone to such lengths to slander me in this way: the others who have done this have been theists and a few agnostics.
In summary, I feel that you do a great disservice to the idea of freethought and atheism by continuing to empower, as a reactionary, the terms and syntax of religion, condemning religious belief, seeking to discredit faiths whose experiential data is as solid as your own, and demonstrating less than no understanding of the sociolinguistic functions and meanings of religious and other dogmatic systems.
I don't know anything about "experiential data." Data, as I have come to understand it, is something that we can show each other, something that we can all count or measure, etc. To me, the concept of "experiential data" is oxymoronic at best.
And I don't understand the concept of someone having "less than no understanding" of anything. To me, "oblivious" equals zero understanding, and that's as low as it gets. If you merely try to wax poetic, here, through your exaggeration, then you serve only to show your agenda in that you actively seek to discredit me regardless of whether my position is credible (if the simple absence of theistic belief can rightly be called a position at all).
As for discrediting religious belief, my position has always been that I am willing to listen to the claims of religious people, and to assess whether their claims are worthy of my assent. If they are, I convert to theism, pure and simple. If not, I remain an atheist like I was when I was a little boy, without any belief in any gods.
But for you to accuse me of "seeking to discredit faiths" is to portray me as trying to de-convert theists to my point of view. This is simply not the case with me, and hasn't been since 1978 when I consciously and assertively promised myself that I would not do that any more, that I would respect people's right to believe however they want, and that I'd respect the fact that they think they have valid reasons for believing the way they do.
In short, I think you have your head up your ass.
I say this because you have launched a "critique" of me based entirely upon your own fantasy of my position, never once bringing my actual position into the discussion. Unlike other atheists who have criticized me for this or that, your "critique" of my position is based entirely upon a false portrayal of my position.
I am curious how you have dealt with criticism from other atheists in the past, and how you respond to the clear similarities between dogmatic systems that cause me, and no doubt has caused others, to place your belief system in the same ideological basket as all you seem to detest.
All the criticism from atheists (except bad links, typos, etc.) is posted in our forum. I have never failed to post a criticism from an atheist (and have posted all legible criticisms from theists). Since you show yourself too lazy to have investigated my actual position before launching your salvoes against me, I will summarize for you the most popular criticism and how I handle it: this criticism has been launched more times by atheists than all other criticisms from atheists combined.
The big thing that atheists have written to me to protest is my use of the "weak" definition for the word atheism: that an atheist is one who simply lacks a god belief for whatever reason, and is not necessarily one who asserts that no gods exist. This definition is awkward only in that it includes infants and imbeciles within the umbrella of atheism, because one either has a god belief or one does not. The nineteenth-century Secularists had no problem with this quirk about the infants, though it opens itself up to the charge of "recruiting by definition." I say so be it.
Those atheists who oppose my use of the "weak" definition fail to realize two things: First, I recommend it in its traditional sense, inclusive of "strong" atheism, so I am not trying to shut them out of the picture or even call "strong" atheism inferior (I am a "strong" atheist in some respects and by some definitions). Secondly, I am not advocating that the atheist communities adopt the "weak" definition as a working and exclusive definition within our ranks, I am merely suggesting that we popularize the idea that an atheist does not necessarily assert that no gods exist, but that atheists, for the most part, simply lack a god belief and rarely if ever think on the subject of theism unless asked.
I do this because I think it might contribute toward reducing the stigma that we atheists endure from all sides. However, it will do us no good if people continue to slander us and try to discredit us based upon things that we haven't even said.
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
Note: This particular dialogue is more about the honesty of the letter writer than it is about a postmodernist "critique" of our views -- simply because the views critiqued are not ours and are, for the most part, not even atheism. And when it boils down to it, the bottom line is not atheism or even my approach to atheism, but about my psychological make-up. I post stuff like this and the Rich Zawadzki letter for a reason: I wish to express my respect for honest discourse, and my disdain for the practice using dishonest means to convince others to believe that one's view is a position of truthfulness, or that one's opponent's view is a position of falsehood. I also wish to display -- in action -- the acts of people who prefer this method of discourse. Mr. McQuillen started out his first letter with the following statement:
Then he proceeded to write an extremely long letter which continues along these lines. Now, he winds his second message (his response) by saying,
Hmmm! Does this sound like "baiting" to you? If you pull a cat's tail, will she scratch you? Let's approach a man who has a reputation for demanding honest discourse and then proceed to lie both to him and about him. Then, when he defends his position or shows us to be liars, we'll suggest that he's having "paranoid episodes" -- in the same breath in which we accused him of assuming us to be accusatory! I wonder what my psychological diagnosis would be if I'd sent this thing to the Deleted Items folder? Why did I initially suggest -- out loud -- that he had not explored much of our website before writing this tirade? Because there is plenty of legitimate criticism that can be lodged against my views and my approach. But why did I quietly suspect (in my mind) that all he'd done is bump into our website, go to the Front Page, and then click the link to the Zawadzki letter? (And why does he relate to that most brutal of Lou Reed songs which I quoted -- the one about baiting?) Like Rich Zawadzki, he might just be doing this to gain fodder for his quest to portray atheism as "a faith unto itself" which tends toward "intolerance commensurate with any other religious zealotry" with its "tactics and techniques adopted by many dogmatic groups." I can see why he expresses such a kinship with Mr. Zawadzki! This is all I have to say. Those who are familiar with my style of not tolerating false accusations can use your imaginations to fill in the blanks where I have chosen not to respond. The sad part is that this fellow probably has some interesting points to make; however, he started off in an extremely inimical and accusatory tone, then denied that he was being this way. In short, by being so dishonest about what we can read right here in this letter, he has squashed his credibility and we now cannot tell if he is being truthful about anecdotal matters. If someone else who favors postmodernism wishes to make an attempt at advocating those views in a more honest discourse, we would be happy to offer our response if we have any. But as particle physicist Victor Stenger once assured me, we have nothing to worry about postmodernism, as it does not exist outside of certain universities because it cannot thrive in the open marketplace of ideas. -- Cliff Walker |
From: "Nathan A. McQuillen"
To: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Re: Atheism without antagonism
Date: Friday, February 23, 2001 11:29 AM
Well, I didn't expect quite this degree of confirmation. Wow. Thanks!
