The Problem of Proselytizing

I have always been an atheist. My parents made it pretty clear: From a young age I knew we were Jewish, and we did not worship or believe in God. (Apparently, I was less clear on the distinction between the two, which led to me being enrolled in Hebrew School until I could differentiate them.) I have no “atheist conversion story,” although I could tell the story of how I became a skeptic some time.

That is a different article, however. The point I am trying to make is that I am happy as an atheist. I have never felt any particular need to be anything other than an atheist, never felt that I wanted to be anything other than an atheist, and never felt that I was missing out on anything by being an atheist.

Being an atheist is a huge part of who I am. I could not stop being an atheist without completely revising my outlook on the world. Becoming a believer would not be as simple as switching the “God” switch from “Yes” to “No.” In order to believe that God (or gods, or an impersonal supernatural force that comprised a privileged reference frame from which to view questions of morality and value) exists, I would have to redefine my understanding of the word “exists” to be able to include things not made of matter. I would have to redefine my definition of “true,” my definition of “evidence,” my definition of “reality.” I would have to completely revise the way I view the universe, and to get there, I would have to completely destroy the way I view the universe.

And beyond the existential distress of utterly transforming my worldview, there’s the social distress, too. Would such a drastic change influence the way my friends see me? Would it change my relationship with my fiancee? Depending on which religion I turned to, would it hurt my relationship with any of my family members?

No matter how it happened, becoming a believer would be an extremely stressful and painful experience. I’ve been told, by people who have done it, that the other way around is just as traumatic.

***

Greta Christina posted last month ^[1] that, “For many atheists, our main goal is persuading the world out of religion.” She goes on in the same post to establish herself in favor of that position:

We don’t want to see this happen by law or violence or any kind of force, of course. But we think religion isn’t just mistaken. We think it’s harmful. Some of think it’s appallingly harmful. Some of us think it’s inherently harmful: that the very qualities that make religion unique are exactly what make it capable of doing terrible harm. What’s more, we see religion as not just hurting atheists. We see it as hurting billions of believers. So we’re working towards a world where it no longer exists.

So, according to Greta Christina, her primary goal as an atheist is to make most of the world’s population suffer the trauma of losing their faith, so that they can then be better (read: more Greta Christina-like) people with truer (read: more similar to Greta Christina’s) beliefs. And I should be okay with this, because she promises not to use legal coercion or violence to bring it about.

I am not okay with this.

For starters, I am a skeptic. I demand truth claims be backed with empirical evidence. So: Where is the empirical evidence that religious belief is harmful, either to believers or non-believers? I want a serious study here: A comparison of abuse of power in religious institutions to similarly structured secular institutions, say, or of domestic abuse rates between religious and non-religious households, corrected for factors known or suspected to influence abuse rates not directly attributable to religion (such as authoritarianism, substance abuse, and abuse rates in past generations). Give me hard, empirical data that religion is harmful--that bad religious people would be less bad if they were atheists, that good religious people would be better if they were atheists, that suffering religious people would suffer less if they were atheists.

Then prove that it is always better to be atheist than religious. Show that there is never a person better off as a religious person, never a person whose religious faith makes the world around them better. Because if there is even one such person, then a world with universal atheism is worse than a world of pluralistic belief.

I find it absurd I have to make this argument. Somehow, large numbers of otherwise clearly very intelligent atheists are able to avoid seeing the blatant irony and hypocrisy of insisting, with no evidence whatsoever, that belief without evidence is harmful.

Second of all, I like diversity. Diversity is powerful and useful. In most fields of endeavor, empirical data and truth are not of primary importance; you can do data entry equally well regardless of whether you understand electronics or think your computer is powered by tiny gnomes. Without religious perspectives in particular, art, literature, music, and architecture would be sadly diminished. Imagine a world with no Sagrada Familia^[2], no Angkor Wat^[3], no Eddas^[4], no Lord of the Rings^[5], no Bach^[6]… the list is unfathomably long.

It is clear that, misapplied, religious faith is a hindrance to scientific and technical endeavors--creationism proves that. However, the existence of non-religious anti-science movements such as global warming denialism and the anti-vax movement call into question whether it is actually religion that is the problem, or clinging to demonstrably false, harmful beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence, which hardly seems an exclusive problem of the religious. Meanwhile, the existence of religious scientists in large numbers (one 2007 study^[7] found that more than a third of biologists and psychologists believe in God or gods) suggests that religious faith is not an insurmountable obstacle to scientific endeavor, if it is even necessarily an obstacle at all (which I regard as, at the very least, not proven).

Third, and most importantly: You do not have a right to make others suffer for your beliefs.

No one has that right. Ever.

If Greta Christina’s assessment of religion were correct--if all religious belief is both false and inherently harmful--then religion would be not only a mental illness, but the most widespread mental illness in history. But even if that were true (and I do not believe it is), you do not have a right to cure people by force unless they are demonstrably an immediate danger to themselves or others.

I cannot reiterate this enough: Proselytizing is yet another word for making people suffer in order to transform them into what you think they should be, for no other reason than because they are not what you think they should be.

What Greta Christina advocates--what any atheist advocates when they suggest “increasing the numbers of atheists” as a laudable goal, what any adherent of any religion advocates when they suggest “increasing the number of members of my religion”--is evil in one of its purest forms.

--Froborr

---

^[1] What Are The Goals of the Atheist Movement?↩

^[2] Sagrada Família↩

^[3] Angkor Wat↩

^[4] Edda↩

^[5] Lord of the Rings↩

^[6] Johann Sebastian Bach↩

^[7] How Religious are America’s College and University Professors?↩

---

 

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Comments

[sarah]

A world without Bach would be a dark one indeed.

I think I have more to say, but I want to process before I post. In any case, thanks for this post, Froborr.

[Patrick]

Stop equating "convincing people by means of discussion" with "force." That is not ok.

[ZMiles]

(Wall of text. TW: refs to suicide, Hell, damnation, Phelps-esque beliefs, homophobia, violence)

The trauma?

When I was a Christian, I lived in total fear that my relatives, all atheist, would die and go to Hell. I lived in fear that I would sin, and die before I could beg forgiveness, and go to Hell. I feared that I would be called to 'take up my cross and follow Him,' that is, be forced to suddenly chuck everything I wanted to do with my life because of some religious calling.

I knew, based on my study of the Bible, that leisure and religion don't mix. That any moment spent in idle pleasure is a moment spent not glorifying God or promoting Him. That hobbies are good only insofar as they help God-related works; that being a pianist, for example, only had worth insofar as one could use that prostelyze to your fans, or to persuade others that God helped you create beautiful music. Reading only had value to learn more about God, or God's world, or to be someone with the qualification of intellectualism so that you would be a better witness. Using that quote of Nabokov or Shakespeare, or even Stephen King, to lead into a conversion attempt (or to set myself up as a wise and well-rounded invidual, in preparation for a later conversion attempt). But of course this meant that I couldn't read in leisure, because how would that help? Any book, or music score I played, or page I went to on the Internet, had to be studied and mastered, else I was wasting my time -- it'd be of no use when it came to saving souls from Hell.

I felt, in short, that, any moment spent not trying to master some skill for God or perfect myself as a witness would be something I would be called to account for when I died. And it applied to resources too; if I, for example, ate more calories than I strictly needed, or food that wasn't nutritionally optimal, I was taking them away from the starving and poor, and God would charge me for that. "On December 20th, 2005, from 5:30:00 to 6:30:00, rather than engage in any productive task, you took a nap which you did not need. Then you ate a hamburger; a grossly wasteful act, when you had other food that was about to spoil and the hamburger would have been good for two more days. You wasted that food." And of course I wasn't perfect or even close, so I was continually falling short and imagining my own list of sins growing, on and on, without end. Surely, I concluded, I must be an unusually worthless person, to understand so clearly what my God wanted and yet not even taking the minor acts he required.

I was the one who was paralyzed with fear when, in an idle moment, I had an intrusive thought that was negative about the Holy Spirit (for non-Christians: there's a bible verse stating that anyone who sins against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven but is irrevocably damned. Mark 3:29). Because I was certain that I was going to Hell, no matter what. What did anything matter? So I could have sixty years of service, or guilt, or even hedonistic pleasure, and then I die and am damned for all eternity. Kind of a bummer when you're in high school and thought you had a whole life ahead of you, to find out that there was no point in anything anymore, because you were bound for the Hellfires whatever you did.

And I also noted, in the back of my mind, the things about my faith that I found objectionable. Hell seemed rather unfair. So did the idea of original sin -- what, I'm a bad guy because of something Adam and Eve did? Substitutionary atonement -- what, so God can automatically cancel all moral debts? What right does God have? I think forgiveness is good, but if Alice executes Bob in cold blood, what right does God have to say to those who loved Bob, "I suffered on the cross; therefore, Alice's sins are paid for and you are obligated to forgive her and never hold her actions against her." But I couldn't dig into that too much, because that was still sin. (What did it matter if I was going to Hell anyway for breaking Mark 3.29? I didn't think that through all that much, but I suppose I felt obligated to minimize my sin even in that state).

And I should note -- I was not a Fred Phelps style fundamentalist. I was not even a Southern Baptist. I was pro-choice; I was pro gay marriage; I basically accepted science. I thought it was terrible and wrong what hateful people like Phelps and Falwell were doing, and I believed passionately that God didn't approve of their acts. I was the standard liberal Christian that the Templetons and Steadmans and Mooneys and, apparently, Froborrs of the world say we need more of, the kind that simply believed that charity and kindness and making the world a better place are the sort of acts that God wants. I wasn't the kind of person that one often thinks of when they think of a kid terrorized by religion; usually that kid's a Carrie White-esque person brought up in a hyper-religious household and thinks that just about anything is sin, even the color red. But my parents are atheists, and I wasn't that far gone, I thought that red and legalized abortion and legalized gay marriage and all that was A-OK, so I had no problems, right? Wrong.

You have no idea the sheer relief I felt when I read of a major theological problem with the Bible, because that was the crack that allowed my reason to reassert itself. No more did I tell myself "do not question, because questioning could lead to damnation". I finally looked at everything with an open mind and realized that the 'proofs' I'd used to convince myself that Christianity was true, all those years ago, were nonsense. That there was no reason to believe that any of it was true. Not the fundamentalist faith of Phelps, or the mainstream version, or the liberal beliefs I had, or the even more liberal 'God is just another word for love' stuff. Nor the Jewish faith of my great-grandparents ancestors, nor Islam, nor any other belief.

So don't go telling me that it's a trauma to lose religious belief. It was a trauma to have it. It was bliss to realize that I didn't need to have it; that I could reject it, and do so honestly, not because I wanted to sin without fear of Hell, but because there was no evidence of Hell. Or God. To this day, I am grateful for PZ Myers (his was the site that was my gateway to reason) and the other atheists who were willing to say these things in a world that is often violently hostile to atheists, because it was thanks to their work that I've enjoyed the last five years of my life and haven't spent them in a religion-manufactured depression.

