Finally had to delete my Quora topic/feed on “atheism” since most of the questions were from “believers” who wanted to know how atheists can wake up in the morning, how can they look in the mirror, how can they go on living, and even how can they read novels! I realize I was being absurdly, even ridiculously ahead of my time with my “atheist comic sci-fi pulp fiction” series consisting, so far, of Orange Car with Stripes and Missy Tonight, in which I postulate a planned atheist urban development complex with its own TV station and university, and in which I have a little fun at the expense of so-called “new atheists” while not in the least putting down atheism itself. I may be a lifelong atheist but in my writing I’m essentially a humorist (a humanist humorist?).
It’s a laughing matter that so many people are so threatened by atheism, but on the other hand, it’s not a laughing matter at all. A new study shows that atheists are still subject to persecution in many forms in many parts of the world, including the good old U.S. of A, and in at least seven nations can be executed if their beliefs become known!
The report, “Freedom of Thought 2012″, said “there are laws that deny atheists’ right to exist, curtail their freedom of belief and expression, revoke their right to citizenship, restrict their right to marry.”
Other laws “obstruct their access to public education, prohibit them from holding public office, prevent them from working for the state, criminalize their criticism of religion, and execute them for leaving the religion of their parents.”
While freedom of religion and speech is protected in the United States, the report said, a social and political climate prevails “in which atheists and the non-religious are made to feel like lesser Americans, or non-Americans.”
In at least seven U.S. states, constitutional provisions are in place that bar atheists from public office and one state, Arkansas, has a law that bars an atheist from testifying as a witness at a trial, the report said.
Our time will surely come, but it may indeed come last, after all the ethnic and nationalist issues have been resolved, after all the gender and sexuality issues, after all the religious divisions have been smoothed over somehow, after every other possible “outsider/differentist” issues have been reconciled by a species that will eventually sort all that crap out in a millenium or two, the believers will still insist on persecuting those who merely wish to privately make a distinction between fantasy and reality. Sigh.
I’m enormously proud of my conversion from Christianity to Atheism (although strictly speaking I call myself a “post-Christian Atheist” because my atheism is founded on my refusal of Christianity and from that any other religious belief) and apparently there is only a 1% conversion rate away from what you were born into, in either direction. I love being in that 1%.
I became an atheist through bible study. The bible talked me out of the religion I was born in, worshipped in and loved for 30 years. It was enormously difficult to leave, especially seeing as I loved the people around me so much, but the truth, honesty and my integrity were more important. They still are. I’m sorry about the comments so that you had to remove your post. I’m sorry its difficult for Atheists, just as I am sorry it is difficult for anyone to practise or not practise their deeply held beliefs.
it’s always been the evangelical side of religion, the imposing of one groups’ beliefs on others, that’s been the problem. Supposedly the original promise of religious freedom in America was also intended to include freedom from religion as well. It’s a peculiar “othering”, though, because you can’t tell an atheist from anyone else by any physical attribute, not even clothing styles, which distinguish some religious groups. That people should get so worked up by the processes of a different set of chemical patterns in someone’s brain! When I was only six years old a Catholic classmate of mine told me that she’d rather kill herself than be like me. I was like, “What? You’re six years old and talking about killing yourself? That’s just wrong” and it came straight from her indoctrination in that particular death cult.
I read an article on that report this morning. My reaction was “So, what’s new?” The normal human brain functions in a way that supports the “reality” of delusions, hallucinations, etc. Religion, in that sense, is the default position and I doubt that will ever change significantly. As another lifelong atheist, I think that the so-called New Atheists have done nothing but make things worse for those of us who are natural non-believers. In addition, atheism is bound to come in for more abuse and suppression as the increase in world crises drives more people deeper into the shelter of their religious beliefs.
Good points! I agree about the ‘default position’ – the construct we call reality is largely a fiction, partly in the sense that the brain finds order in everything and filters out most of what comes in through the senses. I also think we have a long way to go – generations – but the so-called new atheists are a necessary periodic vanguard, voices in the wilderness (if profitable, at times cynical voices), allowing more and more people to identify as non-religious, similar to the various prominent gays who came out of the closet early on and rocked that boat.
Boat-rockers are certainly necessary as an interim wake-up call. But I find it hard to support much of what some of the louder New Atheists insist on as their own truth. You don’t convert people to anything, much less a new view of reality, by lambasting them for stupidity and ignorance. It’s really hard to see what the bottom line is in terms of benefits vs. bad publicity for more moderate atheists. Considering that atheists are even more despised than gays or transgenders, I have to wonder whether the New Atheists aren’t starting more fires than they’re putting out.
It certainly is hard to tell! Some of them do seem to give the impression of being evangelical themselves, which feeds a common misunderstanding that all atheists are anti-theists.
I like something Neal Degrasse Tyson says on one of his videos. “It’s none of your business what I believe.”
The unfortunate fact of that is that many xians attempt to make it their business. They think it’s their job to convert the world, because it confirms their delusions. I still have a bit of an edge when it comes to xianity, though I have daughters who believe. Or they think they do.
They suddenly became ‘believers’ when we moved to Arkansas. So I think at a deeper level that belief may be a bit shallow.