Posted by Hemant Mehta in Paul Spinrad, a guestblogger at Boing Boing, writes about the future of atheism. To begin with, he thinks the militancy of some atheists backfires and is counter-productive to their own goals.
With religion, I think atheists have the same dissonance going on. If they really think the world would be better off without religion, they shouldn’t hate religion and call believers fools. Any successful new belief system must appreciate the beauty of what it’s replacing and strive for backwards-compatibility…
I’m with him through this point. We won’t achieve success (in convincing others that there’s no reason to believe in a God) unless we can offer them alternatives to what they want from religion. If they want explanations, we must give them logical, honest answers (including “I don’t know”). If they want community, we must be prepared to provide it. If they want ritual, we must have options available to them.
Then, Spinrad loses me…
So I put it to declared atheists — the ones who fly the flag about it, not the ones who are quiet or closeted: Do you think that most of humanity is A) hopeless and doomed to kill each other because of their stupid religious beliefs, or B) capable of coming to and benefiting from your views?
False dichotomy, no? You can believe both those things or neither of them. I think religious faith puts us all in danger because we’ve seen how far some people will go to please their God. I also don’t think most of humanity is capable of living without a God in their lives. Not yet.
I think closeted atheists who participate in other religious activities are the future of atheism. They know that prayer feels good without a needing brain scientist to tell them, and they know you don’t need God to want to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and provide homes for the orphaned. What if they simply stopped reciting the words that they didn’t agree with during religious services, without calling attention to it? In many places I don’t think they would be kicked out or turned upon and beaten just for that.
They may not be kicked out, but for many atheists, the goal isn’t to simply feel good or get along with everyone. The goal is to instill rational thinking in other people, showing them how ridiculous it is to rely on superstition to guide their lives. That can’t happen if you silently idly by while others engage in their religious rituals. In fact, the notion that many atheists would do that makes me mad.
The gay rights supporters did not get to where they are today because they kept quiet.
I don’t buy the argument that the future of atheism lies with the closeted ones. The future of atheism lies with the vocal atheists who aren’t afraid to say so. They vote, they protest, and they stand in unity when they hear of discrimination against other non-believers. They don’t have to be mean about it; they just have to be willing to say they don’t believe in God without fear of retribution. There will always be a fringe group that will ridicule and despise religion. I don’t see that group being in the majority — even within atheist ranks — anytime soon.
I am optimistic that in a decade or so, it’ll be normal for everyone to know an atheist personally. It won’t be rare to hear of someone coming out. That doesn’t mean we’ll get elected as easily, or that we’ll be seen as trust-worthy, but it’ll be a start.
(via Boing Boing)
Atheists have been closeted for most of history. How’s that been working out? Seems to me, not so great.
I love Boing Boing, but I’ve been wary of this kook since his first guest post. His other posts are similar drivel. Glad to see he’s got a shitstorm of comments for this one.
Hmmm… our future depends on our being consistent with regard to our objectives. As much as we criticize the Christian right, what are we doing to stop the abuses of Scientology? What are we doing to save people from wasting money on new age pyramid schemes? If anyone in our movement needs to be consistent, it’s the skeptics. For example, a naturalistic conspiracy theory deserves the same interrogative investigation as a supernatural claim. Broaden our focus and stop all this internal bickering about “militants.” The term doesn’t fit anyone I know short of career mercenaries. The thing we have to remember is that anything like the “New Atheists” can and often does become a sort of uncritical idol worship. As long as we are consistent and do not delude ourselves or think ourselves immune from delusion, we can all be reasonably sure that millions will fly this flag for years to come.
I commented on that post, pretty quick update over here, Hemant
And that post comes a few days after Greta posted the “Shut up that’s why” post.
And atheists.org post a web survey asking if “Blasphemy is a crime”, stating the yes case to mean it isn’t okay to say things if they might offend!
Strange day.
It looks like Paul Spinrad is not even familiar with the back-and-forth discussion about different approaches to atheist activism. I may not agree completely with the approaches of Dawkins, PZ Myers, et al but at least I’ve bothered to listen to their arguments. Paul Spinrad cannot even compete.
False dichotomy.
Please demonstrate this. Show, don’t tell.
Right, so new atheists are secretly happy that religion is successful. Support this claim.
False dichotomy again. Also, few atheists claim that A) is true, so he’s arguing against a straw man.
Then I guess the future of atheism has been here for a while!
A sneaky false dichotomy. An atheist can do all this without being closeted.
I don’t know what he’s talking about here, and I’m not convinced he does either.
And if they want (literal) human sacrifices? There are some values that we can’t accommodate. Not too many, luckily, but we should be prepared to face the fact that part of the challenge is convincing people that they shouldn’t want some of the things they want, or at least that they can’t have them. A direct connection to a wish-granting genie via prayer being one of those things.
It does, though. Sure, we need the vocal leaders too, but eventually the great mass of people will be religious apathetics. The future of any philosophy lies in winning over the large majority that don’t really care enough to think deeply about the issue. As much as I hate the idea of sound bites, they’re precisely what we need: five or six word capsules that the average person can use as a way of quickly indicating their view and further indicating that they don’t really care to consider it more deeply.