As to the rest of it:

1. Evidence that religion harms people? No ,the burden of proof is on religion to show that it helps people, because that is what most religions claim. "Believe in God and you will be a more moral person." That is a fundamental claim of a great many religions and practitioners. Where's the evidence? Oh, there is none? Well, that's evidence that religions are lying about one thing right there. Not off to a good start, on their part.
I also note that the evidence you want would be basically impossible to provide. Sure, I can recite lists of atrocities committed for religious reasons (Crusades, pogroms, the IRA and the LRA and Al Qaeda and in some ways the IDF), but you seem to want proof that, had all these people been atheist, they wouldn't have done these things. That's of course impossible to know. Or, I could list statistics about how these atheists here have these metrics (happiness or amount given to charity or whatever), and these religious people have these other metrics, but there will always be other factors, which I'm sure would invalidate them in your eyes. Or I could go through holy books and began rattling off atrocities, but I'm sure you'd say that I'd need to prove that modern believers really thought those things were good (and polls don't tend to ask "do you think the slaughters of the Caananites was a good thing", so there's not much evidence there either).

2. Then you want evidence that it would always be better to be an atheist than religious. Always? Why on earth is that the standard? There are exceptions to almost every category of "it would be better for a person to do X than Y." It would generally be better for a person not to cut off their hand than to cut it off, but Aron Ralston determined differently. It would generally be considered better not to have terminal cancer than to have it, but a suicidal person who nevertheless doesn't want to pull the trigger themselves might welcome it.
And what does 'better' mean? For me and a great many atheists, in terms of religious belief, 'better' means 'closer to reality.' So, if there actually is a God named Jesus who came down, gave a sermon on a mountain, turned water to wine, walked on water, resurrected Lazarus, and came back from the dead, then Christianity would be better to believe than anything else (Note: this doesn't preclude the possibility of believing that Christianity is true but deciding to oppose God a la Right Behind; I'm using 'believe' strictly in the sense of 'thinks the factual events recounted are true.'). If there isn't, and if there is no God, then atheism is 'better' than Christianity. You seem to be using 'better' in the sense of 'makes the person feel better' or 'causes the minimal amount of trauma,' which is a complete different meaning, and you haven't justified it.
By your logic, one could justify opium and morphine addiction; it makes people feel better and it would hurt them to get them off of it, so it must be good! (Dawkins' metaphor).

3. Diversity is good for some things. It's good in terms of gender diversity, or racial diversity, or ability diversity. It's not good for scientific questions. If you're building an airplane, and your team is so diverse that you have a guy who thinks that planes fly because angels are carrying them, that's bad. If your medical facility has a doctor who believes that vaccines are a plot by Big Pharma to cause autism, that's bad. That's not a good opinion. Just because people believe something, anything, doesn't always make the world a better place.
There are some religious beliefs that I think, without question, the world would be better without. "God hates gay people," for example. Do you not agree?

4. And lastly, this post is treating believers like little children who will be horrified by being presented with alternatives to the comforting things they know. Christina explicitly states that she does not want to use physical force or legal means to convert believers. She wants to talk to them. Reason with them. Convince them. You act as if this is some great danger to religious people, as if they're so fragile that my presence, or that of PZ Myers or Greta Christina, could break them in half. Even when I was religious, I didn't think much of this argument -- I found it incredibly patronizing, like you're saying, "I know the truth, but you're not tough enough to handle it" -- and I don't think any more of it now.
And she's not claiming to have any sort of 'right' to convert. She's not saying that X religious people are obligated to convert after talking to her. So I don't know where you're getting the 'right to make people suffer' thing from.

Dreadful.

[Laiima]

Froborr, I have gone through the conversion experience (Catholic to Pagan), and it did indeed completely destroy the world I thought I knew and remade it. I thought it was not just worth it, but necessary for my sanity. I would do it again.

In fact, I think I may actually be doing it again right now. I'm not sure using 'theist' to describe myself (even 'polytheist') is the best term. 'Atheist' might be closer, or maybe there's something else. I'm not worried about it. Either I'll figure it out, or I won't. Whatever.

I enjoyed your post. It gave me new things to think about (always good).

[Lighthill]

So before I can ethically try to persuade you of something which I believe to believe to be true and important, I must not only make fairly sure that it is true and important, but also I must be sure that learning the truth won't make you sad?

If there's a bunch of people who have produced a beautiful temple to the beetle who pushes the sun across the sky, is it wrong to let them read any astronomy books, lest they make less pretty art?

FWIW, there's no need to treat me this way. I would rather that you try to convince me of what you think is the truth, whether you think I would be better off ignorant or not. Even if my being wrong (in your opinion) leads me to make art you like, or even if you think having my wrong (in your opinion) beliefs around makes the world more pleasant to live in. In other words, please treat me as an adult who actually cares about knowing the truth. I'd feel like you were patronizing me otherwise.

[LMM]

Well, that's great. I just wrote an entire post replying -- in detail -- to the claim that about a third of scientists are religious, and it appears to have been eaten.

Here it is in a five-minute nutshell (because I have actual work to do): The author writing the layperson's summary that you cite appears -- in multiple places -- to be rather biased. (For example, in the *actual* essay on science professors and religion (here), the term "spirituality" is stretched to the point where it becomes ridiculous. [1]) But if one looks at the actual journal article (which you *should* have read before posting -- if you didn't have JSTOR access, you should either have paid for it or asked someone), the picture gets even more complicated: there's another category that's included: "I believe in a higher power but not God." About 8% of all scientists (on average, this varies between disciplines) agreed with this position -- meaning that only about 20% of scientists are actually religious by any definition of the term. This drops even further if one looks at surveys of the most respected scientists -- only about 7% of members of the National Academy of Scientists (which is difficult but not impossible to get into) believe in a "personal God" and only 5% of biologists do. (This article is one of the first Google hits for "religious beliefs among scientists", by the way, so it's pretty clear you either didn't do your research or were picking at specific results.)

tl;dr: The percentage of scientists who are religious in a real sense is *very* low -- and it drops significantly when you look at the most distinguished scientists.

But, as a final note to the Board Administrative Team, you know how *not* to make this board a welcoming place to atheists? Include posts by atheists bashing other atheists -- instead of, for example, posts by atheists explaining their beliefs (as you allowed, say, pagans to do).

[1] No, understanding one's place in the universe is not the same as spirituality, nor did the quoted physicist (see the text; I don't have time to reproduce it) claim that it was -- the author merely concludes that the line "that's the closest I get to a spiritual experience" means that the scientist in question "is replacing religion with spirituality, not science." (The form of spirituality most scientists have -- from experience -- is indistinguishable from science. It's the feeling you get when you realize that all you are are molecules interacting with each other, and the size of humanity relative to that of the rest of the universe. It's not particularly mystical in a fuzzy sense -- it's awe-inspiring, but it leads to a philosophy that's downright materialistic.)

[Anon for now]

Wow, this one's brought out some intensity already. Thank you, Froborr; for what it's worth, I very much agree with you. I can be the rightest I've ever been about something and that still doesn't mean I get to engage people in conversations about it against their will.

For what it's worth, ZMiles, just because an experience is not traumatic for you does not mean the same applies to everyone. My own journey away from Christianity was sufficient to send me into some of the worst bouts of mental ill health I have ever had; it was sufficient to have me thinking that everything was useless, and myself most of all, because here I am unable to support even the small faith my family has had as a part of 'what we are' since before my parents existed. Because one thing that was right with me had become wrong, and there was not a damn thing I could do about it, if I was honest with myself - and honesty, eventually, through a process as painful as it was slow, became more important than the hollow appearance of being right.

It is sufficiently difficult that I have not told my family, and that I am going anonymous so that it's not associated with my usual handle. It's great that was not a trauma for you, but that emphatically does not mean that it's not something that can cause trauma, difficulty, or loss of social connection.

I do believe that it's worthwhile - those lows I mentioned have been countered by an increasing level of health and competency with myself, and the things I am discovering now are pretty amazing - but if I had been forced into this process, rather than entering it voluntarily, I would be deeply resentful of whoever had inflicted it on me.

Proselytization, as I read it, is not a measured discussion with enough room for a participant to bow out when necessary. More it's the yelling guy on the street corner, or the person with the tract who won't go away, or the people who corner you in your own damn living room with books and 'facts' and convictions of righteousness. A discussion - which by its very nature allows a method of escape - is not the same thing at all.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Stop equating "convincing people by means of discussion" with "force." That is not ok.//

The thing is, discussion isn't likely to work for many. People's religious identity is important to them, so it's going to take a huge argument to persuade them to rethink. And since people believe or not based on emotional rather than intellectual factors, I'm not sure "convincing" is even possible in most cases. So I don't think there really is a non-coercive way to get people to change their religious identity.

[ZMiles]

Anon for now:

I'm aware that it also can be a trauma. But it can also be a trauma doing it the other way. I'm saying that Froborr's patronizing concern is not only, well, patronizing, but also not necessarily any less hurtful than doing things Christina's way.

Where is Christina saying that she wants to force people to be atheists, or requesting the yelling, the tracts, or the cornering? What's being objected to is just measured discussion. Or not even that. What's being objected to is atheists openly being atheists. Having blogs and going to conferences. Being willing to challenge religious doctrine (why is it okay to tell a child that there is a Heaven, but not okay to tell a child that there isn't one?) Posting billboards saying 'atheists exist, and we're actually good people.'

Nick:

Well, I'm one atheist who was convinced by intellectual, not emotional factors. And I'm not alone. But even if it's hard, why should we give up and say "we can't possibly convince people by reason and we don't want to use force, so let's all go home?"

[Anon for now]

@ZMiles, absolutely it can be as traumatic going both/any direction. I'd not gotten that from your previous post, but it sounds like we agree there.

I don't think I'm objecting to the things you list. Going to conferences, having billboards and blogs and just bein' out there being atheists: go for it! I think there ought to be more of that sort of thing because of the awful ways atheists get treated around the US specifically, but as I do not claim "atheist" as a label, I don't know that there's a lot that I, personally, can do to make that happen.

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too. It's not about the existence of conferences and blogs and billboards; it's about that statement. That the world would be better if everyone lost their religion.

That's where it turns into wishing that possibly- and perhaps even probably-traumatic experience on a whole lot of people.

[histrogeek]

Froborr,
I do appreciate, as a frequently anxious Christian, your reminder of the importance of pluralism.
There are some big issues in the comments that I would just briefly like to address. The first is the idea that religious people need to be protected from atheism. I don't think that is what Froborr was saying. I am quite familiar with atheist arguments and whatever reasons I have for disagreeing, it isn't because I don't understand them.
Thing is that proselytizers of any stripe always seem to think that the reason people don't agree with them is that they don't get the argument. This is the big reason I feel apolgetics are the most worthless endeavor around. Here is X philosophical argument (therefore not truly provable in the scientific sense). Here is why it is right/wrong. When that fails, the next strategy can best be summed up as HERE IS WHY THIS IS RIGHT OR WRONG! It just goes nowhere and it makes the other person angry because you imply they are an idiot or evil or whatever.
Just saying no violence or legal oppression isn't really as much of a shield as you might think. It is entirely possible to be an insulting dillhole without those. It's also entirely possible to browbeat and intimidate people without violence and legal oppression.
Want to convince me of your position? Try common ground first. As was mentioned a few posts ago, atheists, non-theists, and theists can all base their morality on empathy and "ahisma" to use the Sanskrit.
Bad and violent religion like bad and violent anything needs to be stopped because it is bad and violent. Communism was bad because it was violent and oppressive, not because it was atheist or based on political philosophy. Islam in Sudan, or U.S. fundamentalists, is bad for the same reason. Historically religion isn't any better or worse than tribes or nations or ideologies when it comes to oppression or violence.
Finally religious people can be as adaptable as any other people. Many religious people have no difficulty discarding earlier beliefs without changing their world-view entirely. So the sun beetle people Lighthill mentions might just as easily produce art with their sun beetle as a metaphor.

