Atheism Without Antagonism
-- Toward Slanderers
Nathan A. McQuillen

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From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Nathan A. McQuillen"
Subject: Re: Atheism without antagonism
Date: Thursday, February 22, 2001 9:29 PM

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.
 

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).
 

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?
 

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.
 

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).
 

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.
 

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).
 

I cannot help you unless you become willing to be more truthful.
 

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.
 

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).
 

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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

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 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 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 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.
 

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.
 

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

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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:

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"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."

 

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Then he proceeded to write an extremely long letter which continues along these lines.

Now, he winds his second message (his response) by saying,

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"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."

 

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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

 

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  "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." 

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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.

 

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    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!

 

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    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.

 

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    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.

 

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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

 

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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.

 

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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 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

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