The semester’s winding down, and Graduation is in 3 days. Needless to say, I haven’t had much time for writing non-school-related things (like this blog). I’ll be able to write more over the summer. Since I don’t want to get out of the habit of writing here, and since I don’t really have the time to research and plan any new posts, I had an idea for something that is relatively quick and engaging: Why don’t all you theists tell me why you don’t like atheists?
You see… Atheists are a very maligned group in American culture. We rank in the bottom when it comes to whether or not someone would vote for us for political office (even if we are otherwise the most qualified candidate), most parents wouldn’t want their children marrying an atheist, and atheists are barred from several groups, including the Boy Scouts of America. From that, it would seem that atheists are very immoral, terrible people, but that is not in line with the facts that exist about this matter. According to a recent study published in the Annals of Family Medicine, atheist doctors were more likely to take on patients with financial difficulties (though these results were barely outside of the study’s margin of error) than theistic ones; atheists are also typically underrepresented in prison (proportion of atheists in prison vs. atheists’ share of the total population); and there is no discernable link between religiosity and altruism.
So… Why do people hate atheists so much? I legitimately want to know why, so if you dislike atheists, as a group, for any reason, leave a comment telling me why. Speculation is also welcome by people who don’t hate atheists. I will then, in a follow-up post, answer most, if not all, of the reasons given. A word of caution: Ridiculous, illogical, or inane reasons will serve as comic relief for the next post.
This isn’t about insulting people, however, it is about starting a dialogue between believers and nonbelievers. It’s about dispelling myths that theists have about atheists, and it’s about gaining more universal acceptance for atheists.
In the United States, there are more atheists than Jews and Muslims combined. It’s about time we took our place at the table.
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I think atheists are misunderstood. From a theist point of view, an atheist must be pretty cynical, and who likes a cynic? If you have extra time this summer, read Lewis’ The Weight of Glory. To a theist, an atheist would be cynical about the Beauty and the Longing that Lewis describes. Lewis assumes that those experiences are shared by all humans. But, and I realize my logic isn’t perfect here, if someone doesn’t believe in God, to a theist, they must not have had those experiences. How can any human not have had those experiences? Which leaves us with… I’m sure you see where I’m going. I’m not meaning to say atheists are not human, only that it’s this feeling that a theist is reacting against: a human experience that is thought to be cross-cultural and completely shared is… not.
I think Gwenny’s response would be a good example of how people who dislike atheists would rationalize their dislike. But I think the root cause is much simpler.
Religious faith is a big part of a believer’s sense of personal identity.
Doubt erodes the beach of faith like the waves of the ocean. As such, that faith requires constant shoring up or it will be dissolved. The most powerful form of shoring up faith is social reinforcement within the religious community. It makes faith ‘normal’, and that which is considered ‘normal’ can safely go unquestioned.
The simple existence of someone – or a large body of someones – who openly disagree with the faith of a believer directly undermines this shoring up. We don’t even have to do anything. Just by professing our atheism openly and without shame, we are calling into question the normality of not only that believer’s particular religious faith: We’re calling into question the normality of finding a sense of identity in religious faith in the first place.
This makes it harder for a religious community to shore up the faith of their members, thus causing that faith to erode more easily. This is emotionally interpreted as an attack on the believer’s personal identity. So then identity politics and tribalism sweeps in. It becomes ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. The ‘Us’ is good, caring, noble, benevolent, righteous, etc. The ‘Them’ is cynical, depressing, dangerous, immoral, vile, hollow, dishonorable, and so forth.
Then, once the emotional decision has been made that atheists are the ‘Them’, a rationale much like Gwenny’s submission kicks in to justify this disassociation. It usually hinges on some fundamental ‘Absolute Truth’. The ‘Us’ is defined in moral terms, and a length of rationality will try and forge a link between that definition and some kind of unfalsifiable Absolute Truth (AT). The more ineffable that AT is then the harder it is to falsify the rationale; so much the better.
Once this is done, the believer can fully justify to themselves the distinction between ‘Us’ as normal and ‘Them’ as abnormal. This patches up the damage done by the existence of atheists to the faith of the believer, but doesn’t quite fix everything.
So the same rationale around the AT will then be modified to form a foundation of justification for imposing the moral definition of the ‘Us’ on the ‘Them’: Then we get evangelism to convert the ‘Them’ into the ‘Us’. This takes two forms. Firstly, trying to make the ‘Us’ sound like a desirable alternative. Secondly, trying to make the ‘Them’ sound like an undesirable alternative.