[Nick Kiddle]

//But even if it's hard, why should we give up and say "we can't possibly convince people by reason and we don't want to use force, so let's all go home?"//

Because people have a right to believe what they want, even if we think it's silly and obviously false. I figure if you've tried reasonably pointing out why a belief doesn't make sense and got nowhere, it's not a belief held based on logic. You can wait and hope they change their mind, but you have to accept that maybe they just aren't going to.

[Nick Kiddle]

//So before I can ethically try to persuade you of something which I believe to believe to be true and important, I must not only make fairly sure that it is true and important, but also I must be sure that learning the truth won't make you sad?//

It's not so much "learning the truth" as "changing your way of life". I could tell the story of how I became an atheist and the story of how I lost my faith to make this clear, but it might be tl;dr. Anyone interested?

[LMM]

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?

Or is it really worth dedicating one of the few posts on atheists on a multi-religious blog to *attacking* atheists who genuinely believe their beliefs are more accurate than religious ones?

[Will Wildman]

I liked this one a lot, Froborr. Looks like the discussion will be lively, too.

1. Evidence that religion harms people? No ,the burden of proof is on religion to show that it helps people, because that is what most religions claim.

This is an interestingly forceful assertion. If someone says they enjoy poetry and feel that reading books of verse improves them as a person, do you demand that they show proof that it has turned them into a better person, and that they stop reading poetry if it hasn't demonstrably improved them? Because assuming (as I do, being atheist) that all religions are wrong about the metaphysics of the universe (indeed, wrong about there being metaphysics of the universe) then it appears that religion becomes a mental and social hobby - albeit one with a considerable history of being misused to justify wrong actions. Which segues nicely:

There are some religious beliefs that I think, without question, the world would be better without. "God hates gay people," for example. Do you not agree?

I definitely do agree. But the atheist-proselytising position targeted here isn't 'remove all the negative aspects of religion', it's 'remove religion'. And as long as there are homophobic atheists, the notion of 'gay people are evil' isn't an exclusively religious idea, so why target religious people specifically, especially since there are plenty of religions in which homophobia is not a tenet? 'Gay people are evil' isn't an inherent religious belief, it's a (wrong) belief that has been incorporated with some popular religions.

So yes, we agree that not all beliefs are good. Some are harmful, some are false, some are harmful and false. I'm more concerned about the 'harmful' than the 'false' aspect, particularly since I have very little hope of making everyone correctly informed about everything.

[hapax]

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?

Many many religious people do NOT say this. Many many religious people find it offensive when their co-religionists say things like this.

Some of them have even repeatedly posted to this very blog saying exactly that.

[Will Wildman]

I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?

I'm pretty sure, from the last few years' discussions, that Froborr (and I, and indeed most or all atheists here) do think it's offensive when religious people say that. Which would be why the whole post was framed in the form of 'here is why I think it sucks when atheists proselytise, which - shockingly - is also why it sucks when theists proselytise'. Are you seriously using the argument that if 'the other side' does something reprehensible, we should do the same because they started it?

[Nick Kiddle]

//Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it? Isn't it just balancing out the playing field?//

Atheists who make a big thing of being skeptical and evidence-based ought to hold themselves to a higher standard, like the OP says.

//This is an interestingly forceful assertion. If someone says they enjoy poetry and feel that reading books of verse improves them as a person, do you demand that they show proof that it has turned them into a better person, and that they stop reading poetry if it hasn't demonstrably improved them?//

I was thinking along similar lines, but you've said it better than I could.

[Deird, who is fed up]

Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do. Why is it so much more offensive to people when *some* atheists say it?

Any chance you could switch that to "Some religious people definitely do"? Because it's not true of all of us.

--------------

But, as a final note to the Board Administrative Team, you know how *not* to make this board a welcoming place to atheists? Include posts by atheists bashing other atheists -- instead of, for example, posts by atheists explaining their beliefs (as you allowed, say, pagans to do).

LMM, what do you think is more likely?

Scenario 1:
TBAT receive dozens of submissions by atheists explaining their beliefs. And toss them in the bin, reasoning "no-one really wants to read that".

Scenario 2:
TBAT decide what types of posts they're going to be putting up this month, and then commission people to write them. Being devious and evil, they decide to ask for posts undermining the atheist position.

Scenario 3:
Froborr decides to write a post about what he wants to talk about and submits it.

...just maybe?

Get over yourself. And if you want a post by an atheist explaining their beliefs, damn well write it.

[Anon for now]

@LMM, it's not -more- offensive. This blog spends an awful lot of time calling out religious proselytization, and I think the very same argument I use above has been used in that case as well (I may, in fact, have first seen it from Froborr on a discussion of Evangelical Christian proselytization). It's also not -less- offensive, which - in my reading - was the entire point of the OP.

Perhaps I am not seeing the attack, but this seems an awful lot like the same song, in a different verse.

If you have the time for it, can you point out where anyone's said it is worse, or attacked?

[Will Wildman]

Well, that was amusingly stereophonic. hapax, high five! (But we should make sure to double-check the coordination of our formatting in future; you cut the italics first whereas I cut the blockquote.)

[Anon for now]

Ah, my kingdom for an edit button. @Nick Kiddle, I'd definitely be interested in that.

[Laiima]

Anon for now: I do have a problem when someone wants to say "everyone in the world should think just like us," and I think that's where the OP is coming from, too

LMM: Um, except that most people say this. Religious people definitely do.

@LMM, when you say "religious people" above, I think you may be conflating more authoritarian religious groups with everyone religious.

I not only don't want everyone to think the way I do, I don't see how they *could*. Diversity, context, the world is different for everybody. I don't believe in unity or dualism. I don't think there's Truth, or that everyone is searching for the same thing, but calling it different names.

I don't have any desire to tell anyone else what to do. And I'm religious, sort of, but not Christian.

[LMM]

This isn't "thought inspiring" or "comment generating". This is downright offensive. (And false in a lot of ways, as I pointed out.)

@LMM, it's not -more- offensive. This blog spends an awful lot of time calling out religious proselytization, and I think the very same argument I use above has been used in that case as well (I may, in fact, have first seen it from Froborr on a discussion of Evangelical Christian proselytization).

Except when has that been the focus of a main page article attacking an entire community?

That's my objection here -- atheism has rarely been the focus of posts on this blog. In fact, IIRC, multiple people have commented that this does not feel like a safe space for atheists. And, instead of calling for articles about atheism or something similar, TBAT decided to post this essay, which explicitly targets atheists in a downright hostile way.

[Helen Louise]

I like this post. As a former Christian myself, I'm never quite so eager to persuade others to stop being Christians (and even more cautious for anyone of other religion, I try not to meddle in what I don't understand) - I loved being a Christian and losing my faith was quite traumatic... But that said, I would try, when I was a Christian, to tell people about my faith if I thought they were interested and it would help them, so I guess as a humanist I should follow similar rules - if I met a Christian who is struggling with doubts, I would share my experience in the hope that it might help them find some peace.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Except when has that been the focus of a main page article attacking an entire community?//

When Fred was in charge, a good 50% of the posts could have been described as a Christian "bashing" Christians. I think it's always been part of the Slacktivist ethos to be able to look critically at our own religious communities.

//In fact, IIRC, multiple people have commented that this does not feel like a safe space for atheists.//

As far as I'm concerned, it's a safer space for this particular atheist than it used to be. I remember when the atheist side of any debate was dominated by aggressive and ableist jackholes who explained to me what atheists believe in the apparent belief that someone who wasn't constantly singing "life is amazing without god" couldn't possibly be an atheist. So mileage definitely varies on that one.

[Anon for now]

TBAT did call for articles about atheism. Multiple times, in at least two threads I can think of (the most recent just ended, with a long, painful battle about this very same thing.) It ended in accusations of bad faith very much like the ones you're throwing around.

I am still not seeing the attack; I see an atheist taking issue with atheist proselytizing being as obnoxious (not worse than) theist proselytizing. How is that an attack on an entire community, some of whom don't even exhibit that behavior?

Is that significantly different than many threads we've had in which assorted theists, including Christians, took issue with Christian proselytizing?

If so, why?

[ZMiles]

"This is an interestingly forceful assertion. If someone says they enjoy poetry and feel that reading books of verse improves them as a person, do you demand that they show proof that it has turned them into a better person, and that they stop reading poetry if it hasn't demonstrably improved them?"

If poetry were as important and potent a force in the world as religion, then yes, I would recommend, or try to reason with them, that, as they have no evidence for their beliefs about poetry, then they ought to reconsider whether they should believe those things. Like you say, we can't correct everything. But religion is so powerful, so vast, so dominant on a global scale, that when it comes to 'correcting things that I believe are wrong,' I find that it should have a high priority.

[Nathaniel]

Pardon me, but if the author of this little hit piece can kindly point out where Greta Christina calls for proselytizing, that would be just great.

Does she advocate for conversion based on emotional manipulation? No.

Does she advocate going door to door and bothering people? No.

Does she advocate anywhere for dishonesty or forcefulness in our arguments? No.

I think that the world would be a better place without a single person being a misogynist. Does that make me hateful, pluralism zealot who's no better?

Also, its not just a single person being better with religion. Its whether more people become worse because of religion than people become better.

Conspiracy theorists such as Anti-vaccers have to at some point show real world evidence of their beliefs, or fall by the wayside. Anti-vaccers are becoming irrelevant. Asshole evangelicals are not.

I could go on for pages, there is so much self righteous wrong in this post.

BTW, if you don't want atheists who are so mean as to point out that we think religion is wrong, then just say so. I distinctly remember how the previous piece addressing atheism on this site had a warning that we mean ol' atheists should be gentle and non combative in our posts.

A warning that no one felt was needed when it came to, oh, any single other belief system written about on this site.

Guess there's just something different, something untrustworthy about us atheists.

[LMM]

TBAT did call for articles about atheism. Multiple times, in at least two threads I can think of (the most recent just ended, with a long, painful battle about this very same thing.) It ended in accusations of bad faith very much like the ones you're throwing around.

Did they call for it on the main site, or did they call for it after thirty pages of posts? Because most people -- myself included -- don't read past the first few pages. Most of us don't have time, and it's not worth catching up with twenty more pages when I could be reading papers, writing an email, or playing Echo Bazaar.

TBAT has been very careful about dealing with other prejudices in the past. For some reason, though, it's never occurred to anyone that maybe atheist-bashing might be triggering for some people.

Is that significantly different than many threads we've had in which assorted theists, including Christians, took issue with Christian proselytizing?

Yes, it is -- because those threads weren't a blog post. Those threads weren't a dedicated post -- one of the few dedicated posts -- on a given group of people who don't happen to be very powerful and who happen to mostly fall on the right side of issues.

