Friendly Atheist

Malariaetc is a very deadly disease, it’s true.

I find it funny that “atheists” are identified by an opposition to the belief of God.

To the belief of God? We’re atheist in opposition to your “God”? I find it funny that “christians” identify themselves by what they believe without evidence, no wait I don’t, I find it disturbing.

It’s a reactive belief system.

Not a belief system, not even a belief, but a lack of belief in god(s). So to say it’s a reaction or opposition, or there’s a purpose, is clearly nonsensical.

I do hope some of you will post your responses to Eugene’s #2 over there since he’s clearly interested in some direct feedback from atheists. I take his question as an honest and friendly interest into what identifies atheists beyond a simple rejection of religion.

Of course atheism qua atheism is strictly nothing more than a lack of belief in gods, but obviously all of you have some positive content to your ideas about the world that go beyond that simple negation of theism, and I take it that is what Eugene is interested in hearing about.

While we are at it, someone should tell him that you can’t have punctuation marks like apostrophes in URLs.

” They’ve invested tons of money in these advertisements and, frankly, it’s probably been the greatest recent catalyst for conversation about God for many people and churches. It’s like free advertisement for theists and Christians.”

Maybe we are doing god’s work after all. That would be really really funny.

I only identify myself as an atheist when it becomes clear that the people around me subscribe to the “everyone believes in something” cliche, which is really code for “everyone believes in something supernatural”. Sorry, my goal is to help burst that bubble.

I am not an atheist first. I am a skeptic (not a cynic!) first. My skepticism led to my atheism, the latter is a consequence of the former. I think you will find that this is true of a significant number of atheists – we are skeptics first, and our atheism is a derived position, and therefore not as central to our self-identification as you might think.

Re: #2

I have no purpose, I’m mostly decorative. I’m not even identified by my puzzlement of the idea of a “god”.

I’m less about opposition and more about utter befuddlement. The idea is just complete and utter nonsense. It can’t fit in my head, and I have a hard time understanding people whose brains work that way.

Christians have to compete in the market-place of ideas, which is why there are Christians who regard me as an ‘unwanted guest’ on their web site.

Perhaps they know the US government will not bail them out if their beliefs go bankrupt in the market-place of ideas….

Nothing identifies atheists other than no belief in God.

If that were the case, I don’t suppose there’d be a whole lot to talk about on this blog. Nor would there be much motivation to purchase these bus ads.

We all know that the technical, minimalist definition of atheism is the lack of belief in gods, but it’s also pretty obvious that for most of you here, that lack of belief does in fact influence other concerns and attitudes that you have. I’m guessing it’s the latter that Eugene is interested in.

Yeah God’s Politics’ comment system sucks. I think my wife has his email. I’ll see about inviting him over here.

Here’s what I wrote, in case it doesn’t get on the God’s politics comment system:

Commenting here as an atheist… there’s one reason and one reason alone I use the word atheist to describe myself: To make this world a better place for people afraid to say what they believe. We live in a world where to go to public school my daughter has to pledge an oath to God every day. Now that may line up fine with your beliefs, but not mine. And I don’t believe it’s the job of a school or government to start the 5 year olds swearing oaths to God. But unless I want to make a federal case out of it, and raise a messed-up kid, I don’t burden her with that stuff. Ultimately she will be old enough to understand that it’s wrong to coerce children to swear oaths without asking their parents what they as a family believe first.

It was becoming a new parent that caused me to come out and be more public in a dialog with believers. I knew that if we didn’t do something, America would become a land more and more hostile to people with a minority belief. She would have it harder than I did, if atheists remained closeted.

I didn’t like what was happening in this country toward nonbelievers especially after 9/11, when the words “God and Country” started getting mooshed together as if they were the same thing, and the voices of the punditocracy were shouting how democrats needed to “get faith”. I heard quite a few commentators talking very strongly about how, if democrats wanted to win elections, they had to distance themselves from secular values and push the Jesus talk. I even heard a number of people on tv and in the newspapers opining that atheist democrats needed to choose one and shut up about the other.

