Over at Pharyngula in a post titled We aim to misbehave PZ Myers writes approvingly of Larry Moran’s comparison of the New Atheists to the suffragettes at the beginning of the 20th century.
In PZ’s words:
The suffragettes were ferocious firebreathers of a most admirable sort who did not mince words and went far further than atheists have gone — yet.
To me the comparison between suffragettes is far off the mark and completely unfair if not insulting to the suffragettes in particular and feminists in general. “Widely discriminated against in the job market, often sexually assaulted, and can not even vote” is completely different than “sometimes discriminated against while having an equal opportunity path to nearly every job in society including tenured professorships.”
In a comment PZ writes:
When we compare atheists to feminists, the labor movement, gays, or civil rights, we are not saying these are identical; in this case, it is to a narrower similarity, that these are movements to change a social attitude, and the question is whether past movements have accomplished this with deference to the existing situation, and whether “rudeness” played a role in breaking down barriers.
We have a good word for this: spin.
Civil disobedience has a long and honorable history. It’s been used by groups to protest their government standing by while lives were being lost or ruined, while people were being thrown in jail and physically assualted, while business were refusing to serve or hire people — all because of some superficial difference. Do atheists think this is happening to them? Is it time to take to the streets?
Until that time comes, let’s just drop the “our cause is like the feminists, gays, and people of color” spin and, with focus on the point PZ makes about changing social attitudes, ask: What change in attitudes do the New Atheists want?
In a comment in a thread on this same topic at GregLaden.com Ian H Spedding notes: New Atheists, on the other hand, have a much grander and more far-reaching ambition [than the suffragettes], nothing less than the complete eradication of all religious belief and superstition. PZ, who has been active in that thread, doesn’t object to the characterization which shouldn’t come as a surprise to regular readers of Pharyngula.
Eliminating discrimination against atheists is something easy to get behind, but a movement to eradicate all religious belief and superstition is not. Neither is it anything like what feminists are fighting for. This neo-atheist goal falls into the same class as the Christian Theocracy movement’s goal for a Christian planet (which, we should note, is not something many Christians want to support). It’s a ridiculously far-reaching, Quixotic quest.
And that’s why we need to do some outreach to save Pharyngula. When you see someone who has so much to offer and has done such good work in so many areas, it’s only right and decent to try to save him from falling into the same crank basket currently occupied by the very people he’s pushing back against.
The goal of the intervention should be to get the New Atheists and their leaders to
- stop the appeaser talk, not because it’s rude but because it’s spin.
- drop the broad brush. We’re not putting a layer of primer on a house. Our work requires finer tools, at least some masking tape. The “all religious thought is moronic” line is itself moronic. More spin.
- consider preaching to people who aren’t members of the choir. There is a congregation out there many of whom are open to voices other than their regular preacher’s.
- vary the ferocity. Speaking in the same fierce voice all the time is what Biblical prophets and television evangelists do — not rational people. Save it for the cranks and instances of discrimination.
- formulate some realistic goals and go after them. Even if you want to eradicate all religious thinking, you still need a few small steps to begin the journey. You might considered using the term secular humanist from time to time instead of atheist. It says a lot more.
As someone said in reference to the Joshua Bell/WaPo experiment, You can be a world-class violinist at the top of your form, but playing on a subway platform is not a good way to make your talent known.
The New Atheist leaders are world-class and need a better, more effective platform. It does us no good to have their virtues ignored.
Drawing at the top of the post inspired by figure 2 on this Zebrafish Embryo Lab page. I learned about this stage of embryo development (and the existence of Zebrafish) by reading Pharyngula.
update: See also Amanda Marcotte’s post on Pandagon and especially Chris’s comments there. Guess I should be reading Mixing Memory more often.
update 2: Larry has a post too.update 3: J. J. Ramsey has a post up on Another Irrational Rationalist. JJ is highlighted in PZ’s post.
See the index for related posts.There is also the follow-up post Hugs for Atheists.
“sometimes discriminated against while having an equal opportunity path to nearly every job in society including tenured professorships.”
Unless your desired position requires a public vote.
“sometimes discriminated against while having an equal opportunity path to nearly every job in society including tenured professorships.”
Yeah. White Men especially.
But I do not fully agree with this inherently lookist, and race based argument,( the one that I am inserting here) with one caveat: today white women fill the earth with so-called feminist rhetoric, much to the expense of Af/Am females, Native Americans, and especially at the expense of Asian women, who just keep moving forward despite the battalions of white female rhetoriticians.