Here's another thing to consider: the Overton window, the range within a given discussion can occur.

When there aren't people aggressively arguing for your side, the window starts to push away from your side. When there aren't confrontationalists, the moderates start looking extreme. We've seen this with Democratic politics over the past twenty or so years.

We're starting to see this with the atheist movement, except in the other direct. Confrontationalists allow the accomodationists to function in a world which is primarily hostile to atheism.

Attacking confrontationalism stabs yourself in the foot. Holding your group to a higher standard means that your group is robbed of a powerful weapon -- and so it will lose. We've seen this with the abortion movement -- you conceed that abortion is undesirable and the other groups moves righward. This isn't the slippery slope fallacy: this is how things have happened in the past. Do you really think it's going to be different now?

[Deird, who would want to do the same]

But that said, I would try, when I was a Christian, to tell people about my faith if I thought they were interested and it would help them, so I guess as a humanist I should follow similar rules - if I met a Christian who is struggling with doubts, I would share my experience in the hope that it might help them find some peace.

I think that's a good perspective.

I don't want someone to come up unannounced and start listing all the reasons why I should stop being a Christian*, but if I was having a hard time, "this is something I've found that helped" would be very much appreciated.

---------

* Assuming that my being a Christian wasn't actively hurting them or someone else nearby.

[Nick Kiddle]

//this little hit piece//

You may not agree with it, but that doesn't make it a "hit piece". Stuff like that just blows the debate up without bringing anything useful.

//where Greta Christina calls for proselytizing//

"to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause"
"we’re working towards a world where it no longer exists"

//Anti-vaccers are becoming irrelevant//

I'd love to see a cite?

//Guess there's just something different, something untrustworthy about us atheists.//

Yeah, obviously TBAT, being two-thirds atheist/agnostic, find atheists completely untrustworthy and not fit to engage in debate.

[Mmy]

@LMM: Or is it really worth dedicating one of the few posts on atheists on a multi-religious blog to *attacking* atheists who genuinely believe their beliefs are more accurate than religious ones?

Say what?

Do you not count posts written by atheists on issues of morals and ethics and civic involvement unless they state at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom---HELLO THIS IS A POST BY AN ATHEIST?

MercuryBlue has written TEN posts (and thank you MB for all the excellent work). Zie has written about subjects that range from country music to Supernatual to ethics. All from an atheist point of view.

In addition to posts about the board (like "what is spam) I have written at least 8 pieces. I am an atheist and everything I write arises from my own atheist sense of ethics.

I actually don't know whether some of our guest posters were or were not atheists. I gather than many of the atheists on the board, like me, don't tend to write articles about being an atheist they write articles that are informed by their atheism.

[Anon for now]

You know, I think I'm going to leave this one alone. Sorry to have made things worse.

[hapax]

Two questions: Is there a need for a TW for this post? If so, what should it be? (I would recommend against "Atheist Bashing", since that rather pre-judges the content without the author's consent. What about "Criticism of Atheists"?

Second question: LMM, you raise an interesting point about the possible need for confrontational tactics, in all sorts of contexts. Would you be willing to write an article exploring this issue?

[AnaMardoll]

Froborr, thank you very much for this lovely post. (And thank you, TBAT, for hosting it!)

I don't think I'm an atheist, but I do know that I've never made my religious decisions based around someone 'talking me into it'. So this resonated very strongly with me, thank you. :)

[Deird, who is sad]

(Think I just got spam-trapped...)

[LMM]

Do you not count posts written by atheists on issues of morals and ethics and civic involvement unless they state at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom---HELLO THIS IS A POST BY AN ATHEIST??

No, I don't -- not unless it's *about* atheism.

A post about Supernatural has nothing to do with atheism. A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism to the extent that -- say -- a post about a pagan holiday has to do with paganism.

This is one of the few posts on this blog that's explicitly about atheism, and it's openly hostile towards them.

If heterosexuals on this blog actively wrote posts about their families while the QUILTBAG writers mostly wrote stuff about gardening, but every once in awhile a QUILTBAG wrote a post telling their fellows that maybe they should reconsider the fuss over the issue of gay marriage (because aggression gets you nowhere), would you consider that balanced?

I wouldn't.

[LMM]

Second question: LMM, you raise an interesting point about the possible need for confrontational tactics, in all sorts of contexts. Would you be willing to write an article exploring this issue?

Maybe. I've got ten other things on my plate at the moment (not the least of which is a postdoctoral fellowship app due later this month). But it's an issue that's been bugging me for awhile (it doesn't help that I live near a Planned Parenthood), so I'll work on it.

[Deird, who is curious]

A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism to the extent that -- say -- a post about a pagan holiday has to do with paganism.

Please - do write us a post all about an atheist holiday.

[Nick Kiddle]

//but every once in awhile a QUILTBAG wrote a post telling their fellows that maybe they should reconsider the fuss over the issue of gay marriage (because aggression gets you nowhere),//

To make it a fair analogy, I think it would need to be a post saying that marriage is assimilationist and a distraction from other, more important fights. Froborr disagrees with the expressed views of Greta Christina and writes a post expressing his own views. He's not saying that atheists need to stop hurting the delicate feelings of religious people - he's saying that he feels universal atheism is a wrong goal that he can't get behind.

[P J Evans]

Did they call for it on the main site, or did they call for it after thirty pages of posts?

I saw one on the front page, not many weeks ago. A full post, in fact.

[Mmy]

@LMM: A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism

Then you are excluding me and many other atheists from ever having our work counted as "about atheism." As far as I am concerned each time I demonstrate (each time MercuryBlue demonstrates) the way in which someone who does not believe in god[s]) arrives at thoughtful ethical conclusions we are teaching the world about atheism.

Atheism it me is simply a - theism. I don't believe in god(s). A belief in god(s) does not inform my decisions. By writing about what informs my decisions I am teaching / demonstrating something about atheism -- that atheists can be thoughtful, ethical, caring members of society.

And that is a message we need to get out right now.

As for articles about other ways of being an atheist -- well people who are that type of atheist need to write them.

We don't go out and ask any particular type of person to write for us. We have had pieces about Mormons and Quakers and Atheists, and Pagans and people who like to read books and people who like to watch television and what is going on in Hungary and what is going on in Scotland.

People submitted them.

So, you want an particular type of article about a particular type of atheism.

WRITE IT!

[P J Evans]

This is one of the few posts on this blog that's explicitly about atheism, and it's openly hostile towards them.

WHAT?????
You are not reading the same post I am. I'm reading one about an article where someone asserts that everyone would be better off without religion, as if that was as easy as changing clothes, and provides no reasoning why everyone would be better off without religion. That's the point of this post!

[Nathaniel]

"to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause"
"we’re working towards a world where it no longer exists"

Sure, if you're going by the pure denotation.

But the connotation, of self righteous and pushy argument designed to get you to comply? Don't see that being advocated. As I pointed out. And as you ignored.

"Yeah, obviously TBAT, being two-thirds atheist/agnostic, find atheists completely untrustworthy and not fit to engage in debate."

Hey, I'm going by the evidence of posts explicitly about atheists. Does the existence of Herman Cain mean that the Republican party doesn't have an issue with racism in its ranks?

Is the only "nice" thing to do is give up argument and attempts to convince others entirely?

"I think this guys belief that women are delicate flowers unfit for public office is wrong."

"Yeah, but remember, we don't want to try to convince him otherwise. That could make him sad, and making other people sad is wrong. And anti-pluralistic."

"True that."

Or is religion its own special category where trying to convince others is wrong, and its okay with other strong.

This mean ol' atheist would like to know.

[Nathaniel]

@PJ Evans

If you're interested in knowing how Greta Christina argues for her position vis-a-vie religion, she has plenty of other posts detailing her arguments. Feel free to disagree with them, but don't say they aren't there.

[ZMiles]

"I'm pretty sure, from the last few years' discussions, that Froborr (and I, and indeed most or all atheists here) do think it's offensive when religious people say that [everyone should believe in the things I believe in]"

Dunno so much about this, but if this were changed to

"religious people think that everyone should believe as they do,"

I wouldn't mind this.
For me, the question of religion/atheism is a scientific question. A religion (or atheism) is a theory to answer the question, "Is there divinity, and if so, which religion most accurately describes it?"
And most scientific questions, I do in fact think that the world would be better if everyone thought the same on them. We'd be better off if no one believed that vaccines caused autism. We'd be better off if everyone believed that lead contributed to the homicide rate. We'd be better off if everyone believed in evolution. Etc.
So I don't really understand (and it's totally possible I've just missed something big) why it should be different here.
So when a religious person thinks, "ZMiles is totally wrong about religion. I wish he were right," I'm not actually offended, anymore than I would be if someone thought I was wrong on another scientific matter. Just like I don't think they should be offended if or when I think, "Religious Joe is totally wrong about religion. I wish he were right."
I mean... what are the alternatives? "Religious Joe is totally wrong about religion. I don't care, because I don't care enough about Joe to care if he's right or wrong"? "I don't care, because religion is so trivial to me that it doesn't matter if someone is right or wrong about it?" "I don't care, because I don't care about right and wrong?"
Now, I completely understand and agree that legal/physical attempts to force other people to be right (as I or another sees it) are bad, because they lead to massive negative consequences. And I understand (though I vehemently disagree with) Froborr's assertion that any sort of attempt to sway the other person's opinion is bad, because it could lead to other negative consequences.
But I don't understand -- and again, I could well just be missing something -- how someone could look at another, think to themselves, "That person is completely wrong," and not then think, "It would be better if they were right."

To answer a few questions that will probably arise from this comment:

"So, then, do you object to people proselytizing to you?"
Not inherently. But with a few caveats:
1. I do object when the person trying to convert me isn't playing fair and is allowing themselves a different standard of proof than they would allow me. So, for instance, "My personal experiences have shown to me that there is God." "Well, mine haven't." "Yours don't count." Or "My holy scriptures say that I'm right." "I don't have scriptures, but the equivalent tenants that I believe to be true disagree with your scriptures." "Your tenants don't count. This argument is only based on my scriptures." Same goes for 'conversion by repetition', where the person doesn't bother to respond to your argument but just repeats his or her own. That's not an attempt to resolve a scientific question, it's just an attempt to manipulate or badger someone.
2. I'll also object if something begins to violate what (I think) Will brought up about the harm/falsity ratio. In other words, if someone tries to convince me of something that stands a great chance of hurting someone, then yeah, I'll be annoyed or offended if they don't take care to show me that what they're saying is true. So if someone tries to convince me that "God is another name for Love," I probably won't agree, but there's not that much harmful in that, so I won't be offended, even if it's a weak argument. But someone trying to convince me that God hates gay people? There's a ton of harm in that. And, because invariably the person fails to come up with even a shred of evidence to support that harmful belief (because no such evidence exists, because they are wrong), then yes, that is offensive.
3. Conversion attempts that treat me like an idiot or totally ignorant are also annoying. "You just don't know about Jesus!" Um, yeah, I've heard of the theory. But of course, this is also why, were I to try to convince a religious person that I was right and they were wrong, I wouldn't just say, "Well, have you ever seen God? No? Hah, I win!" or "Teapot in space! Invisible pink unicorn! Ken Ham is an idiot!" and spike the textbook.
4. And of course the usual caveats about it being rude to pester me when I'm doing something else/when I'm not interested at the moment/shouting at me, not allowing me to leave, or throwing tract books at me. But that's rude no matter what you're talking about, not just a conversion attempt.