As you apparently took my letter a little more seriously than I would have, receiving similar, I probably should provide a little background information before this dialogue continues. I happened across your site while doing some research on Gardener's "Men, Women and Gods," which my girlfriend had just happened across and which seemed to be a truly classic polemic of the very best sort. This led me to your site, and I started (as the medium demands) exploring. Much of your material seemed promising -- then I stumbled into your posted correspondences, and it was in these and these alone that I found many of my worst experiences with other atheists reiterated.
To clarify, before I continue, I am not religious, and am not trying to entrap or mislead you in any way. I was raised atheist. I follow several buddhist practices and find common ground with much of buddhist psychology, but in a strictly secular manner, and I find religions and things that look like them deeply fascinating, perhaps as a result of my lifelong outsider's perspective. When I wrote, it was certainly to express some outrage at the way you seemed to embrace divisive definitions and fixed language in your correspondence, outrage which no doubt colored what would otherwise have been more measured words, but I also wrote out of an absolutely genuine search for some insight on why other atheists seem to be so angry and indignant, and so unwilling to find common ground with religious people.
I will briefly reply to as many of your points as I can, but in order to avoid any possible misinterpretation, I'm not going to keep writing tonight until four AM -- apparently doing this in my initial post led to some confusion as my language got less precise.
As a man who honors truthfulness, if you wish to levy "critiques similar to those" that I have written off as containing slander, unfair charges, false information, distorted history, logical fallacy and the like, then my response will be the same to your "critique" as it has been to the ones who have offered "similar" critiques.
Slander, unfair charges, false information, distorted history, logical fallacy -- where? I suppose we will find out. I have not made any attempt to gain an argumentative edge by dissecting your words or asserting that you are lying or malicious -- I think you come across loud and clear. I would say that you are someone who likes to argue, to gain the upper hand, and to champion one fixed truth, logic and rationality over negotited meaning, intuitive thought and inference. In short, you are a postmodernist's nightmare, and I expect that I as well will be told, sooner rather than later, that "further attempts on [my] part to contact the magazine will be considered harassment" or some such retreat -- unless I can do my very best to come over to your side of the field, play by your rules, and write with an eye to fixed meaning rather than interplay. As I am to some degree invested in this question I have posed, I will do my very best, and I truly hope I can do so without calling down further allegations of slander or sloppy thinking. I suppose it will be a just quid pro quo, as you have now provided me with some nits to pick as well.
If your "critique" is groundless because it is based on a false premise, I will treat your "critique" the same way that I have treated the others. Calling yourself an atheist does not impress me, as I treat all people by the same set of standards: if you wish to make a case before me, if you wish to try to win me over to your viewpoint as one of truthfulness (because mine is based upon falsehood), then I'd better not find any lies in your "critique." Otherwise, you will find out the same thing that the others have found: I don't go for that behavior.
OK, are you saying then that that you should not be criticised for the tone or implication of your comments? I'm not trying to win you over to anything. I'm trying (successfully so far, and thank you!) to get some information on why you, like so many other vocal atheists, seem to object to religion, in particular, on principles that to me are just as valid levied against nearly any other, non-religious linguistic or social system.
First off, I don't understand why you feel persecuted as an atheist.
I don't understand why you would slander me like this: I never said I felt persecuted as an atheist. I even address this very slander in the letter from Duane Hutton. The term persecute has a unique and very specific meaning. For you to put this word into my mouth is patently dishonest of you.
Please refrain from using the word "slander" to refer to our private correspondence. It has no meaning in this context. To slander is to spread untrue rumors in the public forum -- I'm doing neither. My use of the phrase "feel persecuted" is different from your own. That's all. OK, let's work on that and find common language. I think it is obvious that I am not slandering you, and that I am trying to synthesize, as accurately as possible, a cogent reframing of your varied expressions of the events mentioned below.
The only thing that even remotely resembles persecution that I have endured was when I was jailed for refusing a court order to undergo religious instruction in a faith-based partnership known as the Twelve Step Program.
I am familiar with the 12 Steps and their language, and in my experience, the term "higher power" is most commonly used. It is used, as far as I know, as a shorthand outside the ego for concepts such as willpower and honesty, that tend to suffer when a person begins to experience the shame associated with dependencies of many sorts.
Such programs use the "higher power" like Jungian analysis uses archetypes: if we can set aspects of our world apart from the conscious core of our selves, it often becomes easier, in the long run, to trust and rely on them at times when we find it difficult to, or are expressly told not to, trust and rely on ourselves. I believe it is crucial in such programs, as it is in Jungian work, to realize the arbitrary nature of these signs, but it is a process that at some point involves a submission to something other than the immediate conscious self, as a means of freeing that self from its shame and its guilt at past actions.
Once I agreed to go, and once I became willing to express my atheism in that Program, I was beat up once, threatened with physical violence numerous times (I can remember at least ten instances) and even after I quit, I have been threatened since then, through messages left on my telephone and via U.S. Mail.
I am very sorry that you've had to go through any of that. It sounds terrible, and similar to what others have noted about the similarities between twelve step programs and "cults." (My response of course is to expand the scope, and examine how the larger institutions we belong to also follow the same patterns -- but that's irrelevent except to further confirm and support what you've said about your experiences.)
We are a people who have no clear idea how to help one another, and who in general don't want to get our hands dirty doing so. We prefer there to be vast, faceless programs and agencies that can spirit people away and return them "cured" -- the medical model in all its mechanical awfulness. It does not surprise me that you have had the experiences you have, but that does not make me any less saddened to hear that yet another person has been brutalized by the mental health apparatus.
I even quit working for Rational Recovery as a direct result of the numerous threatening telephone calls I'd receive: they finally got to me. But in the interim, Oregon state agencies are no longer allowed to send someone to a Twelve Step program unless there is a secular alternative: the victims must have a nonreligious choice or the Twelve Step program is not an option. I don't know how firmly this is enforced, but these are the rules nonetheless.
I'd appreciate if you could clarify just a bit how the twelve step program is religious. I just don't know what particular language they use -- I don't think referring to a "higher power" that is an obvious psychological shorthand, is religous, but maybe they're a lot more blatant than that in some places.
Of course I was shunned as a child for not believing in God, and held after school for refusing to pray in class.