On the other hand, if your goal is promoting rationality (which, honestly, is an even better goal), the struggle is going to be much longer, much harder fought, and almost certainly eventually unsuccessful. None of which are reasons not to try.
This is starting to remind me of the abortion debate, with the same solution: if you don’t want to have an abortion, don’t have one. If you don’t want to be a militant atheist, don’t be one. But by all that is or isn’t holy, STOP telling me how to live my life and what is and isn’t appropriate for me to do.
If someone has an goal in view, he (or she) can work toward it however he sees fit, or he can spend his time trying to police how everyone else works toward that goal. Guess which one of those people actually helps gets the goal accomplished?
(Hint: it’s not the concern troll.)
It’s a really strange post. Halfway down that enormous thread, Spinrad pops in to say that his plan involves atheists entering churches and attending in a group every week, then forcing a conflict within the church to make them kick you out…. or something. He’s not exactly clear. But he thinks that this should be a movement.
Then, 100 comments later he retracts that with two sentences.
Yeah. Well thought-out.
I don’t know what he actually was asserting, or what he still asserts. It’s pretty bubble-headed, and not to Boing-Boing’s usual standard.
Here’s one of my responses from that thread:
I am almost offended by his stupid suggestion. What happened in the UK is people stopped going to churches and they stopped valuing the opinions of some self-appointed moral leader above those of any other individual. Yes, I’m not going to boycott the funeral of a family member because it’s religious but when/if my turn comes I will have a humanist wedding, a humanist naming ceremony and a humanist funeral. My life, my choice.
I searched the article for a point.
I failed to find one.
When everybody was religious, people argued on how to run society. If everybody becomes atheistic, people will argue on how to run society. The arguing won’t every go away. Just perhaps the supernatural justifications. I don’t see a single atheistic replacement for religious frameworks. I see multiple possible secular frameworks (and I wouldn’t have it any other way).
The future of atheism lies with “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone.” It doesn’t lie with “There’s Probably No God, So Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life.”
Subtle difference.
I was interested to find this blog and the discussion. 20 years ago I had a book published on different economic concepts to point the way to a sustainable world economy. Someone who liked the book contacted me to suggest that I update and re-publish it as a blog. She set up the blog, and the book is now complete on the blog in a series of posts. There are now also additional pieces on global warming and other subjects, and a piece on the origin and the anti-life nature of religion, and how we need to move away from it if we want to live sustainably on this planet. Here is the link:
http://www.economicsforaroundearth.com
With all good wishes,
Charles Pierce
I think one of the main challenges is helping people conceptualize an atheist worldview. Paul lost me right away by referring to atheism as a “belief system.”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I define my worldview by NOT believing. I do not define any truths in my life with faith. I literally do not believe. So, I take offense at the notion we’re another belief system… by conforming to such a language we are just maintaining privilege. Faith-based belief does not HAVE to be a part of the human experience, and I think that’s the point we really need to help others understand.
With religion, I think atheists have the same dissonance going on. If they really think the world would be better off without religion, they shouldn’t hate religion and call believers fools. Any successful new belief system must appreciate the beauty of what it’s replacing and strive for backwards-compatibility…
With vaccination, I think proponents of modern medicine have the same dissonance going on. If they really think the world would be better off without the healing power of magic hexes, they shouldn’t hate the hexes and call the people who believe in hexes fools. Any successful new belief system must appreciate the beauty of what it’s replacing and strive for backwards-compatibility…
Nope, it doesn’t work. Need for backwards-compatibility not established.
What word I wonder, would these people use if some group of folks started marching, and using non-violent protests to shut down businesses that were discriminating against them, as opposed to just publishing books and writing on blogs?
Until Dawkins starts handing out AK-47s to fellow atheists, people who use ‘militancy’ and similar words to describe ’some atheists’ are thoroughgoing strawman-fetishizing idiots.
And the religious right didn’t get where they are by being quiet either. It seems to me that it’s their turn to shut up.
And the beauty of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson et al is what exactly …?
Hemant, a heads up: I covered you and Spinard on this subject in my column at Examiner. I forcefully agree with almost all your points on this, and only quibble with your pronoun use in one instance: Along the lines of what Miko wrote, I’m not sure it’s our responsibility to replace the spiritual institutions in the case we make for reason and atheist equality. It’s awfully nice of us to supply it, but I wonder if it’s even something we as advocates for rationality would effectively deliver.
Anyway, check out my column (everyone!), I’d love it if you had a response.
[...] of us,” but…maybe these groups are just as vital?I got the insight from an article at Friendly Atheist. Some dude argues that the future of atheism might be imperiled by the actions of certain new [...]
I couldn’t disagree with the guys post more.
[...] society in which shame is not attached to a public declaration of atheism. Hemant also points to a confounding article in which an atheist says that in order to get along, atheists should just “go along.” [...]
The future of atheists – in my book – should be closer to being friendly and understanding, but also open and honest.
Staying closeted (for the sake of it) is dishonest. That surely is not something to aim for globally.
Sit down. Shut up. Pray when we tell you to. Pretend to profess. Then we night accept you as one of us.
Same old same old.
I realise you have a bible belt and creationist teaching in schools to contend with in the US, but surely the future of atheism is as simple as lead by example? Atheists can be gentle, loving, responsible and political without having to take the hard line. Go Rose!