"Would you extend this 'it's okay to want everyone to think like you' to obviously hateful beliefs? For instance, if a misogynist said, "Everyone should be a misogynist," would you also agree that this is okay?"

My objections to such beliefs and attempts to spread them fits under #2 in the previous question.

"Doesn't #2 assume a known harm, or allow you to assert harm? What if a religious person says that they feel that atheism is incredibly harmful, and so under #2, you shouldn't be trying to spread it?"

I can easily show the harm in racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. statements. If someone wants me to just accept what they see as harmful, but not care about what I see as harmful (or listen to my evidence), that falls under #1. And if someone wants to try to show that atheism is harmful... well, good luck with that. I don't think they'll succeed, but again, if they can come up with real evidence, I'll look at it.

"If you really believe this, why haven't you tried converting the board?"

Under #4 above, I believe it to be rude to insist that people converse with you when they don't want to. And for religion, I generally pre-emptively assume that people don't want to.
What Christina is proposing is not door-to-door, or vans with megaphones, or anything like that. It's -- again -- rational discussion. Challenging ideas in the public square. Having blogs of our own, and conferences, and billboards. It's not sending messages to people who don't want to hear them. It's putting messages up in one's own space. The backlash is from people who object to even that, who object to atheists using their own space to be all "Yay atheism" and post reasons why they're right and others are wrong and so on.
So, if I want, I'll post posts on my blog about atheism. If the community wants it, maybe I'll submit a post here. But I'm not going to harrass or annoy people by derailing various arguments into 'atheism is true,' because that's rude.

[ZMiles]

I think I got spamtrapped.

[LMM]

@LMM: A post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near about atheism

Um, could you *not* quotemine me? The full quote is: "a post about morals is arguably about atheism, but nowhere near [as] about atheism as a post about -- say -- a pagan holiday is about paganism." And it's not.

Then you are excluding me and many other atheists from ever having our work counted as "about atheism." As far as I am concerned each time I demonstrate (each time MercuryBlue demonstrates) the way in which someone who does not believe in god[s]) arrives at thoughtful ethical conclusions we are teaching the world about atheism.

Maybe I am. All I know is, this post was *incredibly* insulting and hurtful towards an already-marginalized minority and should have seriously been reconsidered before posting. (And maybe run by a few people who could have pointed out the factual inaccuracies and strawmen?) Also, that people have been pointing out for awhile that maybe this blog is a little hostile towards atheists, and TBAT turns around and writes a post which is -- hostile towards atheists. Would you do that to any other group?

[Nick Kiddle]

//But the connotation, of self righteous and pushy argument designed to get you to comply? Don't see that being advocated. As I pointed out. And as you ignored.//

Well, I didn't see it as being intrinsically part of the meaning of the word, and I didn't get the impression that Froborr was using it in that sense, so it seemed like an irrelevance. Besides, "self-righteous" is a rather subjective term; arguments that assume you are wrong for thinking as you do very often sound self-righteous.

//Hey, I'm going by the evidence of posts explicitly about atheists. Does the existence of Herman Cain mean that the Republican party doesn't have an issue with racism in its ranks?//

You are assuming bad faith in the face of strong evidence that there's another explanation. And you're being kind of obnoxious in the way you express it.

//Is the only "nice" thing to do is give up argument and attempts to convince others entirely?//

How about you bring that straw down to my allotment, where I can probably find a useful thing to do with it?

The only people I've seen talking about giving up argument are the straw merchants. Everyone else is talking about not automatically assuming everyone else would be perfect if they were just like you.

//"Yeah, but remember, we don't want to try to convince him otherwise. That could make him sad, and making other people sad is wrong. And anti-pluralistic."//

Seriously, go build a house for the first little pig or something.

I like the way you shifted from Froborr's description of a traumatic experience to "making people sad". Nice minimising there.

//Or is religion its own special category where trying to convince others is wrong, and its okay with other strong.//

Nope, nothing special about religion. You will not convince me, for instance, that writing with my right hand is better. You will not convince me that I shouldn't save old newspaper clippings. You will not convince me that I am capable of casual sex. No matter how much you think these things would benefit me if you could argue me into them.

[Mmy]

@LMM: Maybe I am. All I know is, this post was *incredibly* insulting and hurtful towards an already-marginalized minority and should have seriously been reconsidered before posting.

That is not a marginalized minority in this community. Atheists who have your particular take may be in a minority here -- but atheists are not marginalized. In fact we are quite powerful.

Also, that people have been pointing out for awhile that maybe this blog is a little hostile towards atheists, and TBAT turns around and writes a post which is -- hostile towards atheists. Would you do that to any other group?

TBAT didn't write this post. A guest commenter who is not a member of TBAT wrote this post.

TBAT writes posts like "today is an open thread" and "this is why we have trouble with spam on the board."

And until you get that straight I have little interest in anything else you write.

[Laiima]

THe more I learn about privilege and oppression and how I'm complicit in them, even when I don't think I am, the more I notice offensive and hostile stuff everywhere I look. Some of it is me hurting other people by not noticing what is hurtful, or me having blindspots or whatever. Some of it is other people. I try to learn from every example I encounter, but I can't change the behavior of everyone on the planet. (And I wouldn't, even if I could.)

I think life is kind of *about* conflict. And conflict comes about when people disagree or hurt each other. It doesn't have to be *intended* to be hostile. People do legitimately disagree about things.

[Deird, who doesn't think anything of the sort]

Dunno so much about this, but if this were changed to

"religious people think that everyone should believe as they do,"

I wouldn't mind this.

*raises hand* I WOULD mind it.

[truth is life]

as if that was as easy as changing clothes

And this is the part where I bow out, since everyone else seems to have a frame of reference I completely lack--changing religion (twice!--from None to Christian to None again) was as easy for me as changing clothes, easier even. The question of what I believe in, so far as religion goes, is simply not a question that feels of any importance whatsoever. Asking me to care about which particular religion I believe in is like asking someone on the street to care about 13th century Russian politics; it's obscure, difficult to understand, and has no relation with their life, so why should they? Obviously, for most people the question is meaningful and important, so I simply lack in any way the ability to usefully communicate with them about it.

[Deird, who is on the other side of the world]

towards an already-marginalized minority

*growls*

Once again:
The internet is not American.
For some of us, atheists are NOT marginalised, and NOT a minority.

[Mmy]

@Deird: Yeah, you know how marginalized we are where I am (not the US) -- the palliative care hospital where my mother died has a ceremony every 4 months to celebrate and mourn the lives of those who died during those months.

At that ceremony there was a number of different readings and ceremonies (candles were lit, a dance of grief performed, names were chanted, there was an atheist reading, readings from several "pagan" belief systems and ONE Christian reading.) Oh, and then they handed out a small tree to each family to plant as a celebration of the cycle of life.

Yup, felt (heavy sarcasm) felt REALLLLLLLLY marginalized there.

The point being that it was a semi-official ceremony at a public institution and atheism was specifically included and given equal weight with all the other belief systems they felt people might find comfort in.

[LMM]

That is not a marginalized minority in this community. Atheists who have your particular take may be in a minority here -- but atheists are not marginalized. In fact we are quite powerful.

Oh, so anti-gay marriage posts are acceptable because QUILTBAGs are relatively powerful in this community? Anti-pagan posts are okay because there's a bunch of pagans in this forum? Anti-liberal posts are okay because there's a bunch of liberals in this forum?

Where do you draw the line.

And until you get that straight I have little interest in anything else you write.

Fine then. TBAT *posts* a post written by someone else attacking atheists -- who are, as you should well know, a marginalized community in the US. Does that make you happier? Or -- because I've taken offense at a clearly insulting post -- does my opinion not count?

You've said time and time again that you want to make this a safe(r) space for people. Clearly, that doesn't include atheists -- based upon the reactions to this post.

[Nathaniel]

@Nick Kiddle

"Well, I didn't see it as being intrinsically part of the meaning of the word, and I didn't get the impression that Froborr was using it in that sense, so it seemed like an irrelevance. "

It is entirely relevant. Because without the connotation, than proselytizing is just a fancy word for convincing. Hence my questions.

"Hey, I'm going by the evidence of posts explicitly about atheists. Does the existence of Herman Cain mean that the Republican party doesn't have an issue with racism in its ranks?"

I ain't assuming bad faith. I am assuming that intent isn't fucking magic, and that privilege can blind people, and that can even extend to people of the non-privileged group.

See: Phyllis Schlafly, Concerned Women for America.

"Everyone else is talking about not automatically assuming everyone else would be perfect if they were just like you."

Did you mention straw men? Cause think the Scarecrow could use some extra stuffing. I don't think that all people need to be exactly like me. I think that the world would be a better if more people shared some of my ideas. Ideas, not people.

"I like the way you shifted from Froborr's description of a traumatic experience to "making people sad". Nice minimising there."

How about this then. I had some incredibly misogynistic ideas, and racist impulses in my earlier years. Heck, I'm still struggling to with my racist impulses, and the guilt caused by them. In some ways, my life would be a lot easier if smart people on the internet hadn't shown my errors in thinking. Cause, you see, I've had to deal with realizing that at times in my past I was an incredibly racist asshole. And feel incredible shame and guilt. Writing this brought me feelings of pain as some memories flashed by.

I would not change this for the world. Because feeling shame is better than being a racist.

Now before someone says this, no, I'm not equating being religious with being racist. I do think though, that people convert or change their ideas on their own volition for the most part, barring emotional or other forms of coercion. To change your ideas though, people generally have to be aware of the idea in the first place.

In short, to assert we think that everyone else should be exactly like us is slander, of me, and of Greta Christina. She has devoted quite a few posts to the necessity of diversity within the atheist movement in approach and ideas.

"Nope, nothing special about religion. You will not convince me, for instance, that writing with my right hand is better. You will not convince me that I shouldn't save old newspaper clippings. You will not convince me that I am capable of casual sex. No matter how much you think these things would benefit me if you could argue me into them."

See, its this last bit that makes me think we're on totally different pages here. Every other thing on this list is a personal, subjective perference. Being left handed isn't right or wrong(fellow southpaw here.) Saving newspaper is a hobby. Casual sex or no causal sex is a personal preference.

Believing that Jesus Christ is the savior of man, or that Mohammed is the one true prophet aren't personal preferences. They are truth claims, truth claims that can be disputed or disagreed with. If you really believe that there is no substantive difference between being left handed or claiming the truth of Christianity, then I'm not sure we have a basis for discussion.

[Deird, who is rolling her eyes]

who are, as you should well know, a marginalized community in the US.

WE ARE NOT IN THE U.S.

GET THIS INTO YOUR HEAD.

[Mmy]

@LMM: Clearly, that doesn't include atheists -- based upon the reactions to this post.

Some people liked this post. Some people disagreed politely. Some people would actually like to talk about the points made within it.

And some people (and yes I am pointing my finger directly at you) seem to think that they can speak for everyone else. I am an atheist and you don't speak for me. Froborr is an atheist and you don't speak for hir.

