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citrakayahBecause Rosh Hashana was immensely boring, and I didn’t even get to go raise money for cancer research, when I was in the synagogue library trying to keep from being bored out of my mind, I picked up The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, which billed itself as ‘the intelligent skeptic’s guide to Judaism’. I read the first chapter, then resisted a strong urge to send it flying across the room, and instead wrote this, which you see below. This is just in relation to the first chapter. In a later chapter they go on to say that atheism shouldn’t be passed on to the next generation but is instead morally worthless, and only religion can produce morality and that any secular philosophy that is ethical is simply using three thousand years of Judeo-Christian philosophy. Somehow they overlooked Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American religions, and neopaganism.
In any event. That is what bigotry against atheists looks like, and I see it all the time. We are prohibited from holding public office in six states, we are the least trusted group in the United States, our websites are blocked, people imagine us as diametrically opposed to them, the fewest number of people would approve of their children marrying us, we are told we are without morals, we are one of the favorite bogeymen of social conservatives. When we stand up for our basic rights, we get threats of murder, assault, and rape, or get disowned, or called atrocities, . We are blamed for social ills, and for shootings. We are, rather unfairly, stereotyped as ‘religion haters’ because the people who don’t play into that stereotype don’t write books that make the bestseller list and aren’t spread all over the media.
Yes, some atheists are assholes, and the interesting thing is that a great deal of atheists seem to believe that they can simultaneously embrace religious people who share their goals and cast all religion in a negative light. But that doesn’t excuse, or explain, the sheer level of hate I see directed as atheists. Not to mention that that hate was already present before New Atheism. Look, you don’t threaten someone who’s just a self-righteous jerk but still a member of your community with rape, you don’t get called an abomination in the local newspaper, and you don’t prohibit people from being in public office on the grounds of being a self-righteous jerk.
In any event. That is what bigotry against atheists looks like, and I see it all the time. We are prohibited from holding public office in six states, we are the least trusted group in the United States, our websites are blocked, people imagine us as diametrically opposed to them, the fewest number of people would approve of their children marrying us, we are told we are without morals, we are one of the favorite bogeymen of social conservatives. When we stand up for our basic rights, we get threats of murder, assault, and rape, or get disowned, or called atrocities, . We are blamed for social ills, and for shootings. We are, rather unfairly, stereotyped as ‘religion haters’ because the people who don’t play into that stereotype don’t write books that make the bestseller list and aren’t spread all over the media.
Yes, some atheists are assholes, and the interesting thing is that a great deal of atheists seem to believe that they can simultaneously embrace religious people who share their goals and cast all religion in a negative light. But that doesn’t excuse, or explain, the sheer level of hate I see directed as atheists. Not to mention that that hate was already present before New Atheism. Look, you don’t threaten someone who’s just a self-righteous jerk but still a member of your community with rape, you don’t get called an abomination in the local newspaper, and you don’t prohibit people from being in public office on the grounds of being a self-righteous jerk.
