Atheists don't all have clipped British accents and a staggering command of some seriously graceful logic. Some atheists are unremittingly normal. Some people don't bother to call themselves atheists, they just don't particularly care about the idea of God. The term "atheist" can't possibly live up to the hype (both smugly confident and malicious) surrounding it. Just as the term "religious" can't live up to its own hype. Maybe it's time to stop pretending there's really a vicious battle raging between these two supposedly cohesive groups.
I conduct video interviews for the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, and I called the leader of a thriving atheist group here in New York City to see if he'd be interested in talking about his work with me. He disliked me immediately. As soon as I mentioned the name of the publication I represent, he bristled. I wanted to do a piece on clergy members, and when I used those words, he began to accuse me of being stupid. He told me I didn't know the first thing about either the clergy or atheism, and he suggested that even to imagine that I might be able to have a conversation with him about these subjects was hopelessly naïve on my part.
"Anyway," he said. "I'm going on vacation. Call me in a month if you think of something better, and stop it with the intellectual masturbation. Because that's what you people are doing."
"You won't consider meeting with me?" (I decided not to further discuss masturbation with him.)
He laughed gruffly. "Absolutely not! Wouldn't think of it. Feel free to quote me, though. You might want to work with that. Might help you."
So there, I'm using it. It's helping me.
He hung up. I hung up. I didn't know whether to cry (I'm not used to such painful rudeness) or laugh. If he had asked me, maybe he would've learned that I am both a lay clergy member and someone who does not believe in God. But he heard the word religion, and assumed he was talking to the enemy. And I guess, in a way, we are intellectual enemies.
It's foolish to imagine that atheists own concepts like pragmatism, intellectualism, and thoughtfulness. Or that religious people own concepts like spirituality, awe, inner peace, and even prayer. The debate about God, belief, and religion shouldn't be divided into believers and atheists. It should be divided into people who are willing to listen, and people who aren't.
It's often assumed by many that all the reasonable people are either in the atheist camp or the religious camp.
Like this: "If you're reasonable enough, then you don't need to rely on the idea of God to explain everything about the world to you."
Or: "If you're reasonable enough, then you realize that the mysteries of the universe are much too large to justify the categorical denial of the existence of God."
These arguments take us around and around and around (I could say it a few more times for emphasis) in circles. And ultimately, the only people who "win" are the ones who happen to be better at debating. Being good at debating is a particular skill that doesn't necessarily have much to do with objective facts or the truth (however we're defining that these days). My fiancé was the captain of his debate team in college. Getting in an argument with him is brutal for my self-esteem, even when I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about.
As Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard, will tell you, there are a lot of other positions between devout religious believer and atheist. As many people who don't define themselves as atheists but don't consider themselves religious will tell you, "I just don't talk about it." The right language hasn't been developed to accommodate these people's ontological orientations.
I'm tired of people being surprised when some atheists turn out to be jerks. Or turn out to be obviously unintelligent in some way. As though only smart people can choose not to believe in God. Because religion is perceived as inseparable from dogmatism, and dogmatism is obviously equated with thoughtlessness. So then, belief is easy, whereas doubt is much more complex and difficult. Simplifications of religiousness and atheism like this just don't cut it, though. There are too many ways to be religious and too many ways to be non-religious to allow for this sort of uneducated, underdeveloped assessment of either. Even belief and doubt aren't really opposites.
So in defense of the blatantly rude and ignorant man I spoke with over the phone about his role in the atheist community in NYC, atheists are people, too. And people can be pretty ridiculous, regardless of whether they've aligned themselves with the camp that's supposed to be more intellectual or not.
Maybe we need some new terms for the camps. How about this: "people who are willing to have a conversation," and "people who just want to hear themselves talk."
Follow Kate Fridkis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eatthedamncake
Jay Michaelson: A Better Way to Believe in God
Religions do offer theological doctrine, but what they really offer is solace, love, sanctity, and value -- all of them inchoate, all of them dear.
On the other hand, Christians -- especially those of the fundamentalist variety, do claim divine inspiration, indwelling, and assistance. What is remarkable is that there are humongous numbers of these who are willing to speak authoritatively about subjects they know nothing about.
You encounter one atheistic jerk, and you find it big enough news to write a blog about it. But religious jerks are so much more common! Do the analysis. While jerks come in all types, among which types are you more likely to find the jerks?
Full disclosure: I am not an atheist, I attend church, and was a deacon for about 15 years. I have found no evidence that theists are any more moral than atheists. There is abundant evidence that theists tend to be more hypocritical, though. A pity.
One person being a jerk allowing an article to be titled:
Christians Can Be Stupid, Too.
Muslims Can Be Stupid, Too.
Krishnas Can Be Stupid, Too.
Men Can Be Stupid, Too.
Women Can Be Stupid, Too.
Jews Can Be Stupid, Too.
African Americans Can Be Stupid, Too.
Republicans Can Be Stupid, Too.
Democrats Can Be Stupid, Too.