[Mmy]

@Deird: WE ARE NOT IN THE U.S.

GET THIS INTO YOUR HEAD.

Mild OT (which if anyone wants to discuss they can meet me on the absolutely open thread). Play starts in 11 minutes on the tennis courts in Melbourne. In the opinion of this tennis fan you have the finest site for a Grand Slam tournament in the world (okay I have a sweet spot for Wimbledon but I attended before they had a roof and as a result of standing in the rain waiting for the match to begin got bronchitis.)

[hapax]

@LMM: TBAT *posts* a post written by someone else attacking atheists

No. TBAT posted an article written by an atheist, criticizing a carefully described specific BEHAVIOR of a clearly identified subgroup of atheists.

This is entirely consistent with articles written by both in-group and out-group members, criticizing the specific behaviors of particular religious / cultural / political / etc. groups.

Many of which groups are *also* marginalized.

@Nathaniel: Believing that Jesus Christ is the savior of man, or that Mohammed is the one true prophet aren't personal preferences. They are truth claims, truth claims that can be disputed or disagreed with

Yes, they are "truth claims." They are not, however, "scientific fact claims."

When they are -- e.g., the claim that "the Planet Earth is less than six thousand years old" -- it is certainly to argue them on that basis.

However, attempting to confront normative claims ("Jesus Christ is the savior of humanity") as if they were positive claims ("Nathaniel is left-handed") never makes for a very productive conversation.

[Deird, who likes her city]

Melbourne is nothing if not good at sports venues.

*ambles over to the open thread*

[ZMiles]

"Yes, they are "truth claims." They are not, however, "scientific fact claims.""

Sure they are. They are claims without scientific evidence to support them, but they are still scientific claims. They are claims about a feature of reality. "There is a God, named Jesus, who did the things enumerated in the Bible" are all factual claims.

[LMM]

And some people (and yes I am pointing my finger directly at you) seem to think that they can speak for everyone else. I am an atheist and you don't speak for me. Froborr is an atheist and you don't speak for hir.

Fine then. I am going to do something I should have done years ago and leave this forum.

This hasn't been a community in a long time. Your response proves it.

Goodbye.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Because without the connotation, than proselytizing is just a fancy word for convincing. Hence my questions.//

OK, but I think that (fancy word for convincing) is pretty much the sense Froborr was using it in.

//I ain't assuming bad faith. I am assuming that intent isn't fucking magic, and that privilege can blind people, and that can even extend to people of the non-privileged group.//

So you're assuming it's possible that TBAT, in spite of everything they've said both collectively under the mod hat and as individuals, are harbouring anti-atheist bias? Well, possible I'll grant you, but it doesn't seem likely all things considered.

//I don't think that all people need to be exactly like me. I think that the world would be a better if more people shared some of my ideas. Ideas, not people.//

Maybe this is where the breakdown in understanding happens. Ideas aren't free-floating things that arise out of pure logical contemplation; people won't share your ideas unless they also share, to some extent, your personality. So while you may not want them to become *exactly* like you, you do want them to become *more* like you.

//Now before someone says this, no, I'm not equating being religious with being racist.//

I can see that you're not, but I think this is what makes it a less than helpful analogy. You're talking about beliefs that were harmful to others. If the erroneous beliefs you previously held didn't cause you to behave like an asshole, would you still be relieved to have shed them? I lost some beliefs that were probably harm-neutral, and I still frequently wish I could somehow get them back.

//In short, to assert we think that everyone else should be exactly like us is slander, of me, and of Greta Christina. She has devoted quite a few posts to the necessity of diversity within the atheist movement in approach and ideas.//

"Just like you" was unhelpful hyperbole; I withdraw it. But I think there's a danger in all of us when we think we've found the truth that we will assume everyone else experiences the world in the same way. I've read posts by Greta Christina that left me frustrated by how worthless her truth would be if I tried to apply it to my own life.

//Every other thing on this list is a personal, subjective perference.//

No. That's why I chose the things I chose.

//Being left handed isn't right or wrong(fellow southpaw here.) Saving newspaper is a hobby. Casual sex or no causal sex is a personal preference.//

These are all things people have tried to reason me out of. And no, saving newspapers is not a hobby to me, and my inability to have casual sex goes far deeper than simple preference.

//They are truth claims, truth claims that can be disputed or disagreed with.//

I'll let a believer field this one, but from everything I've heard from religious people here, I don't think so.

[ZMiles]

"If the erroneous beliefs you previously held didn't cause you to behave like an asshole, would you still be relieved to have shed them? "

Well, for me, the answer is "yes, without question."

[Anonymous]

In addition to proselytising (whether to win converts to atheism or a religion) being offensive*, it's also not very effective. Reading Greta's post called to mind a post I'd recently read on the Backfire Effect (Content Warning: there's a statement which looked dismissive of paganism to my non-pagan eyes, and spanking is also mentioned briefly), which shows that people are more likely to accept statements that agree with their current views, and pick apart the views that they disagree with and come away more convinced in their own ideas. (Evidence: any flame war you've ever seen on the internet.)

Proselytising to people doesn't seem to be a very effective way of getting people to change their beliefs. Present a religious person with evidence for atheism and they will likely come away believing more firmly in God. Present an atheist with evidence for theism and they will likely come away believing that there is a non theistic explanation for it.

How can the backfire effect be circumvented? I wish I knew... my mum's an anti-vaxxer.

Yet clearly, some people do convert. Some atheists convert to religions and some religious people convert to other religions or to atheism. What causes that conversion? I don't have studies to back this up, but the common thread seems to be that change comes from within. You were already having doubts about your religion or your atheism which put you into a receptive place. Perhaps you were feeling a lack of community and a new religion offered a warm, receptive community. Perhaps you were feeling estranged in your community or experienced persecution or witnessed others being persecuted and that led you to seek a new community, or to turn away from religion entirely, or to fight for change within your community. Perhaps you were studying your religion and some facts didn't add up and that set you on the road to questioning and you wound up somewhere else.

If you weren't in a receptive mindset when you encountered these things, the backfire effect would've kicked in. If you are firmly convinced of something, as convinced as you are that 1 + 1 = 2, what would it take to convince you? You probably would have to have started to question 1+1=2, maybe you noticed that when added one grape to another grape you always got three grapes despite what everyone else was saying. But if you hadn't noticed that, if you always got two grapes when you added one grape to another, you would be less receptive to 1+1=3.

In our world, 1+1=2 is demonstrably true and 1+1=3 is demonstrably false. The existence of God or lack there of is not something we can demonstrate. Someday, science may be able to prove the existence of God or lack there of, but we're not there yet. We have a lot of evidence in favour of certain things, such as evolution. There's enough evidence that I am currently 99.9999% convinced that evolution was the way things happened. I won't say 100% because there's always a minute chance that a more exact theory will come along that explains things even more accurately. But many religious people believe in evolution and don't consider this to be contradictory to their religion. Some religions have a tenet that if science contradicts what the religion appears to say, then the religion isn't wrong, our understanding of religion is, and that religious truths need to be understood in the light of science. In that light, there is nothing you can say about science to a member of that religion that would discredit their religion, because to them, science answers the question of "how" and religion answers the question of "why."

* trying to convert someone without being willing to be converted yourself to their beliefs is offensive. Sharing what you believe or don't believe while respecting another's right to convert or not is inoffensive.

[Nathaniel]

"OK, but I think that (fancy word for convincing) is pretty much the sense Froborr was using it in."

Which loops me back around to my original question. Is attempting to convince people of things in and of itself wrong?

"So you're assuming it's possible that TBAT, in spite of everything they've said both collectively under the mod hat and as individuals, are harbouring anti-atheist bias? Well, possible I'll grant you, but it doesn't seem likely all things considered."

To particular type of atheist, yes. Ones like me which put religious claims as belonging under the category as testable truth claims.

"Maybe this is where the breakdown in understanding happens. Ideas aren't free-floating things that arise out of pure logical contemplation; people won't share your ideas unless they also share, to some extent, your personality. So while you may not want them to become *exactly* like you, you do want them to become *more* like you."

Are you not trying to convince me to your position? Based on your way of putting it, you're trying to make me more like you. Is that a bad thing in this case as well?

"If the erroneous beliefs you previously held didn't cause you to behave like an asshole, would you still be relieved to have shed them?"

Yes. Very much so. I always believe that believing something true is better than believing something not true.

"I've read posts by Greta Christina that left me frustrated by how worthless her truth would be if I tried to apply it to my own life."

I'm afraid I don't really have the frame of mind to understand just what you said here. If you don't mind, could you attempt to elaborate on this?

"No. That's why I chose the things I chose."

Okay, preference might have not been the best word. How about subjective disposition instead? The substance of my argument is the same. That being left handed is a completely different thing than making claims about reality, whether it be that non-violent resistance is always the best method of dissent or that fat people just need some willpower.

I include religious claims in that category. I have yet to see a convincing argument as to why creationism, a religious claim, can be disputed, but that we have sins in need of being washed away by Jesus Christ amen cannot be disputed.

[Gotchaye]

For me, wanting many others to be atheists is about respect for their ability to decide what's important to them. If someone seems to genuinely care about believing true things about metaphysics, it's not for me to decide that, no, it's really better for them if they continue to believe something false*. It's improper to assume that everyone feels this way, but it's perfectly fine and even respectful to make an effort to persuade someone who clearly cares about the truth of metaphysical claims. I don't think it's ridiculous to think that a large majority would report wanting to believe true things about metaphysics, though I'm not aware of a poll, and, since I think that (at least a weak) atheism is true, then out of respect for this presumed desire I want large majorities to come around to atheism.

There are wrong ways of trying to bring this about which are the atheist analogues of “have you heard about Jesus?” but I don't think it's an illegitimate goal, and it's perfectly fine to write any number of “this is why atheism is true” blog posts and perfectly fine for (especially US-based) atheists to write a lot of 'atheist pride' type things which really do help a lot of atheists in places where atheists are marginalized.

To be clear, I know people who self-consciously don't care if their religious beliefs are true. I find that absolutely bizarre and don't really even understand how one can believe something without caring about its truth, but, whatever, it seems to be working for them. I don't hope that these people become atheists (the ones I know are religious).

*But I'm also troubled by the common movie trope of lying to a dying parent/soldier to make them feel better in their last moments, and I recognize that other people have a different intuition there.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Which loops me back around to my original question. Is attempting to convince people of things in and of itself wrong?//

It depends on the things, and it depends on your reaction to the people remaining unconvinced. If you feel like you have to convince them at all costs because you are right and anything not right is wrong ... I don't know if it's intrinsically wrong, but it's going to take you to some unfortunate places.

//Are you not trying to convince me to your position? Based on your way of putting it, you're trying to make me more like you. Is that a bad thing in this case as well?//

Actually, I'm not trying to convince you to adopt my ideas. I'm trying to convince you that I (and Froborr) have enough of a point that you'll stop accusing us of slander or of writing hit pieces.

//"If the erroneous beliefs you previously held didn't cause you to behave like an asshole, would you still be relieved to have shed them?"
Yes. Very much so. I always believe that believing something true is better than believing something not true.//

Hmm. I have always said that I believe a painful truth is better than a merciful lie. But looking at the way my life has unfolded since I lost my faith, I have to wonder.