When you look at how Elizabeth Dole’s campaign slandered Kay Hagan, and pushed the notion that atheists should be persona non grata to even MEET with our elected representatives… now we’re talking anti-democratic ideas. The notion that we are or should be political poison, and we can’t even attend fundraisers for democratic candidates? The campaign pushed ugly stuff like saying that most North Carolinians wouldn’t even eat dinner with the kind of people that atheists are. After that, I gave a good amount of money to the Hagan campaign… But she very clearly did NOT do the right thing and make any statement about how it was wrong to tar atheists. No, she instead continued the impression that it was a grave insult to call someone an atheist instead of taking the high road that Candidate Obama did when people falsely accused him of being a Muslim. Obama clearly and strongly said that there was nothing to be ashamed of or wrong about being a Muslim, there are great Muslim Americans, the world Muslim is not and should never be an epithet, It’s just merely that he is not a Muslim.

No such statement from Kay Hagan, even after she won the election. And that was throwing away a great chance for understanding and bridge-building. It was an ugly episode in an ugly campaign, and Hagan, IMO, threw us under the bus. I and others organized an online giving campaign for Hagan on the atheist blogosphere, and we raised thousands for her, only to see her take zero steps toward building understanding. I guess Dole was right, we are personae non grata. We’re as popular as gay Republicans!

Anyway it was the fear that I was being told to shut up or leave my own political party that was the “last straw” in my silence. I would become a loud and proud atheist, and let my fellow democrats and fellow Americans know that I was just like them… a human being. I may have a different idea than you as to what happens in the next life… but I SHARE this world with you, and it’s time you recognized that we need to get along better.

What is my “purpose”? I’m only an “atheist” when speaking to believers and attempting to build bridges of understanding. All the rest of my days and nights I’m merely “me.” Just an American dad, and a democrat, and a taxpayer and a citizen. All that stuff that doesn’t seem to mean much to people anymore, while everyone marches from war to poverty to church and back.

…that lack of belief does in fact influence other concerns and attitudes that you have.

That’s understandable coming from a christian, but I’m not an atheist as a reaction to your god. There are so many things that I lack belief in, even things I haven’t even heard about, that includes many gods. It’s not a surprise that you would frame my concerns and attitudes compared to if I believed in your god. Not that anyone can agree on what god is, let alone have a coherent concept of what that god is, or resist resorting to supernaturalism as a nonexplanation.

I just commented over on that post. One of the previous commentators said, “Dawkins always irks me with his smugness…” To which I replied, now you know how we feel about Fallwell, Robertson, Huckabee, Warren, Bush W, etc…

Eugene, looks like you might have missed most of the conversation I can give you my answer to (2), although Richard Wade has already stated my beliefs more eloquently than I’m going to.

I both agree and disagree with the atheists here who have claimed that we’re not atheists in reaction to your god. Yes, a lack of belief in deities is just a lack of belief, so doesn’t entail anything, and it’s not the basis of any purpose in life, or guiding moral force. If I have an ethical problem, I don’t go “As an atheist, how should I handle this?” any more than you go “Given that I don’t believe in reincarnation, how should I handle this?” You don’t believe in reincarnation (I’m assuming), but you probably don’t do much with that lack of belief.

On the other hand, while being an atheist doesn’t entail anything, choosing to read an atheist blog, or wanting atheist signs on buses, is a reaction to your god. After all, there are lots of things we don’t believe, but most of them we just don’t think about. There aren’t blogs about how Santa Claus doesn’t exist, or bus signs about how you don’t need to believe in the tooth fairy. In general, if atheists are organizing as atheists, it’s because they see some bad influences of religion on the world around them; so the organization of atheists as atheists is a purely negative reaction. Views of posters on this blog about what that bad stuff is run the gamut from “Religion is always evil and destructive,” to “Religion is OK, but some religious people discriminate against atheists, and that kind of sucks,” but they invariably see something bad.

It’s true. While I consider myself atheist, it doesn’t SOUND like we have a purpose and I’m sure many religious types hear it as “religious anarchist.”

We really need to start calling ourselves humanists or social-humanists. Something like that sounds way more positive.