“New Atheitist leaders are world-class and need a better, more effective platform.”
Like, um, China?
“stop the appeaser talk, not because it’s rude but because it’s spin.”
Example? If you mean accepting others beliefs temporarily, then leading by example, THE crucifying their jesus again, well, this will be a tuff sell….
“vary the ferocity..” NO!! Strangling puppies is the only way to get the point across! Oh, that and crucifying your dissent on any and all topics…
” You might considered using the term secular humanist from time to time instead of atheist. It says a lot more. ”
Darwinists do it in the trees….in the dirt….in the river….in the….
Yeah. Great point….sexular humanists;-) Spin….er sexy sells
Matthew, atheists are free to run for public office. You can’t cry discrimination if people don’t vote for you.
cmf, you’ll find support for women of color and bloggers who are women of color at the feminist blogs on my sidebar (Pandagon, Feministing, & Feministe — and Alas, a Blog which is by a male feminist).
See the update at the end of the post.
“Speaking in the same fierce voice all the time is what Biblical prophets and television evangelists do”
No argument from me about televangelists, but to offer a point of fact: anyone who thinks that Biblical prophets “speak in the same fierce voice all the time” hasn’t done terribly much reading of biblical prophecy. Sometimes they do, certainly, but, for example, much of the latter portions of Isaiah emphasize mercy to and worth of the alien at a time when foreigners were generally considered nonpersons. It’s probably one of history’s earliest moves toward what later became the conception of a pluralist society.
Guess I should be reading Mixing Memory more often.
Yes, yes you should.
This neo-atheist goal falls into the same class as the Christian Theocracy movement’s goal for a Christian planet (which, we should note, is not something many Christians want to support). It’s a ridiculously far-reaching, Quixotic quest.
Exactly! It’s nice to see someone else make this point, so that I don’t feel like I’m slightly insane for seeing it this way.
Religion seems to me too much a part of human nature to disappear any time before our species goes extinct. That is, I think it’s most likely a by-product of various genetic traits. If that’s true, then perhaps it would be more practical to work to make religions more benign or beneficial, rather than try to eradicate them. Just a thought.
You might considered using the term secular humanist from time to time instead of atheist.
Part of the problem is that the definition of atheist currently in vogue — at least among atheists like PZ — makes the term rather omniverous and opens the possibility of using it in situations where the proper term is “secular”. When “atheism” means simply “lack of belief in deities” and that definition is conceived so broadly as to include those who are not even cognitively equipped to know what one is (i.e. infants), it’s not much to step to call any issue for which no god is involved atheistic.
This strikes me as part of how the “science implies atheism” frame arose.
“Matthew, atheists are free to run for public office. You can’t cry discrimination if people don’t vote for you.”
When I wrote my comment I had in mind last months survey about who Americans trust, of which atheists came in last. I also had in mind how few people are voted into public office that are atheists. Is this not significant descrimination?
Matthew, while it is narrowminded, it’s not discrimination of the legal kind, it not unethical. The Green party doesn’t have much chance to get elected to public office either; ditto the Natural Law party and the Libertarian party. I wouldn’t characterize that as some kind of unethical discrimination.
indecisive79, point taken. I was going for the popular image of angry prophets.
Chris, I will be reading your blog more often. And will likely have more time for it if PZ continues to attack people like me.
Paul, “perhaps it would be more practical to work to make religions more benign or beneficial, rather than try to eradicate them.” Spot on.
plover: I agree that “atheist” is a bigger tent than “secular humanist” — so much bigger that it doesn’t convey much, just that an atheist is not a theist. Secular humanism on the other hand entials a bunch of positive beliefs. I wonder why the New Atheists don’t use the term.
This strikes me as part of how the “science implies atheism” frame arose.
I think you may be right about how that frame arose. But the implication “science –> atheism” is, if anything, backwards. atheism –> science seems easier to motivate, but I don’t see a reason to try.
Anyone else think that implication is just dead wrong? To me, you can say, “science and this whole other body of philosophical beliefs about metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, etc. [add other -ologies here] imply atheism,” and make a case for it, but the bare bones implication is patently unsound. I guess that’s what the “science implies atheism” users are going for; they imbue the concept of science with all those other beliefs then draw their conclusion. I don’t think it would work, but I’d like to see the argument laid out so we could understand what they really mean.
Hi to all.