You see, what is an "of course' to you, is an entirely foreign experience to me, and to many of my generation (late Gen-X). I do not question it by any means, and again, I am sorry it hppened to you, and I also must respond that, while this is another very clear basis for a personal dislike of religion, or a personal animosity toward a particular school, it should be noted that many people will have the same reaction I do upon reading this: namely, to ask, what sort of a terrible school, in what sort of a place, did this person attend, and simultaneously to react to your experience, based on our own, as aberrant and atypical.
No doubt it was much longer ago than my school experience, and I do not doubt that part of the difference I have enjoyed is a result of the work of atheists, or non-christians, but it is still a profoundly different experience to anything I can imagine, and it is difficult to accept as an underpinning for a critique of a society which I have only experienced as almost brutally secular.
I have been "bad-vibed" out of bars, as recently as a few months ago, after it became known that I am an atheist.
I don't know what this means. Again, different worlds -- for me, a bar is a place where one goes with friends, to purchase drinks and food and talk to those friends. It's not a place where one meets people (at least not people one trusts enough to talk to) or a place one developes an intimate relationship with (say, one intimate enough to talk abotu religion or its absence). I might suggest here that if your style of discussing the issues of atheism in open discourse, say in a bar, are anything like they tactics you use in your letters, I could see some bad vibes developing -- but let's not get too deeply into that.
One print shop I'd been using for over a year suddenly cancelled our contract when a new manager came aboard. One of the workers suggests that it was the title of our magazine that got him going.
Well, shit -- my print shop would run off anything you sent us -- 100 linescreen, or PDFs, but we only do single-color offset work...;) People can be assholes for any number of reasons. My girlfriend's grandmother recently received a solicitation from some sort of slavering right-wing "group" that turned out to be one guy, who's asking for something like 80 grand to keep his slavering rag afloat, after "his enemies" managed to somehow make him overspend his operating budget by several tens of thousands of dollars, cost him his magazine, his marriage and his health, and for all I know, make the godless Chinese drug his food -- no doubt his printers had their reasons for pulling his run too, and though he's pretty sure those reasons were ideological, just 'cause the bills have Presidents on 'em doesn't make 'em political...;) I'm not making any allegations here at all. Just wanted to slip in the anecdote. Sorry to digress.
But I don't know if this is rightly called persecution: as close as I get would be the court order to undergo religious instruction (Twelve Step "treatment" and meetings), and the sometimes violent response of the religious people who were authorized by the court to provide that instruction (the members of the Twelve Step program).
You see, I would class all of that as abusive and demeaning, but I think it's emblematic of problems that run well past the religious touchstones of your conflicts with these systems. Whether it's atheism or any other sort of difference, schools and the mental health system are virtual machines for mass brutalization of those exhibiting non-normative behavior. It's abhorrent.
I've never been so much as squinted at for having no religious beliefs, nor have I ever witnessed such discrimination.
You are very fortunate. Read some of the letters -- actually read them -- and hear the stories of those, for example, who live in the Deep South, or the person whose extended family consists entirely of Jehovah's Witnesses. Read the stories of the many teenagers who are being coerced by their parents to undergo religious instruction and, in one case, is expected to kneel during prayer and to enunciate the words of the prayers. The reason I tend to believe these stories is because I have watched it happen: I have known a woman who boasted that she forced her teenagers to attend her fundamentalist church.
These are issues of abuse, again -- for every kid who's forced to say prayers or attend a church, ten or a hundred are forced to stay in at night, stay away from certain friends, dress in a particular manner, attend institutions they don't want to attend -- because their families and their society and their peer groups expect and demand it.
And for every person who's alienated from his or her family becasue of religious intolerance, I would suggest that thousands are probably alienated based on just plain old personal intolerance, physical, sexual and chemical abuse, differences of opinion about life choices, sexuality, interracial relationships -- I'm not about to suggest that religious differences don't play their role here. But it goes all ways, and what "it" is is of much more concern, to me at least, than how "it" manifests differently in different communities and families.
Let me tell you a short anecdote about why I'm resentful of this sort of family structure. I have an aunt and uncle who are born-again christians. For much of my life, they would send me religious christmas presents -- but I never got to see them. My atheist parents, apparently believing (as so many atheists seem to) that religion is somehow contagious or polluting, didn't even let me open the gifts. I wasn't told what was in the bible, why people believed what they did -- i experienced very much the same sort of cultural privation that some kids raised in fundamentalist households do, but in my case I suffered when I came across biblical names, references, and allusions in stories I read. In general, i was deprived of access to the most influential and pervasive text in Western culture, for most of my upbringing, because my parents feared that something in it might somehow corrupt me, make me religious.
I should say here that I have always read a lot. I taught myself to read by age three and had a pretty good grasp of the difference between fact and fiction at quite a young age, and I knwo also that there was such a thing as mythology, that expressed cultural and social truths -- experiential truth rather than experimental truth -- in stories that were metaphorically valid though factually unverifiable. This didn't keep my folks from assuming that I couldn't make up my own mind about whether to believe, on no evidence, that some djinn or hobgoblin in the sky could make oceans part, water turn to wine, or dead men walk. Religions write some fascinating books, brilliant mythologies, which express some of the greatest social truths and some of our worst moments as a species, and I think one must not make the mistake of investing "holy" books with more power, positive or negative, than other mythologies or fictions -- to do so only obscures their textual and historical importance, and makes them a fetish to fight over, which is a sorry fate for any text.
Back to the fray ...
Also, how vocal are you in opposing, say, the slogan, "In God We Trust" on our money? Do you cross it out at the check stand? Do you have one of United States Atheists' money stamps?
Nope. As I think I explained, I am perfectly happy with these usages. I like things that secularize religious terminology, and as a freethinker, I do not feel remotely threatened by a word that more people differ and disagree on than nearly any other featuring prominently in my country's seal. It's quite fitting. We all recognize "In God We Trust," but I really doubt that more than a handful of people anywhere could tell you exactly what it means. It's making "God" a symbol of Whiggish progressivism, rather than making the state an instrument of religion -- and much as I detest Whiggery, it's a fine thing to normalize religious terms by cluttering them up with Masonic and other Enlightenment hocus-pocus. I'm all for reclaiming the centuries of labor put into creating and maointaining religions as fully as we can, by normalizing religious language until we can read "holy" texts as social theory rather than as dogma.
and do you use it on your money? -- "every dollar of it"? as the Abbot and Costello routine goes? Do you have any bumper stickers on your car?
