Atheism

There are many atheists and self-styled humanists who are so anti-religious that they don't want to know anything about it. When they talk about Islam, say, it becomes evident that they know very little about Muslims, and have probably never knowingly spoken to one. As far as they're concerned, Islam is a threat, and that's all there is to it.

When it comes to our quality of life, what matters is how people behave, not what they believe. This applies to atheists and humanists too, some of whom could do with lessons in manners. There are times when this sort of attitude leads atheists to do very silly things, like Richard Dawkins' response to the Haitian earthquake. To demonstrate that humanists are caring people, he set up a separate fund from all the well-established disaster relief funds. A lot of atheists won't donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) because some of the organisations involved have a religious ethos and they imagine that the money might be used for proselytising, instead of food, shelter and welfare. Dawkins' fund, which was promoted by the BHA, was channelled through PayPal, an American money transfer system, which meant that British donors couldn't take advantage of the Gift Aid scheme, so their donations were worth less than they would have been through DEC. This was inexcusable, considering that there are British disaster relief charities without a religious ethos, and that donors could have gone direct to any of them. Humanists are supposed to be rational people, but this wasn't very rational.

"Pastor" Michael Stahl from Florida, who doesn't actually have a church and probably assumed the title himself, is clearly a very ignorant and prejudiced man. A year ago he wrote in his blog that he was going to start a grassroots organization to keep a database of atheists called "The Christian National Registry of Atheists." He wrote,

I mean, think about it. There are already National Registrys [sic] for convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc... This type of 'National Registry' would merely be for information purposes.

When Mr Stahl's great idea came to light a few days ago, it naturally annoyed a lot of people, mainly atheists like us, who'd never considered any similarity with sex offenders or terrorists. Mr Stahl seems to have neglected to make a list of all the Catholic sex offenders, but perhaps he thinks that the Pope's right, and we should just ignore them.

Anyhow, the Thinking Atheist thought that this was a good opportunity to point out what a great list this might be.

With reference to my last post about the Pope and his repetition of the atheism=Nazism lie, here's Christopher Hitchens. He begins by saying, "Atheism is not a moral or political position of any kind," which of course it isn't. Yes, there are some nasty atheists, but Hitler wasn't one of them. He was just nasty.

Yesterday, representatives of the Secular Coalition for America met White House officials to discuss issues of concern to American atheists, humanists and secularists. Before the meeting, they said,

... it will be the latest indication that the secular movement is gaining significant momentum, and that secular Americans, numbering in the tens of millions, are a constituency that must be included.

Predictably, fundamentalist Christian right-wingers have reacted as though President Obama was making a pact with the devil (who doesn't exist, though try telling them that).

Not quite the outcome that Mr Blair had in mind when he agreed to invade Iraq, Iraqis disillusioned with a God that allows the chaos and carnage they've endured since 2003 are losing their faith. He must be so disappointed.

Andrew Brown of the Guardian made a lot of readers cross when he wrote that atheists are all middle-class, Aga-owning snobs. Now Theos, the public theology think tank, says that -

Although atheists have historically been drawn from upper social grades and higher education levels, the research shows that converts to atheism are disproportionately drawn from groups with no educational qualifications whereas converts to theism are disproportionately drawn from higher socio-economic grades and from people with a masters degree or higher.

The Guardian's Andrew Brown has written a piece about atheism, alleging that atheists are all middle-class, Aga-owning snobs. I've written a comment, Ariane Sherine has responded to Brown, and New Humanist has provided some history of the connection between class and atheism.