Examples:
1. You Can Not Be Moral Without God!
2. Why Are Atheists So Sad/Angry/Cynical/Arrogant?
3. Atheists Are Immoral
4. Bananas: The Atheist’s Nightmare
And so on and so forth.
The dislike of atheists is nothing more than the result of simplistic and emotional identity politics.
I think that people of religious faith tend to dislike atheists for the same reason that conservatives tend to dislike liberals, gay people tend to dislike people who disagree with gay marriage, etc. It’s not that atheism in and of itself is so bad, but when you go around attacking someone else’s world view, they probably won’t take too kindly to it.
Another reason that atheists could be disliked is that they carry themselves with a (no pun intended) holier than thou attitude. They often tout their beliefs as being based on “logic and reasoning” while painting their religious counterparts as blunderingly stupid.
PS- It makes sense that the Boy Scouts don’t allow atheists considering their distinctly theistic history. It’s just like women not being allowed to join fraternities.
Interesting, Sara… Something about your reply itches, but I can’t put my finger on it.
I think that there’s a difference between a reasonable and an unreasonable dislike. The dislike of an individual atheist that is holier-than-thou, and paints all theists as bumbling fools, is reasonable when applied to that atheist, but unreasonable when applied to all atheists.
I was discussing the application of dislike to all atheists – which is a bit different.
The other thing is when you consider the nature of attacking someone’s world view. I don’t think that holding a different opinion to someone and voicing that opinion should be considered an attack on that someone. I think there’s some good reasons why people might incorrectly interpret it as an attack – consider my post above as one such possible reason.
Contrast this against your example of homosexuals that dislike people who discriminate against homosexuals. Make no mistake – opposition to gay marriage is discriminatory towards homosexuals. In this case, disliking someone who is discriminating towards you seems to me to be a reasonable dislike – to the point that I openly hold dislike towards people who discriminate towards homosexuals and bisexuals, even though I’m heterosexual. The discrimination may not be aimed at me, but I still dislike that it goes on, and I dislike those that do it. I think this not unreasonable.
Finally, the general opinion on the Boy Scouts is that if they want to discriminate their membership based on religion, that’s fine – but if they want to discriminate in this way, then they shouldn’t be subsidized by tax dollars that are paid in part by atheists. Essentially, they’re taking money from atheists to subsidize a club that atheists can’t join. I think that it’s justified to call that unfair.
Hey bro, I largely agree with what you post about theology and religion, but I highly disagree with the way you’re presenting this topic. I’m a self-professed atheist just like you but I view my atheism as a personal matter. It’s largely a phillsophy of life for me, and me alone, not a self-aggrandizing political tool to play the victim.
What I disagree with most is how you are playing the victim card with your atheist beliefs. By making the vast assumption that your belief system is unfairly maligned and/or persecuted and everyone else is out to get you. With all due respect, it reminds me of the race-baiting tactics of Al Sharpton who plays the race card because he perceives that blacks are a persecuted minority. As an atheist, I think we’re better than all these self-serving racial and religious hypocrites.
When you think about it, have we ever been persecuted in the US for our beliefs? I’m not talking about minor, inconsequential prejudices held against atheists. I’m talking about persecution, the real deal. The kind of persecution that involves you being tortured, gunned down, mutilated, or beaten and outlawed for your beliefs. See, my point exactly. As atheists, we’ve never been targeted like this in the United States and we live in relatively peaceful, free societies compared to most of the world. I’m not saying bigotry against atheists doesn’t exist, but at the same time, we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re the next Jews, in line for some non-existent future Holocaust. This is why I disagree with the way you’ve presented this topic, despite being an atheist myself. It relies too much of perceived injustices all focused entirely on playing the role of an unfairly maligned victim. I’ll put it like this: If you don’t want Christian nutjobs playing the victim/persecution card, you yourself should set an example and not engage in those shenanagins either.
Tell me what you think.
Derek
the bit where you attacked my essay in a very stupid way (expressing incredulity because you had never heard of Thoams Kuhn or philosophy of scinece) and mocking and ridiculing ideas you of which you have no knowledge; do not you not that might just be part of the reason people don’t like athiests?
When every single atheist message baord is just a hot bed of rolls with no serious discussion and every athist on the net is nothing but a snide little ridicule artist who is outragged everytime he hears an idea he hasn’t heard before, that just might be a damper on your public images. People don’t like the Brown shirt thing. This bit about 3000 ilttle nkow nothing in a feeding frenzy and mocking and ridiculing things they don’t understand, somewhat unattractive.
Also the thing about running away when I confront you with serious arrangement, that has to be a minus.