Yep. Anti-capitalism, anti-neoliberalism, pro-choice, anti-homophobia, Earth First! stickers, all have occupied space on my car at various times. But I simply don't feel threatened by religion, I don't feel that it's immoral or dangerous, like the things I do so express my opposition to, and I don't feel that I have to impose my personal beliefs on the information soace of others when their conflicting beliefs do no harm.
Would you, if ordered by a court to undergo religious instruction, object on religious grounds? Would you, if ordered by a fourth-grade teacher to recite a prayer in unison with the rest of the class, remain silent, lips not moving, because you thought it was weird?
Yes. I would object to court ordered religious instruction, for myself or anyone, and I always remained silent during the Pledge of Allegiance because I disagreed with flag-worship as much as god-worship.
I will say prayers with others at funerals, weddings, meals, because to do otherwise is to interfere with the social function of these benedictions, whose sentiments I fully share.
When people ask, to you use the word atheist?
Yep. Or "Zen Buddhist," which I am happy to explaim further if asked, emphasizing the absence of gods, demons, or other external entities. Once in a while I'll put down "Zoroastrian" on surveys just 'cause I think they need more statistical representation. On some of thsoe surveys, too, I'm a 90-year-old Eskimo millionaire.;)
On the other hand, I have witnessed tremendous discrimination against friends and family with a ... perpetrate in reaction to street evangelists and the like).
I agree: the Christian majority (or any majority, for that matter, they happen to be Christian here) does not single out atheist over and above other forms of non-Christian lifestyles (though atheists tend to have it worse than believers, as even liberals -- and lately Wiccans -- will shun an atheist, whereas a fundamentalist will tend to shun anybody not in the group).
I would argue that, while the majority may be christian, the culture is secular. It profanes christianity and other faiths whenever it touches them. (By 'profaning," I mean, of course, that it makes them non-religious, usually turning them into means to enforce moral hegenomies and consumption patterns.)
You wouldn't have had to read very far to notice that we make many statements along these lines. I have come to the defense of: Satanists;...Mostly, though, I boldly assert that I not only demand that people have the right to believe whatever they want, I go so far as to respect the fact that they'd want to believe that way (without crossing that line of respecting the belief itself). This is one of the core elements of our Mission statement, "What Is Positive Atheism?," the very first item in the list on our front page called "Overview of this Website."
Yes. I felt that the way you addressed your critics, however, was in variance with this statement. I will say again, I was quite impressed with what you assert is your mission and your principles. I simply found the praxis of these principles, in your letters, startlingly at odds with their formulation.
So, for you to make this statement in the context of comparing your viewpoint against mine is, I think, dishonest and quite unfair. You come off as someone who has given our website a fair look, but it is quite clear that you have not seen much of what we have to say.
In fact, I have. I don't like to argue by quoting bits and pieces, as it's easier to mislead than to fairly represent in doing so -- we know what's on the site. Much of it you wrote, much of it I've read, and as to my reactions, see above.
This hatred and violence has not been done by members of other religious faiths or sects.
Ah, but if the violent ones are not members of religious sects, that makes them atheists! Do you see what you're saying, here?
What are you saying? I am espressly restating the sort of action I have seen undertaken far more by atheists than by the religious. I know that the people in these cases were atheists because I knew each of them fairly well. You cite a good example of this sort of thing here:
| "Remember, arguing over whether a god exists is one of the stupidest reasons to get into a fight, and our energy is best directed elsewhere. An atheist we know once loved to go downtown to heckle street preachers -- until he asked himself, "What if that's how this poor clown stays off drugs?" Now, a street preacher, technically, is inviting trouble even from someone practicing Positive Atheism, but this man's sentiments still show the beginnings of a compassionate outlook toward theism." |
I have never seen someone heckled or intimidated or harassed for being an atheist. That's all I'm saying here.
I realize that you are trying to make a point about social norms, but the sorry truth is that many of those social norms are based in religious belief. Also, the tendency toward fundamentalism is fostered, for the most part, by the press to keep a religious dogma alive.
I must break this paragraph down a little. First, your assertion about the press I simply disagree with, and neither of us, to my knwoledge, sits on any editorial boards of major media, so this has to be unresolved -- but I don't think the press is concerned with keeping religion alive. I think the press serves a globalizing economy, and exists at this time to suppress popular dissent and promote the rapid spread of the ideals of the consumer culture. Where this means Jesus, they push him, where it means Joe Camel, they push him instead.
Secondly, your "sorry truth" must run contrary to history, unless you in fact believe that religions are divinely inspired. For a religion to evolve, it must derive from extant social conditions, unless the religious 'truths' somehow predated people's experience with one another and the world. Ideology and practice are of course in continual mutually regulatory dialogue (surprise! it's the dialectic!) throughout human history, but I don't think there's much of a chicken-and-egg problem in ferreting out the origins of social norms and religion -- nor, for that matter, is there a chicken-and-egg problem after Darwin...;) So long as we find social roles and behaviors in our primate relatives, who seem to wage war, make tools and have hierarchies quite successfully without any religions we can detect, I'd say that to blame religion for brutality and oppression is only to apologize for and obscure the role of the social matrix in translating ideology into action.
And I promise you that most of the ones committing these crimes are religious simply because statistically, most Americans confess religious faith (notwithstanding the Roman Catholic notion that someone who confesses but is disobedient is, by definition, an atheist).
Again, the violence I refer to (not very violent, mostly intolerant and verbally abusive) was perpetrated by atheists against religious people. Just a few events, but far eclipsing any abuse I've witnessed from the religious toward atheists.
To me, being a 'freethinker' means being unafraid to hold onto your beliefs in the face of societal stricture, whatever those beliefs may be.
I hold a different definition for freethinker, but agree that this is one element. However, there occasionally comes a time (such as my experience with the Twelve Steppers) when one is tempted to place physical safety before the right to openly declare one's position.
I agree. Again, the problem lies with a far greater superstructure of normative inflexibility than religion alone can account for.
I cannot imagine where, or how, you have lived your life so as to encounter persecution for claiming no religious affiliation.
Again, this is slander and slander: I never said I encountered persecution (except one oblique suggestion that the court order to undergo religious instruction might qualify as persecution); I never said that I encountered any problems for claiming no religious affiliation. My problems stem mostly from my use of the word atheist in describing myself.