//"I've read posts by Greta Christina that left me frustrated by how worthless her truth would be if I tried to apply it to my own life."
I'm afraid I don't really have the frame of mind to understand just what you said here. If you don't mind, could you attempt to elaborate on this?//

She wrote a post about fatalism and about how much healthier it is to believe in your own power to influence your life than to speak as if it was out of your hands. But that only works if you actually have any power, which made it an infuriating read for me.

//How about subjective disposition instead? The substance of my argument is the same. That being left handed is a completely different thing than making claims about reality, whether it be that non-violent resistance is always the best method of dissent or that fat people just need some willpower.//

I am making a claim about reality though. I'm claiming that I can write more easily with my left hand than with my right. I'm claiming that the things that work for me work better than the alternative, which is the claim I understand many religious people to be making too. Hapax is more eloquent than me on the whole "truth claim" thing - understandably, since she's a believer and I'm just someone who appreciates a powerful myth.

[Nathaniel]

"I'm claiming that I can write more easily with my left hand than with my right."

Putting it like that makes it a truth claim, as much as me claiming I can ride a bicycle. There could be a test where you wrote a page with one hand, then the other, and show that the one with the left hand writing was much better. Do you not see a difference in that from saying "Everyone is writes better with their left hand?" Going back to religion, claiming that Jesus is the Christ is a mutually exclusive claim with that he was a prophet, but one superseded by Mohammed.

These are claims about reality and how the universe works. Not that I personally like bicycles better from one company than this other one.

[Nick Kiddle]

//Putting it like that makes it a truth claim, as much as me claiming I can ride a bicycle. There could be a test where you wrote a page with one hand, then the other, and show that the one with the left hand writing was much better.//

That's the simplified version. Then there's the complicated version, where you ask me to cut circles out of a sheet of paper, and conclude that I'm better at cutting with my right hand - except that you only gave me a pair of right-handed scissors. Or the version where people tell me I would be better off if I didn't save newspaper clippings because or reason x y or z - except that I'm not convinced. Or the version where people tell me I'm better off now I don't believe erroneous things and I have to wonder how sleeping from 0900 until 1510, then going straight back to bed at 1530 was better than being up and doing things...

//Do you not see a difference in that from saying "Everyone is writes better with their left hand?"//

...I wasn't the one suggesting one size could fit all.

I think we're talking on different levels that will never meet, because you're defining religious beliefs as truth claims whereas I see them as something more ... subjective?

[hapax]

Is attempting to convince people of things in and of itself wrong?

Well, it depends on the "people" and the "things."

Personally, I believe that it is wrong to try to "convince people" (who are not already interested and emotionally, intellectually, and aesthetically compatible with it) to accept my version of Christianity.

I believe that it's wrong *tactically* because of the blowback effect.

I believe that it's wrong *strategically* because the message sent by that behavior directly contradicts what I believe to be the core message of that belief.

I believe that it's wrong *psychologically* because people don't generally change their normative worldviews that way.

I believe that it's wrong *ethically*, because of many of the reasons Froborr outlined in the OP.

I believe that it's wrong *socially*, because many of the people I would be targeting with this message likely belong to culturally-marginalized groups, and I would improperly be bringing the weight of the dominant culture to bear behind my argument.

(I also believe that it's wrong theologically, ecclesiologically, and aesthetically, but those are pretty idiosyncratic interpretations.)

However, these are all distinct and separate arguments. It would be possible in good faith to agree with me on some of them and disagree on others.

It would also be possible in good faith to agree that these arguments apply to some things people might be convinced of (e.g., "Star Trek is better than Star Wars!") but not to others (e.g., "QUILTBAG people will burn in Hell!") -- but I would base those distinctions principally on the harm such beliefs do to self and others.

I have yet to see a convincing argument as to why creationism, a religious claim, can be disputed, but that we have sins in need of being washed away by Jesus Christ amen cannot be disputed.

Oh, both of those can be (and constantly *are*) DISPUTED. What neither of them can be is empirically DISPROVED (which is what is necessary for a claim to be scientific)

Note that I distinguish between creationism as a "religious" claim (examples: the cosmos has been designed to operate as it does by a supernatural entity; human beings are distinguished from other animals by the possession of an immortal soul) and creationism as a "scientific" claim (examples: the planet Earth is less than six thousand years old; the human species originates at a specific point in time exactly the same as our current form)

[mercredigirl]

Froborr: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this post. I cannot - will not, ever - accept that I must give up my culture, my heritage, in order to meet some ridiculous standard of atheism. Belief is not worship, and belief need not be harmful, and you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT (I speak as a person with oodles of mental disabilities) to say that a lot of atheist rhetoric is actually also ableist curism rhetoric (and a lot of atheists actually admit to curism without considering how ableist this is and how this erases our own experiences). In fact, as you say, secular Jewishness, atheist Christianity, &c., are also valid and appropriate and have histories and are important to people; and my own ethnic background is full of syncretic and often self-contradictory approaches to religion - why should I have to give that feature of being Chinese up as well?

Believing that Jesus Christ is the savior of man, or that Mohammed is the one true prophet aren't personal preferences. They are truth claims, truth claims that can be disputed or disagreed with.

Why can't they be personal preferences? The way I see it, religion's kind of like fandom, and most fen, for example, don't say, "Everybody must watch The Middleman! If you hate The Middleman, you're a terrible person!" Sure, there are ship wars, and there are people who insist that anything that's not TOS (say DS9?) is absolutely wrong forevs on everything. But they're a minority, and fandom often DOES make people feel happier and more creative. As far as I'm concerned, all flavours of a/theism are welcome to this pluralism too. Which is what Froborr was talking about.

[Deird, who is eating dried pears and wishing they were chocolate]

(I also believe that it's wrong theologically, ecclesiologically, and aesthetically, but those are pretty idiosyncratic interpretations.)

For what it's worth, I'd love to hear you expand on this...

[Nathaniel]

"Why can't they be personal preferences?"

Because religion isn't fandom. Its truth claims about the world. Nobody ever mistakes Captain Sisko for a real person. As far as I know, no inquisition has ever started to ascertain whether someone is a heretical believer in the mitochondrial force.

The Bible, the Koran, all holy books are making claims about how the world works and what people should believe. They have a tad more important than who is cooler, Buffy or Angel.

[hapax]

Nathaniel, do you reject the distinction between normative truth claims and positive truth claims?

If so, on what basis?

[RodeoBob]

I call shenanigans on this article. This reads like blatant trolling, an attempt to write an intentionally weak, poor argument solely to encourage other atheists to write stronger, better arguments. I honestly thought both Froborr and TBAT were above this kind of cheap stunt.

So, according to Greta Christina, her primary goal as an atheist is to make most of the world’s population suffer the trauma of losing their faith...

Strawman.The goal is the elimination of religion as an epistemology, the same way that we no longer practice alchemy, phlebotomy, or trepanation. The goal is for all religious text to be given the same weight and value as ways of knowing an deciding our lives as we currently ascribe to Greek mythology or daily horoscopes.

If you're upset by the trauma of losing one's faith, why not support efforts to make it less traumatic by not grinding religion into individuals and the social fabric? You know, things like removing displays of religion from the public square, or making it less socially acceptable for parents to "put the fear of God" into their children.

Where is the empirical evidence that religious belief is harmful, either to believers or non-believers?

This is grade-A trolling. This is begging for a flamewar, and you know it, and TBAT should recognize it.

...corrected for factors known or suspected to influence abuse rates not directly attributable to religion (such as authoritarianism, substance abuse, and abuse rates in past generations).

More trolling. If you mention the Catholic Church or the Mormons, well, sorry, but we have to adjust for authoritarianism. We can talk about how families have religious traditions going back centuries, but past generation abuse rates aren't fair game.

Then prove that it is always better to be atheist than religious.
...
I find it absurd I have to make this argument.

There's a reason why you find it absurd. You're attempting the classic reductio ad absurdum. ("15 yards, loss of down") Which would be fine, except that the argument you're attempting to refute is a straw man, which makes painting it absurd quite easy.

In most fields of endeavor, empirical data and truth are not of primary importance

I read this far the first time before I realized this piece was just one huge trolling effort. Didn't you just ask for empirical data?
Truth is not of primary importance? That must be why all of those religious texts go out of their way to not talk about having "the Truth" or "the eternal truth" or "the real truth" or "the way".

Without religious perspectives in particular, art, literature, music, and architecture would be sadly diminished.

More trolling. Congratulations on repackaging the old "atheists can't explain love" trope. What, pray tell, is so religious about the Venus or the David, other than who signed the original check for them? I'll certainly agree that the European cathedrals are beautiful, but was it really the religious perspective that made it so, or perhaps should we credit the vast monetary resources of the church to employ artisans and craftsmen?

...call into question whether it is actually religion that is the problem, or clinging to demonstrably false, harmful beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence, which hardly seems an exclusive problem of the religious.

Double-dipping here with our trolling and logical failure.
First, it's not "...in the face of overwhelming evidence", because that's not how the burden of proof works. It's "clinging to beliefs in the overwhelming absence of evidence!"
We're also trolling with overlapping sets:
"All (religious persons) are (persons who believe unproven or false things)" != "All (persons who believe unproven or false things) are (religious persons)"
The issue isn't believing false things, it's religious persons.
Do I need to break out the Venn diagrams?

You do not have a right to make others suffer for your beliefs.
No one has that right. Ever.

More trolling. So you oppose the rights of Jewish parents to make their infant sons suffer through a bris because of their beliefs? So you support antiVaxx folks who think the pertussis vaccine causes their children to suffer? You respect and want to fight for Christians who think having their children learn sex ed. in a public school causes those children to suffer? Or... is it more complicated than that?

[ZMiles]

"Why can't they be personal preferences? "

Because the claims they are making are objective.

"Trek>Wars" is a subjective claim, in general. Usually it means "I like Trek more than Wars." If you were to define a whole bunch of terms really precisely ("Start Trek is better than Star Wars, by which I mean it is more entertaining, which I propose to prove by measuring the endorphins of a cross-section of the population while they watch both"), it might become objective, but until then, it's subjective. Intersubjective at most.

"Jesus Christ is God" is an objective claim, like saying that "The area of a perfect circle is r squared times approximately 3.14159". That's there's no evidence doesn't change the fact that it's fundamentally an objective claim.

"I think that Christianity is better than Islam, which is still better than atheism" can only be subjective if "better" is along the lines of "more pleasing to me" or "makes me feel better" or whatnot. As an atheist, I interpret the above statement as "Christianity is more true than Islam which is more true than atheism," and that's a yes or no question. That's objective.

[Deird, who disagrees]

"I think that Christianity is better than Islam, which is still better than atheism" can only be subjective if "better" is along the lines of "more pleasing to me" or "makes me feel better" or whatnot. As an atheist, I interpret the above statement as "Christianity is more true than Islam which is more true than atheism," and that's a yes or no question. That's objective.

Why is it more natural to define "better" as "more true" rather than "more pleasing"? And why do you get to assume that I'm defining it the same way?