Just to add more wood to the fire: again, I see a lot of North-America-centred commenting. There are countries where atheists are positively discriminated against.
To make an example: in Indonesia, your religion is on your passport, and you cannot omit that field. You have to belong to a religious group, if only formally. Why? This is linked to the “atheism=communism” point of view, very often adopted in strongly religious countries. From what I know, this is the case in the U.S. as well – just not much spoken about nowadays.
However, I agree that it is an exaggeration to compare suffragettes to atheists – as we are not nearly as discriminated against as, say, women were. In the U.S., we are not discriminated by law.
But I have a question (again, more wood): given current opinions in America, if a Congressman had to move a bill to make atheism illegal, would it pass?? The answer to that question gives an idea about how much people are prone to discriminate.
Another example: in some European countries, gays can now get married (i.e. they are not discriminated in front of the law); however, they might (and will) still encounter discrimination in their everyday life. Does the fact that the law does not discriminate anymore make gay activism useless? Not quite.
Trinifar, I think it is time to start thinking of ways to answer to your “framing atheism for people out of the choir”. That, or chances are certain extremist behaviors are only going to encourage even more discrimination.
Sorry, just to be precise: I simply mean, in the first paragraph, that the “atheism=communism” frame might still be quite popular in the U.S.
Trinifar: “Anyone else think that implication is just dead wrong?”
I agree. Science certainly doesn’t imply atheism in practice — there are indeed scientists who believe in deity. And science, so far as I can see, doesn’t imply atheism in principle either.
However, you might be able to make a case that science implies disbelief about certain, specific claims that many people regard as foundational to their religions. Such as a belief in a literal Genesis.
I agree that “atheist” is a bigger tent than “secular humanist” — so much bigger that it doesn’t convey much, just that an atheist is not a theist. Secular humanism on the other hand entials a bunch of positive beliefs. I wonder why the New Atheists don’t use the term.
In the comments to your earlier post, Rev. Moe mentions how much conflict there is over what the definition of “atheist” and “humanist” is. At John Wilkins’s site there are similar battles over “agnostic” and whether or not it is meaningfully different from “atheist”.
People want control of the definitions for purposes of self-definition, but their is little they can do about any historical baggage the words have. The people who care most about defining “atheist” actually don’t want the word to convey much — many of the them don’t even believe there should even be such a word and will say “Why should we even need a word to denote lack of belief in any superstition? No one calls themself a non-astrologer.” To me this speaks more to some atheists having a poor grasp of linguistics than anything else.
There is a need for a word that denotes the general community of those who are not theists. “Atheist” makes a poor choice not because it can’t be defined that way, but because self-identified atheists are a group of people that others who are not theists do not identify with for whatever reason. But something needs to be adopted in a similar sense to how “queer” has come to represent alternative sexualities generally. “Non-theist” is the most neutral term that anyone actually uses. “Freethinker” is the other obvious choice, but also has problems.
I suspect the reason the neo-atheists don’t use “secular humanist” may be precisely because their agenda is to oppose theism rather than to seek a means for non-theists to coexist with theists.
Anyone else think that implication [science –> atheism] is just dead wrong?
Yeah. John Wilkins did, I think, a pretty good job of showing why it’s wrong. There’s a lot more in that post about how Wilkins defines his agnosticism, but, as I understand it, the relevant bit is the idea that science -> atheism (he doesn’t put it that way but it seems equivalent) “has a name in philosophy – positivism. It is the (empirically unsupportable) claim that only scientific arguments can be applied. As Popper noted, this is self-refuting. You cannot prove the basic premise of your argument that only provable (or, let’s be generous, supportable) claims should be accepted. As this is not a supportable claim in itself, you have contradicted your own position.”
There’s nothing wrong with positivist thinking per se — it is, of course, the foundation of science. It’s extraordinarily important and useful. The problem is with expecting all other reasonable positions can be reduced to positivist assumptions. For example, IIRC, in one of Larry Moran’s framing posts (I think it was Larry and not PZ) you can basically see him saying that the only discourse worth having is defined by how scientists do things (it’s implicit, but pretty clear).
There’s nothing wrong with the Occam’s razor argument against God, however, to use it, it’s necessary to acknowledge that you are choosing a set of unprovable underlying assumptions that make Occam’s razor the paramount principle for the circumstances. Rationality is never quite as tidy as some rationalists would like it to be.
For another take, there’s also my comment at Greg Laden’s blog here.