For some reason we would reject all these. But we allow it to be done to atheists. Prejudice is exactly generalizing about a group based on one case, even if just implied in the title.
Atheists incidentally are among the least trusted groups in the US while at the same time having the lowest incarceration rates and the highest rates of nobel prices. But to perpetuate a negative stereotypes about atheists is OK, when it would be denouced against any other group.
Yes one atheist may be a jerk. But we have learned nothing about the group as a whole.
The title of the article here is not "One random person can be a jerk, too" after all.
One can stereotype people and turn them into groups even if they don't feel particularly affiliated. Just use a shared label and stick some property on it. Again, just check the title of the article. Atheists is perhaps the last group about which one can write such articles.
Kate
This quote from your about page should describe your intentions very clear.
Shame on you Kate.
Ormonde
NO! George W. allowed the drilling of oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
Religion is, indeed, the opium of the masses. We cannot expect that any religious person is going to behave in a different way than any drug addict would. That’s why is so tricky to consider any argument from a person that has not yet acquired any sense of true reality. We can only wish, for the sake of humanity, a speedy rebirth.
In the meantime we have no choice but to endure their religious ecstacy trip and blunted fabrications such as this one by Kate and Ormonde.
If you did some actual reading you would have read that Richard Dawkins has publicly stated that he performs almost no discussions with religious people on the topic of religion. (Can you read his mind and tell me the reason??) Richard Dawkins said he stopped because it is a waste of time. He said that it would be equally productive, and worthwhile to argue with an astrologer, flat earther, as a believer in religion. All believe in things for which there is no evidence. The discussions are about an individual's state of mind, not about reality. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with "talking to the enemy". I strongly suspect that your NYC atheist's thinking is very much the same. Once you become emotionally secure, get some thick skin, actually listen, and stop projecting your bigotries on others life become very interesting, complex, and exciting.
Atheists have some of the worst image of any group, yet with very little evidence that they deserve it. Even if we talk, discuss, include, engage philantropically, we still get articles that are mostly negative. Decry new atheism as arrogant or worse responsible for naziism.
It's rough being an atheist, because the behavior of on jerk affirms a stereotype we don't deserve.
The crucial distinction is how they come to their beliefs.
Take the best arguments from the Atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, and those from the hardcore believers and study them like a scientist and objective journalist. The brilliant rationale and analysis of the Atheists wins hands down.
Yes, though their rational and analysis is merely their own subjective perspective relative to strictly their own lives and their own life reference points.
They have not lived others' lives and only their own and can only speak for themselves and are simply idiotic if they apply their perspective as relative to others which is really not much different to the religious zelot who has a holy experience where they in their subjective giddyness meet what they perceive to be is their God or angels etc and would apply theirs to others and cannot understand why others cannot relate to it....
Subjective experiences of one person are beyond others and therein is each persons' unique
and of value. No other human can ever truly know that special moment of revelation.
Norge
Science has told us the cosmos is estimated to be of an age of 15 billion years and upwards with perhaps a multiverse holding all possibilities.
So the godless universe does exist for the atheist there somewhere where he or she can enjoy their exclusion and aloneness and sense of superiority and super man ideas of the self
and the nut case priest with the desire for little boys or girls can also enjoy their style of god somewhere in that multiverse with its' infinite veriations of all that is.
So folks, enjoy, for you will all perhaps have your dreams fullfilled in the here after somewhere out there among the vastness of it all.
Correct, facts are not subjective though all interpetation of facts are subjective. A stone for example is a non living object within time of the moment it is perceived by a subjective living organism. If that organism is human the stone will be perceived in one way seen at the moment from the angle it is perceived in the morning light or in the evening light or on a cloudy day and of course depending on the light sensitivity of the organism viewing the stone. If the human viewing the stone has a hightened desire for gold, then the stone may have a gold hue. Sub-conscious subjective desire. On closer inspection the human will perhaps become more objective and see the stone is simple granit. Information previously learned.
Of course a god can exist for one person and not for another. All humans experience their enviroment differently and all have different reference points.
Just because one person claims God does not exist, does not make it so.
I cannot see the electro magnetic forces of the earth so there for they do not exist. I see the birds fly on the wind, there for it is the wind which guides them from continent to continent.
Norge
I'd rather be considered "stupid" than childish.
Why would someone who does not believe in God be a lay clergy member? Isn't that sort of like a Priest belonging to an atheist organization?
Both reason and mystery try to explain how and why things happen. My personal preference would be reason any day, but many things happen without reason, without a how and a why, and without mystery, without the need to imagine a god that made this happen on purpose.
Many things just happen. Randomness. No preordained or predetermined purpose. Some things that happen are incredibly beautiful, whether in nature or man-made. Other things are horrendous, whether in nature or man-made. Some things can be neatly captured in mathematical models, others can't. The scientific method has successfully captured many things in these mathematical models, while at the same time encountering new unexplained phenomena, and at the same time impotent in the face of many things that happen without a how or a why.