No, it's not slander. Cut that out.;)
I'm not going to argue so petty a point. Allow me to rephrase: I could not imagine where, or how, you had lived your life so as to encounter opposition or harassment as a result of stating that you did not believe in god(s). I am still not entirely sure that these ... impediments ... could be as pervasive as you claim.
In fact, I have stated repeatedly that my parents solved this problem by telling people, "Oh, we're not religious," when asked about our affiliation: this served them just fine. I go much further than my parents in that I am not afraid to suffer the consequences of using the word atheist.
I'm not either. Go figure. Never seen any consequences, but shucks ...
I am not afraid to boldly oppose such institutions as court-mandated Twelve Step involvement, and to work so hard as to seriously impact policy in a way that the Steppers could no longer let the government do their recruiting for them.
Good for you. I've only done a bit of this sort of work myself, though I grew up with ACLU meetings in the house and constant exposure to just this sort of battle. I respect those who have undertaken test cases above all others: to challenge unjust laws is the very highest calling one can have.
I am not afraid to stand there with my pen and cross out the word God on my money at the bar or the checkout stand (and most people give me a "thumbs up" -- but those who have become offended have become really irate with me, even going so far as to give me merchandise for free so I won't do it again,
Huh? I guess we've been over this already. I think it's petty and annoying myself, and shows a lack of imagination, but you go. (I prefer to draw moustaches on the little people...;) )
and, later, beginning a campaign of extremely lousy service, such as the woman who would not take my order for food the next time I showed up).
Yeah, well shee-it. Some folks don't like being handed damaged goods.
You would do me a great service if you could shed a little light on this.
I cannot help you unless you become willing to be more truthful.
What have I lied about? How have I misrepresented myself? As far as representing your views, I don't think coming up with terms you disagree with, while doing my best to paraphrase you concisely (a Herculean task, mind you), is anything like untruth -- but I guess you like to call it 'slander,' so apparently this is a sore spot. I think we've touched on this already too.
I have only encountered this accusation as a smokescreen for indignation from those ... they're good (or bad) for.
I cannot speak for the motives of others, and will not try. However, as stated above, this "smokescreen," as you call it, is not something you have encountered in the context of a the Positive Atheism Magazine editorial position: you have not heard me give this position.
Quite true. This was offered as a point for comment, which you have to some extent provided, and I thank you. It does seem to me that your frustration with what you see as a Christian majority society is based on some rather unique experiences, and I fully respect your efforts to form a community of others who have shared these experiences. I understand your positions much more now than I did before, and though you do seem inclined to interpret much of what I have asked about and criticised as directly attacking you and your editorial positions, I assure you yet again that I really was curious about the origins of what read, to me, as a rather vicious antagonism toward those who wanted only to open a dialogue with you.
Save this sort of ignorance, I do not knwo what one would have to fear from other peoples' religions, even when they impinge upon our religion-free lives.
Well, I do not fear religion itself (and don't know where you came up with the idea that I do, or that I use this straw-man "fear" of yours as a "smokescreen" of some sort).
Again, not you -- atheists I have known. (New from Bantam...;) ) I am not attacking you. I haven't, I won't. Even if you directly insult me. So there. Nyah. :P
Ah, let me get this straight: Your a historian, but you connect the slogan "In God We Trust" to the days of the Founding Fathers? I may be a layperson, but I have read the United States Treasury's official history of the slogan that appears on our money (a lie that purports to include me as one of the "We" who allegedly "Trust" a "God" of some sort).
I connect the slogan to the second (or third, depending on who you ask) so-called Great Awakening, a period of increased religious fervor and nationwide movements which included the origins of the women's rights movement. As far as linking the terminology of the Treasury seal to the mechanistic god of the founders, I choose to do so because the seal itself is to me an open text. I don't know what "god" is or looks like, so why not use the term as a quick and dirty catch-all for those things that may or may not exist, but that seem to us to have great import? Historical directionality, evolutionary purpose, luck, synchronicity, etc. -- I trust in these things, and why not. If it said "christ" or any other less open term, I would stridently object -- but until every last quantum has been named, and every condition of matter predicted, there's something I can call "god" when social cohesion so requests.
I have not encountered an instance of this slogan in any of the writings of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, or Paine. As far as I can tell, the slogan became popular during the Civil War, and was the result of lobbying by devout Christians, particularly the Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, who invoked Christian reasons for placing a slogan honoring the Christian god on our coins.
Yep. And it was approved by a secular state for reasons of political expediency. Same as the "god" line in the Pledge of Allegiance, inserted in general as part of the propaganda war against a largely imaginary Red Menace.
Finally, for you to assert that I have "written off" people "due to their religious beliefs" is pure slander on your part. I only ever write off people who have threatened me with physical violence or who have stolen something from me. I never even marginalize someone for their religious beliefs, but will hold someone accountable to truthfulness when trying to convince me to go along with those beliefs.
In particular, I found your response in this letter:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9360.htm
to a very good-natured and jovial Christian to be far, far beyond the pale. You repeatedly demean his beliefs (likening them to "rabbits in flying saucers" among other things, and using charged terms "pure foolishness" where less loaded language would have sufficed.)
In addition to your selective use of a dictionary (check out the etymonogy of 'heathen' -- it's really quite a favorable, and pretty, word, with a colorful history and kinship with the word 'heather'!), you respond to this kind, if lexically challenged, fellow by radically misinterpreting his statements so as to provide grist for what seemed to me to be simply a grudge mill. Here, for example, when Zawadzki has only said that "I try to live the best life that I can," you manage to, in excellent rabbinical fashion, derive the following through some sort of exegesis:
So, your remark raises a serious question for me: What is it about Christianity that makes so many Christians talk as if they're somehow superior to the rest of us when it comes to morality? I don't get it. It's not like there's any truth behind this assumption, and this behavior serves only to make the Christians in question appear arrogant. It's this arrogance, more than anything else, which prevents me from even giving lip-service to Christianity (as doing so would surely reduce the bigotry that I endure on almost a daily basis). I'm too much of a man of truthfulness to assert what is flatly false simply because it might bring me gain. I would like to be able to find some redeeming feature in the Christian religion, though. If I found even one good thing, I would emphasize that feature in hopes of reducing the bigotry that I endure almost every day. But no: I cannot find anything I like about the Christian religion -- anything. So, when asked, I will give the honest opinion of my mind and will suffer the consequences of being truthful. |
What did he say about morality?! What accusation did you read into his statement? How, and why?! This is the passage that initially got my hackles up.
