I was recently turned on to a post by blogger Greta Christina titled Atheists and Anger. It is a very lengthy post, but many of what brought me to atheism is encapsulated nicely there. I want to pull out some of the points I agree with fully, and I want to address some of the points where I differ.
Why am I an atheist? That is an easy question to answer. Others have done so adequately. Essentially, atheists share a skepticism of speculation. Personally, I see religion as completely harmless speculation. It is the acceptance of religion over other systems of knowledge that is dangerous. Hence, I am an atheist because I think it is the correct way to live responsibly.
The question "Why Atheism?" is different. If I am correct in my philosophy, then why shouldn't you be? This is the source of much that is both positive and negative about atheism. Epistemically, though, atheism provides the only system of knowledge capable of rejecting utter nonsense.
Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org
The problem that I see most atheists exhibit derives from an interpretation of the primary difference between atheists and believers. If believers refuse to accept reasoned arguments why they are simply wrong, how can we ever talk to them productively? For me, the frustration comes from the ignorance of the believer, the inability to see the simple logic of the arguments they make. More diplomatically, I would say that even for those well-educated believers, they reject the priority of the real over the supernatural.
This rejection of the real is what drove me from religion. I cannot acknowledge any value in a system of knowledge that rejects real knowledge. If you ask anyone that possesses any specialized skill of any sort, you will find it very easy to get them to admit that they have read more than one book. Why then, have they selected a single book to live their non-professional lives by? Why not study up to become a professional human?
So while I share a disgusted anger with Greta, there are distinct differences in our approach to believers. While atheism can be summarized simply (What is an Atheist?), and many have done so, there are distinctions amongst us. I think it goes without saying that there is no monolithic atheist organization, no single relevent text to identify with. Indeed, to me, it is the whole of human industry that I take as my relevent experience. Still, there is great value in hearing the individual expressions of atheism from those who are obviously talented writers.
Without further ado, let me quote from Atheists and Anger.
So I want to talk about:
1. Why atheists are angry;
2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;
And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.
So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.
Her list of reasons is literally dozens of pages long. I would like to quote those I completely identify with and could not express better myself.
I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.
I have written on this before in The Electability of Atheists, which was also posted on DailyKos.com with nearly 200 comments. There is little more to say about this than that as an atheist, I care that there is a prejudiced view of me in the mainstream public.
I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.
I would like to proceed to a post titled "How I Make Baby Jesus Cry", but my intent in this blog has never been to make fun of the religious. Still, this is a classic reason for atheism. It is not just condoms, of course. There are dozens of clearly erroneous policies being pursued by the religiously-inclined administrators of charities that are specifically harmful to the physical health of those subject to those policies.
I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.
Classic. It is studying the history of science in college that convinced me my spiritual pursuits were pointless. But throughout, the stories are those of religion protecting its ignorance in the light of scientific inquiry. It is the very basis of my disgust with religions.
I'm angry that huge swaths of public policy in this country -- not just on same-sex marriage, but on abortion and stem-cell research and sex education in schools -- are being based, not on evidence of which policies do and don't work and what is and isn't true about the world, but on religious texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago, and on their own personal feelings about how those texts should be interpreted, with no supporting evidence whatsoever -- and no apparent concept of why any evidence should be needed.
Bing! If you want to remain in ignorance, feel free. Don't teach your children to be ignorant. Learning about religions is one thing; being forced to practice your parents' religion is close to abuse.
I get angry when believers treat the gaps in science and scientific knowledge as somehow proof of the existence of God. I get angry when, despite a thousands-of-years-old pattern of supernatural explanations being consistently and repeatedly replaced with natural ones, they still think every single unexplained phenomenon can be best explained by God.
While well-stated, there is a simpler way of putting this argument against religion and for atheism: God is an ad hoc hypothesis. Again, I personally made my atheistic discovery, if you will, through studying history. The ancients were very, very, excruciatingly wrong about a number of things. Why not learn from those still alive instead of those so long dead they spoke a different language?
I get angry when believers say at the beginning of an argument that their belief is based on reason and evidence, and at the end of the argument say things like, "It just seems that way to me," or, "I feel it in my heart"... as if that were a clincher. I mean, couldn't they have said that at the beginning of the argument, and not wasted my fucking time?
Hear, hear! I have written about this epistemic problem with religion before (Opinion versus Reality). I enter into conversation for a purpose, usually. Sometimes its just to feel better about my social reality. Other times it is to increase my knowledge of a person, to learn more about them. But I do not enter conversations to be told that my view of reality is an opinion, your opinion is just as valid, and that you live in an alternate reality.
I'm angry that I have to know more about their fucking religion than the believers do. I get angry when believers say things about the tenets and texts of their religion that are flatly untrue, and I have to correct them on it.
If you claim to be a mathematician, you must accept the assumptions of mathematics as specified in numerous textbooks. If you claim to live by the Bible, then read the fucking thing thoroughly. You have no excuse for misunderstanding the one book you place above all others while rejecting any other source of knowledge. This is a fundamental flaw of religions worldwide.
Greta explains her anger as a valid response to oppression. I happen to agree. When ignorance overcomes reality in such areas as health care and education, I get very angry at people. She continues by comparing the righteous anger of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi to her own struggle to bring atheism to the public. And I agree to a certain extent that atheists should indeed rise up and become more verbal about our faith in human rationality. We should form a movement that brings us the rights that other repressed minorities have enjoyed.
Being a heterosexual, white male, I do not feel the same civil rights connection to the atheist movement that a gay, female atheist does. Still, poll numbers are very indicative. Hell, my own family is probably among those that would not vote for Jews or Muslims, so I wouldn't expect them to vote for an atheist. I harbor some hope, however, that with better understanding, this would change in my lifetime.
And you know what else? I think we need to have some goddamn perspective about this anger business. I mean, I look at organized Christianity in this country -- not just the religious right, but some more "moderate" churches as well -- interfering with AIDS prevention efforts, trying to get their theology into the public schools, actively trying to prevent me and Ingrid from getting legally married, and pulling all the other shit I talk about in this piece.
I have made it very clear in my own writing that my main concern is to preserve a society where religious freedom is codified in our Constitution. Why I Fight Theocracy is to prevent the atrocities of the past. This is also why I call myself a progressive.
And so we come to the very small part of the piece that I would take issue with. In her follow-up piece, Greta answers some of the comments to the original post. One question, in particular, is important for understanding atheism.
Atheism is just another religion. And you're just as close-minded/ faith-based as the believers you criticize.
Greta answers with this explanation:
Contrary to popular belief, atheism isn't a faith in the non-existence of God. Atheism is... well, it's somewhat different for different people. But for most atheists I know, it's more or less the position that God is an extremely unlikely hypothesis, not supported by evidence or reason; and that in the absence of any convincing evidence, it's reasonable to discard it as a hypothesis.
Understanding this epistemic distinction is very important. Religious people are taught to value their unreasoned faith above all things. I have placed my reasoned faith in logic, in reason, itself. My only question for believers is why they would prefer to believe instead of knowing. The response is something of the nature of "you cannot know god". Indeed, for 'god' is just another word for 'unknown'. To think otherwise is purely delusion.
So in contrast to suggesting atheists do not believe in the non-existence of god, I would say that I do, in fact, believe in the non-existence of god. But as with all beliefs, I can't prove it.