Atheists: Please stop whining

[rug]

The Diamondback > Opinion
By Tom Bradtke
Published: Friday, October 21, 2011

The idea of atheism — no god — is a fundamentally good one in my opinion. I have, in my 21 years of life, never attended a single church service or even set foot into a religious institution for the purposes of prayer or ritual. I have no belief in the supernatural and think reality is all the more amazing because of it. In my world, an absurd coincidence resulted in the creation of the universe and, eventually, of the human species; there is something absolutely incredible about that. One enormous cosmic accident, through sheer luck, resulted in everything you know and love. I am comfortable with the lack of an omnipotent deity. But I have a question: How many of you have been around a person who was so absolutely smug and condescending about their atheism that they poisoned your internal idea of what an atheist looks and acts like? I have.

There is a large and growing subculture of people who absolutely reject any idea not based on "science" and "rationality" and have thus developed a ridiculous victim complex. Non-religious people and atheists make up about 10 to 16 percent of the American population based on most statistical findings. This victim complex comes into play when there are lawsuits about the World Trade Center cross, and when there is a suit to take "In God We Trust" off of the American currency and "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Really? This is what you care about? Does seeing an ambiguous "God" on the one-dollar bill make atheists hiss and hide under a rock? There are many ways one can criticize religious institutions outside of the belief that they aren't true. To merely attack Christianity, Judaism, Islam or any other religion on the idea that they are false shows a certain lack of intellectual development.

Even when many atheists attack religion for certain practices, they do it in a fashion that shows their own privilege and often shows ignorance. Attacking Islam for genital mutilation, for example, is a dumb argument because it presumes the Muslim world is a monocultural mass of zealots. Female genital mutilation, while a disgusting practice, is hardly done in the majority of Islamic nations and isn't even supported by Islamic authorities in the few places it is practiced. It's largely a local tradition in parts of Africa, not something intrinsic to the religion. Blaming Islam for the practice is a signal of prejudice, as is blaming Islam for the current group of authoritarian regimes in the region. Most of them are in fact entirely secular governments.

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinion/atheists-please-stop-whining-1.2659282

As fars as I know, he is not yet an uncle.

[Deep13]

1. Dr. Mr. Bradtke: go fuck yourself. nt

[tama]

6. Angry reaction

What would be the rational and scientific analysis of the causes of your reaction?

[demosincebirth]

12. The shoe is on the other foot, now. They don't like it.

[Deep13]

21. Who's "they?"

Don't reify whole categories of people. I think your attempt to read my mind has mistakenly succeeded in reading your own.

[demosincebirth]

36. They is they, now known as the whinners

[darkstar3]

38. Looks like you have more trouble verbalizing your view than the author.

[Deep13]

43. "whinners?" There's no "h" in that word.

:7 Thanks for the concession.

And "they" is plural. D-. See me after class.

[Deep13]

20. I'm offended by the term "whining."

It is calculated to reduce those raising complaints to the level of petulant children who need not be taken seriously.

[tama]

22. And "grow up"

would hit similar nerves?

[Deep13]

24. I don't know that it would.

"Grow up" seems to be an exasperated last resort and that exasperation takes the sting out of it. Besides, some points of view really are based on intellectual immaturity, religion for example. "Whining" is a way to stop the debate from ever beginning by dismissing the person raising the issue. Also, there is something emasculating about the term since, as we have all heard, big boys don't cry. It implies that the argument is raised from emotional instability rather that any real reason. And as someone who takes three different kinds of medication just to function in our fucked up society (and when I was religious it was much, much worse) it hits a little close to home. Kind of like calling someone with a learning disability a retard.

[tama]

29. True

and it takes real courage to show weakness and bare emotion, and to have confidence that there is kindness in every heart, deep down and often well hidden beneath all the wounds and insecurities and fears.

Religions and cults hurt many people very deeply, and it is not easy to grow up to be independent from authorities of every ilk.

[Deep13]

44. Agreed. nt

[NMMNG]

30. Well,

Atheists are just bratty teenagers going through a phase, denying the god they know exists but pretending he's not there because they're in a snit over something. :eyes:

[tama]

32. Do atheists believe in evolution?

Are they fully developed, end of the road, all that human potential can be? Or is there still room for evolution, progress or development or growing up even for atheists? Not necessarily in the directions that established religions talk about, but rather unknown territories?

And nothing wrong in being a teenager either... :)

[darkstar3]

33. Appeal to ignorance. Fail.

[tama]

35. Hi there

Have you seen any good movies lately? Done something fun? How is your life?