And you continue, in response to his delighted statement that "This is America," and obvious joy at discovering someone whose beliefs seem to him to be ridiculous:
And this is America where a Christian is free to cast doubt on the integrity of an atheist spokesperson without coughing up a good hard case against that atheist. In America, a theist need merely find an atheist's words "amusing" or "offensive" and the matter is settled. In America, the Christian is not required to make a solid case against the atheist, but may simply slight the atheist without fear. But let the atheist try to do this to a Christian in America and see what happens! We never hear the end of it! |
Oh, bullshit. Sorry, Cliff, but this is, as we say in Wisconsin, a load of hooey. Ever see 'The Chruch Lady'? Yeah, that really got Carvey lynched. (No, in fact it, and his George Bush impression, got him invited to the White House. No shit.) And as far as I know, there aren't too many classrooms with flat earth globes sitting around. It's a secular state. Regardless of the constant encroachment of everyone and everything that wants power, it's still secular. As long as our eternal vigilance is maintained, it will remain so.
Now, again:
|
I have 3 humorous questions (My opinion) and 1 serious question: (The tone is jovial, not spiteful-Sometimes it's hard to read that in e-mails) Sounds like fun! (I wonder why I'm not laughing.) Could it be that I've had to change bars one more time due (once again) to the fact that it got around that I'm an atheist? so I'm staying home on a Friday night rather than grabbing a well-deserved reprieve from this cracker-box apartment where I live and work? I just don't have the nerve to go out there tonight. Maybe tomorrow, but not tonight. |
Wow. Sure makes us feel sorry for you. Also makes us a little wary, honestly. Why on earth not laugh? Why not engage the guy in a little friendly banter so that in the end you're less bitter and he trusts atheists more? And why the hell drag your personal troubles finding a drinking establishment into a discussion of dogma, evolution, etc.? More 'honesty'? Anyway, it continues:
|
1. Do atheists exercise faith in any area of life? If this is a joke, do you want me to answer it? Or are you just making fun of atheists because you're so superior to us that you can act this way and fear no consequences? Do you think that not even your credibility will be tarnished by your behavior? Don't you realize that acting this way speaks volumes against the claims that the Christian religion is effective at turning people into moral citizens? Next question. |
What did you read into that one?! And what behavior are you referring to? Sure, the guy is dim. Sure, he's a bit over the top, shoulder-clapping jolly in a way that would make the cocktail-party guest very nervous. But why jump on him with your accumulated grievances when you have so eloquently answered, in other places, the questions he's asking, as though they really mattered?
And by the way -- was he physically threatening you or misrepresenting you, up there, where you dismissed him?
In your response to his benighted and innumerate question about evolution, I thought you could have pushed him toward Kaufman's "The Origins of Order" for an explanation of how evolution is simply not random chance, even on the molecular scale. He deals with this in his new "Investigations" as well -- read it.
I liked your response to his question about charities and giving. Very astute, well said and well researched. This is the rub! Why are the brilliant answers intermixed with bitter, dismissive, near-abusive ones? I just don't get it.
He responds in truly disjointed fashion, to which response you reply that further messages will be forwarded to your "server abuse team" -- nice. You do respond to the parts of his post that are recognizable language, albeit not necessarily with the greatest civility:
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Although you sound like a very bitter and unhappy man. I get this ad hominem every time I respond to someone who is such a flaming bigot that to even try to contain my contempt toward that person would be an inappropriate response on my part |
The guy didn't sound like a flaming bigot. Sounded like he was slumming with the atheists to get his kicks, yes (and I like the Lou Reed lyrics! Props!) but he wasn't abusive, antagnoistic, or accusatory -- reading that exchange for the first time, what stood out to me was that you do sound like a very bitter and unhappy man. In fact you sound more bitter and unhappy in print than virtually anyone else I've encountered on the Web. In the interests of honesty, why not just admit that this is a valid reading of your tone and style, and move on?
I will.
But one more thing first:
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(BOWING IS NOT AN OPTION, THE QUESTION IS WHEN") Your adherence to The Religion Of Brutality has turned you into something that barely resembles a human. |
Really civil, dude. All I can say here is human, all too human.
This was the correspondence that put me off and prompted me to write to you. Maybe it was just a bad day. (No bar, crappy apartment, etc...) but in light of your response to me, I'm disinclined toward so charitable a conclusion.
Likewise, I could not possibly, as a freethinker, find anything wrong with taking an oath where I ask, "so help me God," or swearing on a holy book, or in any other way petitioning the emergent order of the universe for assistance in divining the truth of a matter.
To expect an atheist to swear a god-oath on some holy book (or to require a Muslim to swear on a Bible, for example), is not only morally wrong, in my opinion, but is, as far as I can tell, unconstitutional. Regardless of any decisions that have come down, I feel it an infringement of what I understand to be my First Amendment right to religious Liberty.
Oh, sure. I'm just talking about my own perspective. I'll ask lepruchauns to help me too, or the State, or talking dogs, or whatever, if it's part of what makes the social ritual work.
It would require sizeable doses of both ignorance and spite for one to refuse to do such a thing:
I do not claim infallibility, so that makes me ignorant.
Hmmm? What does that mean?
I'm not sure what you mean by "sizable doses" of ignorance. However, I take offense at this, because the last time I appeared before a Grand Jury, I asked the District Attorney if I could "affirm" rather than "swear," which is my right. One member of the Grand Jury even remembered my activities in the Twelve Step program, when I'd demand dignity for atheists and write articles along those lines for the local, statewide, and national Twelve Step journals. He looked at me and gave me a wink and a smile. I met him much later and he explained that he was real glad to see me "walking my talk" (as they say in the Program) even in the face of appearing before a Grand Jury!
You didn't refuse it. You changed the language. Same ritual, different terms. God or Truth or whatever imaginary quantity you will into existence to witness for you, the structure's the same.
While I can understand how he might think that it took quite a lot of guts for me to do this in the courtroom, I don't see it that way. For me, to go against what I think is right, or to compromise my dignity or to forego what I know are my rights is what takes the guts. I don't think I'd have the nerve to invoke a god-oath in the face of my own conscience, which tells me that to put on the appearance of being religious when I am not religious is for me to tell a lie -- to mislead others into thinking that I go along with that travesty when I do nothing of the sort.
