The Secular Coalition wasn’t too happy they didn’t get invited to the Democratic National Convention’s Interfaith service. And rightly so, their letter politely asked the Convention organizers to extend an olive branch, but in return they were called “befuddled” and called it “an angry letter from a secularist group.”
Now, the icing on the minor offense is that the Colorado Springs Gazette has run an opinion article that would border on hate-crimes legislation here in Canada (although since it targets an atheist, its unlikely the human rights tribunals would hear it).
I’ll highlight some of the intolerance, as it’s best left to speak for itself [emphasis added]:
The official reason for the interfaith services is “to honor the diverse faith traditions inside the Democratic Party,” which could easily include atheists. If they aren’t welcome, it’s probably because they’re rude.
…
Therefore a belief in creation – or an original intelligence, Jesus, Buddha, or the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” – is no more valid in the eyes of the law than the odd belief that nothing could possibly exist beyond what our embryonic state of scientific discovery has seen in our relatively primitive microscopes and telescopes. The humble and intelligent scientist understands that what we have proven about time and space is a microscopically small body of knowledge relative to the endless size and never-ending expansion of all that exists. To rational thinkers, atheism seems a sad and shallow belief.
Yet an amazing number of atheists have taken to confronting and insulting believers of other religions. They pretend that atheist beliefs are proven true, while others are proven false. They refer to other religions as “irrational,” and “superstitious.” Their approach to ministry is overbearing and rude. They engage in confrontation, with disregard for persuasion.
Consider the righteous indignation of Becky Hale, founder of Freethinkers of Colorado Springs: “By reaching out to people of faith, they have shown the back of their hand to those who do not believe,” Hale told The Gazette.
In other words, if I’m not invited to your party then you’re bad. Even the name of Hale’s group is insulting. It implies that people of other faiths are something other than “free thinkers.”
Although it starts off relatively tame, the author quickly picks up the tone and rhetoric.
Hitler imagined a world without Jews. The Freedom From Religion Foundation rented a billboard near the Colorado Convention Center that says: “Imagine No Religion.”
Imagine a world with no religion and one sees a world without the Golden Rule, devoid of most charities, hospitals and great universities. One sees hurricane recovery zones, minus all the chartered planes and buses full of churchgoers giving their time and money to rebuild homes. How many children are fed and clothed by atheist charity organizations? Approximately none.
Imagine no religion and one sees a world ruled by atheist tyrants – Pol Pot, Albania’s Enver Hoxha, Stalin and Mao, to name a few – who have murdered tens of millions in modern efforts to cleanse society of religion.
American Muslims, Baptists, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Mormons, Quakers, Amish, etc., don’t erect billboards saying “Imagine No Atheists.” They don’t advocate government force to cleanse atheist expressions and teachings from the public square. They don’t imply that atheists are “irrational,” even though atheists claim absolute knowledge. They don’t advocate theft and desecration of atheist property, even though an atheist hero in Minnesota stole and destroyed the Catholic Eucharist.
Although you probably figured out by now this “journalist” doesn’t really check facts, but here they don’t even bother to realize that Dr. Myers didn’t steal anything – he was given a Eucharist by his readers.
Democrats will nominate a Christian gentleman who respects others. It’s likely they didn’t invite atheists to their faith service because they didn’t want embarrassing guests. Atheists might bring pseudointellectual proselytizers, who are intolerant, self-aggrandizing and rude. Atheists should fund universities and hospitals. They should feed and clothe starving kids. They should act more like Christians and Jews. If they do some of that – if they contribute to a diverse humanity – they might get better party invites.
Now go back through this article and replace the word atheist with any other minority – say African American or Native American – and see how long it is before they ask for your journalistic license (at least, if not your head).
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I’ll begin with a concession: I can see how people of faith could take legitimate offense to the statement “Imagine No Religion”. I can see how they could take this statement the same way statements such as “Imagine No Jews” or “Imagine No Liberals”. I can also see how they could take offense to the name “freethinkers” – though I also strongly contend that religious belief is necessarily built upon one, some or all of the following: 1) closedmindedness; 2) ignorance – willful or unknowing – or lack of careful consideration.
However, the religious writer’s statement contains an amazing amount of bullshit for which no concession can be offered. Atheists believe that the extent of the universe is limited to the extent of scientific inquiry to this date? Umm, no. That’s just stupid. Atheists believe they have absolute knowledge? Umm, no. That’s religion. Atheists are the one’s saying that it is the religionist who is claiming absolute knowledge yet is providing absolutely nothing close to sufficient evidence.
Atheist charities compared to religious charities. Well first off, I’ll give religious communities their due here. Much good work has been done by religious communities. However, having pre-existing communities makes it far easier to engage in group work. It is difficult to form atheist communities for a few reasons. Firstly, atheists are a reactionary group reacting to religious ridiculousness and persecution of atheists by the religious. What unites us is standing up for our rights and for reason. We don’t have some illusion that we are partaking in fellowship with the ultimate force of the universe. We do not believe that by meeting weekly with each other, we are altering our chances of going to heaven or hell when we die.
Next, once in the church, there is a lot of less-than-genuine reasons for churchgoers to do good things. There is a desire to look good and not look bad in front of one’s family, friends and religious community. There is also the pursuit of God’s heaven-hell brownie points. I’m not trying to take anything away from religious people’s good work, I’m just saying that we should consider the whole picture and acknowledge the good, the neutral and the bad where they are present.