[darkstar3]

37. I do not believe your inquiry genuine,

so I will take your response as "oh, quite right."

(Incidentally, I've discovered some fabulous music I missed out on from decades past, but I have no desire to discuss it in the R/T forum.)

[tama]

39. Going through some rough times myself

and as for R/T discussions, I believe there is a good chance that everything affects and reflects everything else, so why not do our best to treat each other as well as we can, even on Internet discussions? I'm not claiming to be perfect example and I can also get hurt and show negative emotions, but I believe in the ability to learn, in human potential to adapt and evolve on every scale.

Do you believe otherwise?

[darkstar3]

40. So you don't just defend tone arguments from other writers, you engage in them yourself.

Good to know. I'm uninterested. I am also uninterested in your attempt to make this about me instead of about your fallacious statement.

[tama]

41. Which statement was that?

The post you reacted to consisted of questions, not statements.

And it seems to me that you are making this about me, not what is actually said, by responding negatively to everything I say, regardless of what I say.

[Deep13]

42. Here is my tantrum: evidence! evidence! evidence!

I have no doubt there are more things in the heavens and on Earth (there is no hell) that are dreamed of in my philosophy. But you have to do more than just pull ideas out of your ass. You have to prove them. And evolution has been proven to the point of absolute certainty.

[tama]

45. Here is my tantrum

For example, the evidence of population biology shows bell curves and other wave forms, with die-offs on the down side. The historical evidence of human civilizations shows collapses and die-offs after destroying local ecological carrying capacity (and imperialistic sprout). I'm not disputing that evidence.

What I'm disputing is active disbelief in evolution understood as potential of learning from the past and doing something else than repeating well known patterns of population biology and history of civilizations. Evolution as creative adaptation instead of mechanical determinism. Potential of doing something not done before. In terms of the evidence mentioned, humanity waking up in peaceful rEvolution and global transition from capitalism as we know it to something else, based on common sense and compassion. Finding a new kind of harmony with this planet we are part of. And as harmony is a musical term, IMHO tone is very important ratio.

And I do have plenty of evidence of people being able to change their destructive behavioral patterns and healing from deep emotional traumas. I'd like to share one story. Long time ago I used to participate in discussions about drug use, and there was a guy with severe amphetamine addiction going on about how impossible it is to heal from the addiction. I said to him that of course it is not impossible - only very difficult - and that addicts tend to use all their energy to convince themselves that healing is impossible, lying to themselves. Those words struck a nerve, he agreed and shortly after went into treatment.

[Deep13]

51. Yes, we can decide to be reasonable and I hope we do.

But it is still our naturally selected primate minds that make the decision.

"I said to him that of course it is not impossible - only very difficult - and that addicts tend to use all their energy to convince themselves that healing is impossible, lying to themselves. Those words struck a nerve, he agreed and shortly after went into treatment."

Agreed. The whole "powerless over my addiction" mantra concedes the battle before it starts.

[tama]

54. A consciouss

jump from taking evolution as external theory to inclusive process and embodied knowledge.

[markpkessinger]

2. Many of the folks you describe . . .

. . . are folks who had, at some point in their lives, a profoundly negative experience with one or more of the organized religions. I think you'll find, in most cases, that such an experience is what underlies their militancy.

[Worship Money]

5. That's true, but it also can be because...

They see that unjustified belief gets not only recognition, but praise in the public sphere.

And that (organized) religiosity seems to have a certain insecurity. These organizations can't seem to keep their beliefs to themselves, but rather DEMAND that they be recognized and honored publically, and made to have a role in the lives of people who didn't ask for it.

Do not want.

[Kurmudgeon]

9. How about the folks who have had a "profoundly negative experience with one or more" atheists?

Or is only one kind of militancy or offense allowed?
Personally, it's just another form of prejudice. It is stupid to hate someone if someone else who shared a color of skin with them offended you somehow. That kind of prejudice follows many other forms as well.
I've had plenty of atheist friends and even dated a few, but I didn't make a point to shout code words and offensive terms in their face either.
And they showed me the same respect. It's not that hard.

[markpkessinger]

13. You're reading WAY too much into my post...

... I was merely addressing myself to the issue raised in the OP. I was not in any way discounting the possibility of militancy in the opposite direction. Nor was I necessarily defending such militancy. I was merely pointing out one of the root causes for it in some cases.

Jeesh! Jump to the defensive much?

(P.S. I'm a lifelong Episcopalian, btw.)

[NMMNG]

26. "Jeesh! Jump to the defensive much?"

Yes, he does.