And again, I applaud you for doing so. I do not see it that way, because I don't see religion as a set of truth claims. To do so is to acknowledge that the set of theological terms has the same verifiable qualities as the set of terms describing the real. I don't think it does. Language is very good at talking about things that aren't real, and being able to imagine such things plays a major role in human capability, including (in my view) discussing what one hopes, wishes, fears, or expects -- speculation about the unknown, in other words. We can't talk about these terms as truth claims. They're pragmatic, like other major aspects of language, and they serve a social function, as well as probably being major cognitive placeholders and units of prelinguistic meaning, but I for one could not honestly distinguish between a meaningless pragmatic such as "hello" and a more complex and seemingly meaningful one such as "so help me God."
Nevetheless, some atheists seem to think that, by believing in god(s), others are slighting, hurting, depriving, insulting or menacing them. This, to me at least, makes no sense whatsoever.
This makes no sense to me, either. In fact, I have not encountered any atheists who think this way, leading me to suspect that this suggestion on your part is simply the product of a fruitful imagination -- perhaps linked to an agenda of some sort. You certainly put words into my mouth, though; you do not here or elsewhere describe my actual viewpoints in your "critique" of my views!
No agenda! Down, boy! I promise I'm just a good-natured atheist who doesn't get why where are so many bad-natured ones around. (If you notice, I didn't attribute these attributes above to you either -- I was sincere when i said this was a request for insight about those you have known. Yet again. I'm going to stop reiterating this now.)
It seems (and you must have heard this one a lot from other atheists who're irritated at your approach) that you have managed to turn an absence of belief in social constructions into an equally strong counter-credo, with its own socially constructed "rational" worldview, with little or no room for personal exploration of, or belief in, the infinity of unproveable but personally viable beliefs out of which we all build our individual selves.
No atheists have accused me of thinking this way. No theists have accused me of thinking this way. This is a charge that only you have lodged against me (at least that has come to my ears). In fact, I cannot even tell what you're trying to say. And I'll bet I'm not alone.
No, no doubt. As Mr. Zawadzki has shown, language can be tricky. Ha ha.
This point was made earlier in less abstract language. I am inclined to leave it to you to find it.
But I'll take pity. Point is, as I think i said later in my letter as well, language relies upon a lot of unknowns, and we have faith in a lot of unprovable and immaterial things (not the least of which being the existence of the self). To single deities out of the massive junkyard of fictions, speculations and half-truths that make up consciousness seems to me somehow cheap and unfair.
I really doubt that you've never been questioned about the other part of this, especially as your position statements are saturated with the question of whether your brand of atheism is dogmatic.
-- Readers: Explain What This Person Is Trying To Say (e-mail link)
I am so honored!!! Wow! I'm a real philosopher! <grin!>
I think in general those who have adopted atheism as a faith unto itself tend to a degree of intolerance commensurate with any other religious zealotry.
I don't understand how the very lack of faith is rightly called a faith. I get this slander all the time from theists, but you're the first atheist who has leveled this charge against atheists.
The very first ever? Oh BOY!
Y'know, maybe I've just misread you. But it still seems that the measured, tolerant tone of your well-considered works departs drastically from your writing in the heat of correspondence.
What I refer to is your inflexibility with the term "god," mostly. I believe that most theists (I'll use your word here once, no more, 'cause it's ugly) have experience, as I explained, with either the social meaning of faith, or with experiential data they find validates extant religious texts or prompts them to develop personal religious beliefs. Either way, their beliefs and practices are based on pragmatism and the facts of their experience.
One more example. Whether a person chooses to attribute his unlikely survival when his car went out of control on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to skills acquired by a subconscious process through playing Twisted Metal II on the PlayStation, as I concluded when I failed to die despite the highway's best efforts, or to guardian angels, as did one of the witnesses who saw me cross four lanes, skid back, and drive away, is to me immaterial. It wasn't a conscious process, I don't have direct access to that force or agency, and it saved my life. Whatever it is is not "me" in the way that the self writing this letter is, and I thank it every day.
Then again, more than one theist has written to us claiming to be an atheist (or, rather, not to be a theist), but who have later admitted to us that they were lying, that they were Christians after all. Gregory Auman did this, as did Chad Baxter.
Naughty boys. I'm not doing that. Clear?
Also, some forms of belief that are technically atheistic in fact contain many of the key elements of a religious dogma save one: a belief in a supernatural deity. Communism is a classic example of an atheistic philosophy which had many elements of a fundamentalist religion in trying to protect its supremacy as a viewpoint among the people. The World Church of the Creator is an godless "religion" of the White Supremacist variety, whose rhetoric about "mud people" and the like differs only from the Christian White Supremacists in that it denounces faith in a deity. The Raëlians are atheistic creationists whose anti-Darwin rhetoric would make a fundamentalist Christian proud.
And the Western linear progressive tradition, with its assumptions about the self and verifiability, is another.
I for one find no need to proselytize to the religious, to defend my rather obvious and straightforward belief systems, or to attack those whose beliefs, while contradicting my own to the best of my knowledge, do me no harm and pose me no threat.
I don't either. My target audience consists of people who are already atheists, as is clearly stated in several key points in our webiste. You cannot navigate very far without encountering this statement.
So why the money-wrangling, the bumper stickers? No desire whatsoever to make a point to those who have, if not oppressed, persecuted or harmed you, at least made your life a little less pleasant?
As such, I clearly and repeatedly and vigorously advocate that my fellow-atheists stop trying to de-convert theists from their religious views. I have done this in my monthly editorial column, and repeatedly in the Letters section. I even state as much in our FAQ section.
Of course you celebrate such de-conversions when they happen, and you are happy to tell religious folks that as far as you're concerned their beliefs are irrelevant and offend you. But this isn't an attempt to convert, I'll grant you that. It's just a little intolerant. Understandably so after your experiences.
So, for you to make this statement in the context of comparing your viewpoint against mine is, again, patently dishonest -- notwithstanding the fact that you have cloaked the focus of your statement in the terms of "in general." You have introduced yourself as "an atheist" who is offering "a critique" of my views. But it is clear by this that you are either almost completely unfamiliar with my views or that you deliberately intend to slander me for some reason or other.
Didn't we already see this paragraph? Slander ... Good word though.
I will say that if you actually are an atheist, you are the first one who has gone to such lengths to slander me in this way: the others who have done this have been theists and a few agnostics.