Paul, I was shocked when after years of working with a colleague, a fantasic engineer with a very good understanding of many aspects of science, told me he was a YEC. This was a gifted man (in math, in music,….). Somehow he bought into each and every claim about “uncertainty” of carbon dating, etc., and he knew the arguments on the other side of the issue. Amazing. Luckily he also was on “our side” of what should be taught in science class and what in church.
So, yeah, I agree science has a lot to say about literal interpretations of religious books. Still, I would take exception to anyone calling my former colleague “a moron.” He was a good, intelligent man who happened to being able to hold onto some strange ideas. PZ has a thing for pirates. No reason to go after wierdness that isn’t harming anyone. This guy isn’t going to change his mind anymore than PZ or Larry are likely to change theirs. (Again the parallels!) It’s the people who can be swayed that we need to address.
To me this speaks more to some atheists having a poor grasp of linguistics than anything else.
Yes!
There is a need for a word that denotes the general community of those who are not theists.
How about “naturalist”? See my most recent post written in response to steppen wolf’s thought that it was time to take up the atheist challenge.
And thanks to link to Wilkins’ post, I had missed or forgotten it.
Hi Trinifar,
I believe I can see where you’re coming from because I too have known some pretty decent, intelligent people who were creationists. To call them “morons” simply because they error on one or two issues (e.g. creationism) is factually inaccurate, and rings of the trailer park.
And we get enough of the trash talk from the Limbaugh’s and O’Reilly’s! To get it from the scientists and professors on our side — the side of clear thinking and rationality — and directed at people on our side — is, well, too much for words. The hypocracy is overwhelming at times.
Atheism and women’s suffrage
There’s another issue, which is that the argument is historically ignorant.
“Matthew, while it is narrowminded, it’s not discrimination of the legal kind, it not unethical. The Green party doesn’t have much chance to get elected to public office either; ditto the Natural Law party and the Libertarian party. I wouldn’t characterize that as some kind of unethical discrimination.”
Ah, point taken, I was not thinking in terms of what is legal because you did not specify it that way in your initial post.
Perhaps atheists should narrow their targets. Most religious folk and nice and well meaning, in my experience there are just as intelligent as the rest of us. Why alienate them with broadside attacks?
Go after those tele evangelists. I particularly hate Benny Hinn, I want to [editor's note: horrible images go here]. The man is a lech prarying on the vulnerable and he is just one of them. Go after these sorts because they do harm and exploit people. The vast majority of christians will say prayers for our success.
Dead Soul, I edited your comment only for its one gory image. I understand you did not mean to be taken literally, but I don’t want to feed the imagination of some disturbed person reading this blog.
As for what you do mean, it’s probably obvious that I agree. Hinn, Robertson, and Fawell are exemplars of simply the worst sort of exploitive people while many of the whole variety of religious persuasions are making large positive contribution to society all the time and a joy to be around.
“atheists should narrow their targets Most religious folk and nice and well meaning, in my experience there are just as intelligent as the rest of us. Why alienate them with broadside attacks?”
This statement above requires a little dissection: “atheists should narrow their targets [ ....] Why alienate them with broadside attacks?”
Well, duh? Because they are considered “left of center/center”! I mean, isn’t division by identity what the left is all about? And I thought the left was already fractured and alienated from itself, after the 90’s? Did I miss s/th in the last five or so years?
And then: ” Most religious folk and nice and well meaning, in my experience there are just as intelligent as the rest of us.”
Sheep are generally nice too, and pigs are said to be intelligent, but I haver never heard of them being interested in actually using that intelligence, because that intelligence in and of itself does not belong to them–it is part of Gods plan, and “God uses that intelligence”–not them.
Oh really cmf, you would be surprised at the number of religious figures who have made mighty contributions to science and society. Even Einstein believed in God.
Joshua Bell?? Isn’t that a spin? Because I could say him trying to get fame by playing a lowly subway entrances is like an atheist trying to overcome societal prejudices by saying they approve of the knee jerk reaction when we express our atheism. While many of us are secular humanists, that phrase itself is inaccurate because many of us are not, and those who are about as much connected to the official secular humanist movement as methodists are to the Roman catholic church.
Joshua Bell is already one of the most famous violinists in the world, so, no, I don’t think your analogy works.
As to the use of the term “secular humanism,” you’re right it doesn’t apply to all atheists. I don’t know what people in that group stand for, but those in the secular humanist group have some common beliefs that are easily understood — and positive ones at that.