[darkstar3]

28. Still can't get over the fact that this is a discussion forum that incorporates all POVs?

You see, your real life atheist friends (which I doubt) didn't get into any of this with you because they weren't on a discussion forum regarding the topic.

[Goblinmonger]

50. I have a lot of believer friends (kind of hard to avoid, actually)

and I hardly ever, practically never, get into any of the discussion and use the arguments that I do here? Know why, because this is a forum on the internet specific to talking about these things. But I can guarantee you that if one of them said the "atheism is just like the KKK" bullshit that I hear on here, I'd let them know how I feel.

[enlightenment]

3. Well, he is entitled to his opinion, served up from the basis of

his vast experience in life.

Speaking as a person who instructs people like Tom, I have to say that the phenomenon of the 'senior history major' is not unfamiliar. There is something about reaching that fourth year; being exposed to cool upper-division study, contemplating the wonder that will be - without a shadow of a doubt - one's senior thesis, and indulging in daydreams about the enormous, discipline-shaking impact one will have in grad school that turns relatively normal young people into - well - into characters like Tom.

sigh.

Fortunately, the reality of grad school knocks that shit right out of them.

[Speck Tater]

4. Science is the best tool there is for understanding the things that science is best at understaning

I just have my doubts that the two sets {all that exists} and {all that science can study} are the same set.

[Merlot]

7. I think the way the religious attack non-believers

is worse than anything most non-believers are willing to dish out.

Atheists just lost their number one ranking of the most hated group in America (to the tea party).

This article is another good case in point of attacks on atheists.

[demosincebirth]

10. You gotta be kidding. Oh, poor atheists, so persecuted. Shoe is on the othe foot, now.

[tama]

11. Please,

do you HAVE to be a whiner to pass as an atheist? Or does atheist a-whiner fall out of the group thinking definition and atheist forum street credibility?

[NMMNG]

14. Link to the original study

For anybody who doubts the claim

Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and
Cultural Membership in American Society>

[Worship Money]

15. Ah yes

Gotta love the one area where people posit a SUPERNATURAL distinction between themselves and out-group members.

But oh yeah, the outsiders shouldn't at all feel like there's something wrong here. :sarcasm:

[NMMNG]

8. ...

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MrModerate]

17. This is a pretty silly article by an unsophisticated and shallow thinker.

But hardly earns the author a "fuck you" in my book. A more appropriate response would be a momentary shrug and a move on to something more worth one's time.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

18. Wow.

Islam - definitely not to blame for FGM.
Atheism - go ahead and blame Ayn Rand on them.

Someone who's 21 - and in school - should be a little bit more intellectually coherent than that.

[laconicsax]

23. No, by all means don't blame those mutilating girls for what they're doing.

What bullshit.

[NMMNG]

25. Apparently if an entire group doesn't do something

you can't speak out against it. That's what they're teaching in college these days I guess.

[darkstar3]

27. Found in Apologetics 101.

Other lessons include mastery of fallacy, smugness, and the ability to quote bible verses to support your ideas while saying that others have no right to do so with a straight face.

[laconicsax]

31. Especially if your Google-Fu finds other people doing it who aren't in the group. n/t

edited for punctuation

[ChadwickHenryWard]

47. It's just an attempt to muddy the waters.

It's really astounding to me that the fault he finds is with atheists.

The hijab and the burka are not mentioned in the Koran. Would anybody seriously argue that they are not "Muslim" practices? Muslims wear them, and because of Muslim sensibilities/principles - some even say that it is the will of god. It is just same with FGM. The practice is the direct result of Muslim views on female sexuality. Some even argue it's the will of god. How can we regard that as not a "Muslim" practice?

[Iggo]

34. Hey Bradtke....fuck off. (n/t)

[trotsky]

46. So full of meaningless hyperbole and ridiculous equivocation.

Of course it's never a good hit piece without those.

Does seeing an ambiguous "God" on the one-dollar bill make atheists hiss and hide under a rock?

Nope. But just an omnipresent reminder to us non-believers that we are viewed as second class citizens in this society. Some of us as OK with that. Others of us don't like it. Go figure. I suppose we should just accept our place and not make any waves. But I wonder how a lot of Christians would feel if our money said "In Allah We Trust"? And would they be "whining" if they complained about it?

[Iggo]

48. Does seeing an ambiguous "God" on the one-dollar bill make atheists hiss and hide under a rock?

They wish.

[NMMNG]

53. "Does seeing an ambiguous "God" on the one-dollar bill make atheists hiss and hide under a rock?"