Slander, slander ...
Again, yes, I am an atheist. I don't think i have very many friends wo aren't. I don't actually know very many peoplw who believe in a god. I'll happily send you a survey or petition or whatever, if you don't believe me, though folks would think it pretty silly.
In summary, I feel that you do a great disservice to the idea of freethought and atheism by continuing to empower, as a reactionary, the terms and syntax of religion, condemning religious belief, seeking to discredit faiths whose experiential data is as solid as your own, and demonstrating less than no understanding of the sociolinguistic functions and meanings of religious and other dogmatic systems.
I don't know anything about "experiential data." Data, as I have come to understand it, is something that we can show each other, something that we can all count or measure, etc. To me, the concept of "experiential data" is oxymoronic at best.
Really? Don't you think that there are experiences which cannot be accurately conveyed to others? Try to explain your last orgasm, in meticulous, scientific detail, and see if anyone else experiences it.
I use the word 'data' to mean any sensory information experienced by the conscious self. Contrasted with 'information,' which refers as well to the currency of preconscious cognition and the great variety of impulses the senses take in that does not go to our conscious mind as percepts or percept fields, but still influences our neural patterns.
And I don't understand the concept of someone having "less than no understanding" of anything. To me, "oblivious" equals zero understanding, and that's as low as it gets. If you merely try to wax poetic, here, through your exaggeration, then you serve only to show your agenda in that you actively seek to discredit me regardless of whether my position is credible (if the simple absence of theistic belief can rightly be called a position at all).
Less than no understanding would be misunderstanding. I think your belief that religion is "nonsense" prompts me immediately to question whether you understand the social and psychological uses of nonsense. We're all full of the stuff, figuratively speaking.
As for discrediting religious belief, my position has always been that I am willing to listen to the claims of religious people, and to assess whether their claims are worthy of my assent. If they are, I convert to theism, pure and simple. If not, I remain an atheist like I was when I was a little boy, without any belief in any gods.
Truth claims, not pragmatics. Any elementary anthropological text can tell you a little more that you seem willing to accept about the social validity and importance of pragmatic structures, and while psychology's head is often where the sun don't shine, there's a lot of good work out there from philosophers, cognitive scientists, and yes, even psychologists, about how the brain deals with, and probably needs, paradoxical and meaningless structures (read Wittgenstein, "Philosophical Investigations") that can't be resolved using truth values.
But for you to accuse me of "seeking to discredit faiths" is to portray me as trying to de-convert theists to my point of view.
No, it's not. See above, about half a dozen times now...;)
This is simply not the case with me, and hasn't been since 1978 when I consciously and assertively promised myself that I would not do that any more, that I would respect people's right to believe however they want, and that I'd respect the fact that they think they have valid reasons for believing the way they do.
And in token of that respect, you will say:
In short, I think you have your head up your ass.
I see. How foolish of me to think you were being a jerk to our old-fashioned Christian pal.
I say this because you have launched a "critique" of me based entirely upon your own fantasy of my position, never once bringing my actual position into the discussion. Unlike other atheists who have criticized me for this or that, your "critique" of my position is based entirely upon a false portrayal of my position.
Thanks a lot. You have well described the process involved in your personalization of my queries and your simultaneous depersonalization of my criticism of your inconsistencies. <Ooh! Big words! At least I didn't say "critique"!>
I am curious how you have dealt with criticism from other atheists in the past, and how you respond to the clear similarities between dogmatic systems that cause me, and no doubt has caused others, to place your belief system in the same ideological basket as all you seem to detest.
All the criticism from atheists (except bad links, typos, etc.) is posted in our forum. I have never failed to post a criticism from an atheist (and have posted all legible criticisms from theists). Since you show yourself too lazy to have investigated my actual position before launching your salvoes against me, I will summarize for you the most popular criticism and how I handle it: this criticism has been launched more times by atheists than all other criticisms from atheists combined.
They weren't criticisms of you. Again, again, again -- no agenda. No crusade. No attack. Calm ...
The big thing that atheists have written to me to protest is my use of the "weak" definition for the word atheism: that an atheist is one who simply ... ever think on the subject of theism unless asked.
Sorry to cut this, but it's the sort of semantic and definitional wrangling that just obscures discussion. I don't really care, honestly, whether you use a "strong" or "weak" definition, except that I agree with you that the "weak" definition is defensible both from a truth claim position and also against charges of dogmatism, whereas the "strong" definition really flies in the face of the scientific method.
I do this because I think it might contribute toward reducing the stigma that we atheists endure from all sides. However, it will do us not good if people continue to slander us and try to discredit us based upon things that we haven't even said.
I believe I have steadfastly made certain that every criticism and comment I have levied toward you in this reply was based on things you actually said. If you choose to post this message in a public forum, you create the opportunity for it to become slanderous, but I don't really think too many of your readers are going to take my word for it that Cliff Walker has cloven hooves, rapes rats, or eats his peas with honey. You're probably pretty safe.
For what it's worth, I hope I am too. I don't particularly like the way you're so quick to assume I'm being inimical and accusatory. It sounds a little bit like the paranoid episodes I've sometimes helped friends through. At this point, I'm glad I didn't provide my address, but I would be delighted to continue this exchange and be proved wrong, about your character as well as your views. I understand quite a bit more about your personal experiences with religion after receiving your post, and I hope this reply clarifies my issues with both the correspondence that prompted my writing and the epistemological and pragmatic questions possibly raised by your views.
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Nathan A. McQuillen"
Subject: Re: Atheism without antagonism
Date: Friday, February 23, 2001 4:22 PM
To slander is to spread untrue rumors in the public forum -- I'm doing neither.
To slander is to lie about someone, publicly, for the purpose of discrediting that person. You have done all three, as this is a public forum.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9242.htm
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From: "Nathan A. McQuillen"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Re: Atheism without antagonism
Date: Friday, February 23, 2001 6:45 PM
Cliff,
You wrote,
To slander is to lie about someone, publicly, for the purpose of discrediting that person. You have done all three, as this is a public forum.
1. Slander actually requires defamation -- attempting to sully a person's public image or reputation through misinformation. I can engage in as many ad hominem attacks as I want (none, AFAIK), say how I dislike, disagree with, or oppose your views, and it's not slander, unless I say "I know for a fact that Cliff this or that." And c