Next, the statement that if there were no religions there would be no religious charities and other good religious social organizations. Well, had there never been religion or had religion died off a long time ago I imagine that there would be far more in the way of nonreligious charities. With around 70% of the Western world being religious today and with the figures being much higher than this throughout history, and with the persecution that the nonreligious have undergone throughout history, it is not a surprise that there aren’t nearly as many atheist charities out there. And, again, because atheist organizations are reactionary they are less likely to be as tightly-bound as religious organizations. These groups have tended in history to be political lobby groups rather than community centres. I wonder if other lobby groups are known for their good prosocial activities outside of their primary mission? I personally would love to see the development of secular humanist community centres that bring together such pursuits as the celebration and encouragement of wisdom, discovery, rationality, meditation, growth and prosociality, but thus far such communities are pretty rare.
Lastly, the whole Mao, Pol Pot, blah blah bullshit is getting pretty old…
What Ron said, but I just want to add that this is part of the reason I will not refer to myself as a “freethinker” or “bright” because it connotes that those not aligned with me philosophically are not. It is arrogant and will be seen as arrogant. Its not a good publicity move.
Yeah, I don’t like term Freethinker all that much and I detest the word Bright. Both are actually a bit vague. Atheist is very clear and precise. The term tells people I am godless, and that’s enough. I have been discovering that no one is purely rational. Even the religious are rational, for the most part, despite their main belief is ultimately irrational and based on something that doesn’t exist.
That being said, the referenced editorial is one of the nastier attacks on atheists I have ever seen, and the fact that it was written by an unsigned editor and approved by the editorial board is more upsetting. I never intended to go to Colorado Springs, anyway.
‘freethinker’ does not mean ‘non-religious’ . A typical definition goes like this (from wikipedia):
It’s true that through modern scientific knowledge ‘consideration of nature’ leads to strong evidence against religions which, for example, preach direct intervention by a god whose intellect is comprehensible to humans. And that is certainly a strike against the majority of extant religions – as is the freethinker opposition to religious institutions . But any religion which allows its institutions to be questioned, and also allows consideration of nature to affect its traditions, according to the evidence, is a religion of freethinkers. The author of the Colorado Springs Gazette opinion, and anyone else who interprets ‘freethinker’ as implying that all religious people are not free or not thinkers misunderstands the word. Given the frequency with which historically religious people such as Jefferson, Franklin, and others are described as ‘freethinkers’, I am not convinced that said misunderstanding is always accidental.
[...] Yesterday I linked to an article which demonstrated new lows in an assault on atheism. Luckily, today there are a couple articulate letters rebutting the article. [...]
The writer of that opinion piece quoted Albert Einstein out of context: As Albert Einstein said: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. … a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist.”
It is worthwhile to read the entire piece from which those quotes were ripped: Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, 1941
Here’s a couple bits to show that a) Einstein had his own definitions for key words, and thus any quote out of context is misleading and b) Einstein did not believe in a personal God.
Here’s the complete paragraph from wich the blind and lame quote was taken:
This paragraph has multiple problems.
* A NOMA claim that science and religion occupy separate “realms.” And yet, if these realms are “clearly marked off from each other,” why is it that the dividing line is so frequently crossed? How many of the worlds thousands of religions refrain from making truth claims about the natural world, which is the realm of science?
* Values, such as “aspiration toward truth and understanding” are attributed to “the sphere of religion.” This is nonsense. Religion does not have an exclusive claim to values, and that particular value is more commonly expressed in scientists, who are disproportionately irreligious. It seems that when Einstein says “religion” it would be more accurate to substitute “axiology,” which is the philosophical term for the study of values.
* Einstein refers to “the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason.” But this is not faith at all in the usual sense of “belief without evidence,” it is a justified and provisional conclusion resulting from over half a millenium of scientific investigation. So here we see that Einstein misuses the term “faith.”
* In other writings, Einstein used the word “God” when he means something else, such as the laws of nature (e.g. “God does not play dice”).
If someone is seeking a clear and accurate voice on the topic of science and religion, Einstein is not the best source.
Regarding the second quote above, Einstein followed that up in the same work
So, almost all actual religions do not meet the criteria of non-conflict with science that Einstein alluded to in the original quote, which referred to some mythical redefined “religion” of his own imagination.
“Lastly, the whole Mao, Pol Pot, blah blah bullshit is getting pretty old…”
I don’t have a problem with it. A lot of overheated atheist rhetoric makes it appear that widespread embracing of atheism would itself be a sufficient condition for some sort of near utopian society (for example, that stupid John Lennon song to which the freethinker billboard alludes). Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc. clearly provide counterfactuals to this claim.
I don’t think this would be such an issue if atheists didn’t tend to oversell the benefits of a world without religion.
I read the opinion piece, but I don’t see how it borders hate crime legislation. That is gross exaggeration. Firstly, he has not incited hatred against atheists. Secondly, the more pertinent defences in Section 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code state:
“(b) if, in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject;
(c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true,” then such would not constitute a hate crime. Moreover, I doubt that the quasi-legal human rights tribunals would look at this at all, even if it were an atheist piece excoriating the religious community.