Amen RA posted a diary earlier today asking if Atheists are the new Gay. I'm sure many people took issue with this idea, and deservedly so. Comparing the situation faced by Atheists in America to the situation faced by homosexuals is... inapt, at best. But the diarist's fundamental point is worth considering. Is our nation becoming increasingly intolerant to people who hold unorthodox religious views?
I think so. But I also think Amen RA has the whole issue backwards.
Before I get started, I just have to say this. "Atheists" bother me.
No, not the Bertrand Russell breed of Atheists. The other ones. The bad ones. The ones who satisfy 'X' in the following analogy:
X:Philosophical Atheism :: Sarah_Palin:Christianity
I have the utmost respect for people of conviction and intelligence, but I'm inherently prejudiced against most so-called atheists. Most of the ones I've met are not people of conviction and intelligence. Most of them are little more than religion-bashers. Many of them don't even seem to realize this.
Full disclosure here, I'm Catholic. In fact, I'm devoutly Catholic. But don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly willing to accept people holding a reasoned philosophical veiw that no God exists in any form. How could I do otherwise? I wasn't BORN a Catholic. I joined the church of my own free will after a lengthy period of studying the philosophy and theology underlying Catholicism on my own. I will mention a fair amount of Christianity here, both because it's the religion I'm most familiar with and because it's the preferred target of most American "atheists".
Getting back to Amen RA's thesis, I find myself compelled to offer a very different contention. What is under assault in much of America isn't the atheist viewpoint, it's the very notion of rational thought. And while the greatest threat by volume clearly comes from subversive elements within my own religion, self-professed atheists are by no means free from sin.
Let me provide a short excerpt from Amen RA's diary:
I took the time to explore religion. In each case (Islam, Christianity) when my discussions with my mentor/Imam got to a point at which they expected me to suspend rational thought. For me, as a defense mechanism a few whistle's go off. As in, if anyone tries to get you to suspend reality in order to be a part of a belief system, then that is brainwashing. It makes me angry - To be quite honest. [emphasis in original]
No one should ever suspend rational thought. But this also means that every one of us has an obligation to think for ourselves, to go beyond just listening to the explanations offered by others. Just as no one can tell me how to be myself, no one can tell me how to be Christian (barring miraculous divine intervention). Similarly, were I an atheist, no one could tell me how to be an atheist (not even Ayn Rand). The surrender of the rational mind is one of the greatest threats faced by civilization, and it is everpresent. That rational minds have won out over the course of history is, I think, more a testament to the sheer power of the rational viewpoint than to the increase in rational actors.
Whenever I see the same tired old arguments against religion trotted out, time and again, it fills me with rage. (In fairness, the same is true whenever I see a lot of the same tired old arguments FOR religion, the kind you'd see from Freepers - but those arguments are much less common on dKos) Religion is a crutch for the weak-minded, or religion is responsible for the majority of human death and suffering in history, or religion only exists as a social bonding mechanism. In response to these arguments, I offer a quote from Gandhi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." Arguments against the followers of a religion are not arguments against the philosophical viewpoint holding that a divine being exists.
How about these golden oldies? Religion is anti-rational. Religion claims things that are demonstrably false. Religion opposes science. Religion claims to offer 'truth' without giving verifiable proof. To these, I must shake my head in dismay. Religion and science are, and have always been, natural allies. Go back to the Gandhi quote - plenty of religious PEOPLE have held very stupid views, but religion and science fill complimentary roles. Science provides reliable, empirically derived predictions for phenomena. Religion offers ultimate explanations for how those phenomena came about. There is a little bit of a hazy middle ground - which explanations are proximal enough to fall into the realm of science, and which are distal enough to fall into the realm of religion. But no sane religion makes demonstrably false claims - and yes, by this I disclude the following groups from the list of sane religions: Scientology, Mormonism, Jehova's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, and any Christian denomination (sect?) holding to the literal truth of every word in the Bible.
Many people assume that the miracles ascribed to Jesus fall into the demonstrably false claims category, but I would suggest otherwise - if you accept the Christian premises of a dualistic universe (with separate but interacting materialist and idealist spheres) and the Godhood of Jesus, there's really nothing at all odd about those claims. No, by demonstrably false claims I'm referring to things that are considered true but UNMIRACULOUS. Noah putting two of every animal on a boat. The Nephites and the Lamanites being the only two peoples in the pre-colonization Americas. Things that are so illogical or so well disproven by the archaeological record as to make no sense. Things that STILL don't make sense, even working WITHIN the premises of the religion itself.
In summary, I don't take explicit umbrage with Amen RA, and I certainly don't take umbrage with philosophical atheism (while I may disagree with it). What I do take umbrage with is the mass of people trying to force their views on others with weak, irrational argumentation. We all know how true it is of the evangelical Christian movement (and believe me, those people scare the pants off of me), but it's true of much of the modern atheist movement as well. Richard Dawkins' usual lines of argument don't hold water once they've been shown to be straw men (though Dawkins himself can actually be made to argue his points well in the uncommon event that someone calls him on his crappier arguments). Christopher Hitches is, from everything I've seen, a tool of the highest order.
I feel for the true atheists of the world. On the one hand, they DO face persecution by a lot of Christians (and Muslims, etc. etc.). On the other hand, some of the world's self-professed atheists are the greatest threat to philosophical atheism itself, by encouraging a lack of rational thinking. I feel for them, because many of us Christians have been put in the same position - being railed against by the anti-religious mobs (and on the internet, they ARE mobs, with torches and pitchforks and everything), and having to try to fend off the overtly heretical anti-rational groups that claim to be Christian while ignoring the vast majority of Christian theology, history, and scholarship.
So to everyone out there trying to evangelize by word rather than deed, who feels compelled to try to force his or her own brand of belief onto those around them, I have only this to offer.
"Madam, how do you like this play?" "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."