No, but a lawsuit asking for its removal makes Christians go apoplectic. Challenging their privilege in any way can be dangerous.

[onager]

49. He sure got this wrong...

Female genital mutilation, while a disgusting practice, is hardly done in the majority of Islamic nations and isn't even supported by Islamic authorities in the few places it is practiced. It's largely a local tradition in parts of Africa, not something intrinsic to the religion.

BS of the purest ray serene.

I've lived in 2 Islamic nations for long periods of time, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. A common expression was: "Only a circumcised woman can be a good Muslim."

That is expressed verbatim in Nayra Atiya's book Khul-Khaal - Five Egyptian Women Tell Their Stories. The (non-fiction) book follows the lives of 5 modern Egyptian women, living in places ranging from urban Cairo to rural Upper Egypt, near The Sudan. ("Khul-Khaal" are the traditional anklets an Egyptian women puts on when she gets married.)

The book has graphic descriptions of FGM from its victims. From memory: "After the barber got done with me, my grandmother gave me lemonade as a treat. I have never, for the rest of my life, been able to drink lemonade again without getting sick."

When I lived in Egypt, the newspapers reported every year on the government campaign to stop FGM. It was a miserable failure in the rural areas. A strange fact: every year, about 75% of mothers said they did NOT want their daughters to be circumcised. Yet also every year, about 75% of the Muslim females got circumcised anyway.

Yes, that's anecdotal. So shoot me. Or go dig thru the files of the Egyptian Gazette, where I read it.

And it IS supported by "Islamic authorities," though it may not be OFFICIALLY supported so as not to piss off the government. They pull the same trick with honor killings.

I also remember a big FGM story in the usually liberal news-magazine Egypt Today. That story really ventured into forbidden territory - the sexual insecurities and jealousy between circumcised and uncircumcised women, which in Egypt mainly means Coptic Xians.

[LeftishBrit]

52. He is oversimplifying matters, as student writers often do

There are some truths in this article. Yes, it is true that religious people should not be lumped together, and that all Christians should not be found 'guilty by association' with the likes of Pat Robertson, and all Muslims should not be found 'guilty by association' with the perpetrators of such practices as female genital mutilation. It is also true that many dictators are not theocrats; nevertheless, all theocratic rulers are dictators.

It is very true that there are plenty of non-theist ideologies that can be just as doctrinaire as religions can be; and that free market worship is an example, as is its extreme opposite, hardline communism. And evolutionary psychology! - while there *are* respectable academic evolutionary psychologists, the majority who use this label tend to be dogmatists who can bear a startling resemblance to creationists: everything in the social system is pre-ordained, whether by evolution or by God, and serves a function that makes it the best of all possible worlds, and we must not or perhaps cannot change it in any way.

It's also true that some atheists, just like some people who campaign over anything, get preoccupied with the superficial symbols. 'In God We Trust' or 'Fid. Def' (Defender of the Faith) on a coin is not that intrinsically important; what's important is that those who insist on it are often those who use religion to enforce right-wing politics, and who have created a situation where e.g. all political candidates in America must profess a faith, and the Republican ones must reject evolution.

But he is speaking from a very narrow experience. Hardline and simplistic evolutionary psychologists may be just as bad individually as hardline and simplistic religious campaigners. However, while perhaps this is not the case for his particular social group at college, *in general* there are nowadays in most places far more hardline and simplistic religious campaigners than hardline and simplistic evolutionary psychologists. I can well believe that he hasn't personally come across any serious abuses by religious right-wingers. I hadn't at his age, either - though it's much less common in my country in any case. Nevertheless, the politics and social conditions of many countries are influenced negatively, and some catastrophically, by those who use religion to enforce authoritarianism and harshness and to maintain inequalities. Whether the religion is a cause of, or simply a tool for, the authoritarianims and harshness could be a matter for debate - but the point is that it *is* used in this way.

Moreover: he is engaging in inconsistencies, by both portraying disliked atheists as 'smug' and a 'superior elite' and as 'whiners' and illegitimate 'victims'. People who act superior don't generally whine; they look down on others. No doubt some atheists, like some of any group, can show either characteristic. Nevertheless, by dismissing others as whiners, he is himself showing smugness and superiority, and dismissing the fact that religion-based harshness and discrimination *do* exist in many places even if perhaps not on his doorstep, and *do* harm people.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

55. I've never had an atheist tell me I was a filthy sinner, or condemn me to hell.

The atheists I know are generally much nicer than the Christians I've run into.

[tama]

56. I'm unable

to draw such generalizations. In my experience categorical group identities and backgrounds have very little to do with how people treat each other.