[mercredigirl]

@RodeoBob: Of course it's more complicated than that - or do you not think atheists can approach atheism diversely? To call Froborr's personal experiences mere trolling is dismissive and degrades a lot of people in this thread who have pointed out they share such a background. Again: I refuse to accept strands of atheism which tell me that I cannot be both atheist and Catholic, in the process neglecting the history of separating and juggling practice and belief in my culture.

@ZMiles: Are there no Christians who, for example, acknowledge that "Jesus Christ is God" is their belief? You differentiate between how you as an atheist and how someone else as a Christian might interpret the "I think... better", so why not also extend this acceptance of difference in interpretation to theists?

[mercredigirl]

What Deird said.

[Deird, who is clarifying, badly]

For the record, "is Christianity true?" is relatively low on my list of priorities.

I have no idea if it's true or not. Sometimes I'm sure it is; sometimes I'm certain it isn't. But I find myself working better when I assume "Jesus" rather than assuming "not!Jesus", so I choose to believe the half of me that thinks it is true over the half that doesn't.

And yeah - I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God. And many other things on top of those. But that doesn't make "IT IS TRUE" the bit that matters to me.

[mercredigirl]

Okay, again what Deird said...

Deird? Stop reading my mind. :P

[Nathaniel]

Then I guess that's where I part ways from the majority of this community. Because I hold what's true to be one of the most important things there is. And discerning it one of my top priorities.

So I guess this is ciao. Have fun.

[Deird, who should get an appropriately villainous title]

*steeples fingers*

You can never escape my evil mind-reading powers of DOOM.

Mwahahaha!

[hapax]

"Jesus Christ is God" is an objective claim, like saying that "The area of a perfect circle is r squared times approximately 3.14159". That's there's no evidence doesn't change the fact that it's fundamentally an objective claim.

Could you please provide your definition of the word "objective"?

Absent such clarification, I'll grab one from Wikipedia: A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.

Considering that in the short statement "Jesus Christ is God", three out of the four words ("Christ", "is" [in this context], and "God") are normative concepts* -- that is, they depend upon reference to an abstract intellectual /linguistic / social constitutive convention -- the statement is *meaningless* outside the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.

*to give a simple example, a "field goal" is a meaningless concept outside the conventions of e.g. American football

[Wysteria]

Deird's thought process feels very familiar to me, as well, when it comes the truth of my deity not really being high on my priority list.

I've been trying to figure out how to describe the complete lack of trauma I experienced when I realized I believed in my deity, after being raised by an atheistic mother, not because I think people shouldn't be traumatized by conversion but because I've always found a bit interesting and odd that I wasn't. It had all the climactic feel of realizing I'd started liking olives again after ten years unable to stand them. "Huh," I said, staring up at the ceiling. "I believe in a god." My family took this arbitrary pronouncements in the good humor they took most of my teenage pronouncements. I have occasional moments where I think my conversations with my deity are either a rather pleasant hallucination or wishful thinking, but I also have occasional moments where I wonder if I'm a butterfly dreaming I'm a human being or if I'm an amnesiac alien princess.

As for proselytizing, I vary. I feel free to share that tea is the most wonderful beverage on the face of the planet, and that marmite is underappreciated, but limit myself to once per friend per election cycle trying to get them to appreciate the wonders of my-candidate-of-choice. I don't proselytize for my god because he wouldn't like it.

[Marc Mielke]

The upshot of the argument above would appear that it would be offensive to ever try to change someone's mind about anything. Someone explain how this isn't a strawman distortion of the argument.

I can kind of see how that works; I have a friend who frames everything as debate and denies he does this. It's very irritating to talk to him at times because he seems to see all conversation as competition and I avoid competition at all costs. I would find it more useful to have information than not, and trust others to do with it as they will -- whether or not they convert to my view, they have the data, and I've done my bit to increase the amount of knowledge in the aggregate (hopefully I'm not dispensing anti-knowledge and reducing said aggregate).

[hapax]

The upshot of the argument above would appear that it would be offensive to ever try to change someone's mind about anything. Someone explain how this isn't a strawman distortion of the argument.

Okey-doke:

OP: you do not have a right to cure people by force unless they are demonstrably an immediate danger to themselves or others.

I mean, there are a lot of other subtler distinctions to make, but I think that takes care of the immediate challenge.

[burgundy]

Do Froborr and TBAT really not have sufficient social capital around here that it can't just be assumed that they're acting in good faith? I'm a little stunned.

For me, it doesn't matter if everyone would be better off as atheists (honestly not a question I've ever seriously considered.) People aren't all atheists, and they aren't all skeptics, and I don't just mean that as an obvious statement of fact. I would certainly like to promote skepticism and rational inquiry as useful tools, and I wish more people could avail themselves of them. But humans are not Vulcans or Houyhnhnms. People's brains work in different ways and find value in different ways of approaching the world. I am far, far more concerned about behavior than belief, and I have yet to see any evidence that reasonable religious people are inherently more likely to behave badly because of their beliefs.

I also feel there's a big difference between proselytizing and discussion. I never got the feeling from the OP that I was being told to hide my atheism or be overly sensitive about theists' feelings. I take the same approach with atheism that I take to, for example, vegetarianism. It is incredibly obnoxious, as well as ethically repellant to me, to nag people about their dietary choices or harangue them about how foolish and misguided they are. I will happily discuss the subject with someone who asks, and I may engage on specific truth claims depending on context. But I'm not aggressive about it. Partly because the aggressive approach doesn't work, and partly because my primary goal is not convincing other people. That doesn't mean I'm ashamed, or hiding, or being overly accommodating.

[Patrick]

hapax- The problem is that Greta Christina didn't argue for converting people by force. She argued for converting people by talking. If talking is force, then this is an argument against any effort to change anyone's mind, ever.

Alternately, the line about force is a huge error, and a continuation of the trope of characterizing even the most mild of actions as extremism and militancy when the actor is an atheist.

[Ross]

tl;dr: The percentage of scientists who are religious in a real sense is *very* low -- and it drops significantly when you look at the most distinguished scientists.

This sounds an awful lot like "I am using a very specific definition of 'religious' which is different from that which they are using, because it makes the numbers come out in my favor."

Also, the I imagine there are quite a few people who are religious but not from a monotheistic tradition who would find your implication that anyone who assents to the description "I believe in a higher power but not god" doesn't count as "religious in a real sense" sort of offensive.

[ZMiles]

"Considering that in the short statement "Jesus Christ is God", three out of the four words ("Christ", "is" [in this context], and "God") are normative concepts* -- that is, they depend upon reference to an abstract intellectual /linguistic / social constitutive convention -- the statement is *meaningless* outside the judgment of a conscious entity or subject."

I don't think I understand.

(I'm defining subjective as, "A statement that depends on a speaker," so for example, the statement "I like ice cream" depends on the 'I' Whether or not it's true depends on me. I'm defining objective as "a statement that does not depend on a speaker", so "ice cream often contains milk" is an objective statement. It doesn't matter what I think about ice cream, or even if I stop existing in five minutes; that statement will still be equally true. So, basically, what wikipedia has.)

Are you saying that the claim "Jesus Christ is God" is ambiguous, because all the words but 'Jesus' have multiple meanings, so it isn't quite clear what is being argued? Then, a more specific version of my statement, I guess, is "The person named Jesus, with the title of Christ, is the Entity in charge of the universe, which I am defining as God." Using standard dictionary definitions for all words in that sentence.
I'm not sure how this means that the claim is not objective, though. Even if I worded it ambiguously, it's still something with a definite yes/no answer. So even if someone didn't know what the title Christ was, or didn't know how I was defining God, I would be saying "X is Y", and X either is Y or isn't (using standard dictionary definition for 'is'). So at most, someone might not be able to answer the question due to ambiguity, but it would still be an objective question.

"OP: you do not have a right to cure people by force unless they are demonstrably an immediate danger to themselves or others."

Argh. Once again, no one is talking about using force. This is a really stubborn stereotype, that atheists are out to forcibly convert the world (with chainsaws emblazoned with Darwin fish, I guess), and it's quite frustrating.
For that matter, 'cure' still implies a lot of passivity on the people being converted. The implication, I think, is that of a patient being treated by a doctor; the patient does nothing and often can do nothing, and the doctor takes care of the problem. If the patient does do something, it's according to the doctor's directions ("take two pills every day.") Whereas, the measures I see being promoted for New Atheism, are dialogues (where the other party is free to leave at any time). Or messages in the public square. Or blogs. Nothing where one party is bound to listen and obey the dictates of the other.
Atheists are not arguing here in favor of using force. Or legal measures. Or steamrolling tactics that override whatever the other person wants until they say they convert just to get you to shut up or leave you alone.

[Kit Whitfield]

Wow, I go to bed and look what happens.

So I'm just going to say how this looks from my perspective.

Froborr submitted an article stating hir personal opinion about the specific statement of an individual atheist, supported with a quotation. (An atheist who frequently states that if you enter an idea into 'the marketplace of ideas', you should be prepared to have it criticised. And an atheist who passionately supports free speech, as, for instance, her support of Fred Phelps's right to express his opinions. An atheist who would doubtless disagree with Froborr's interpretation, but would, if she's consistent about her principles, defend his right to express it.)

We published it because we publish whatever is sent to us as long as it meets a basic quality standard and doesn't comprise hate speech. We considered this article to meet the definitions of 'criticism and disagreement' rather than 'hate speech'. When it comes to forcefulness of expression we generally cut more slack to articles by people criticising or disagreeing with their own group than to people criticising others, and so it was here. It abided by our universally applied standards, so we published it.

We also published it very shortly after another article expounding an atheist's perspective on ethics that says nothing critical of atheism at all. In fact, we bumped Froborr's article back a bit and waited till we'd had another atheist article to balance it against. We usually try to publish on a first-come-first-served basis unless the material is sensitive. By bumping this article back in the queue, we gave it the 'sensitive' treatment.

Result?

This gets called trolling, making the place hostile to atheists and anti-community.

We are accused of lack of balance because we don't publish more 'atheist' articles.

The positive atheist article we've just published - in fact, moved up in the queue to balance this one - is shrugged off.

Articles defined by their authors as atheist articles are dismissed because they don't meet the definitions of the accusers.

Atheists pointing out that the definitions of atheism being used by the complainers make them feel culturally oppressed and/or offended are ignored.

The statement that we have called for more atheist articles is dismissed because they took place in a thread rather than in a board announcement - ironically enough, dismissed by somebody complaining in a thread, who says they don't bother to read past a certain point but expects everyone else to read to the point where they've written. This despite the fact that we never request specific subjects in board announcements; we simply say we are open to submissions, and people can choose their own subjects.

Further calls for atheist articles are made on page 1 of this thread, and the complainers don't respond to that either, except that someone states that we're trolling to encourage atheists to write better articles. Apparently saying 'If you want your view of atheism represented, write an article and we'll publish it' is not enough; we have to troll too. 'Atheists', by this implication, also can't be expected to get off their thigh bones and write anything unless provoked.

You know what I'm seeing here?

Privilege.

People expecting America-centrism to apply to an international space.

People dismissing non-white and non-Abrahamic experiences.

People expecting their views to be represented without having to make any effort to represent themselves.

People wanting views they dislike to be silenced.

I believe it is our duty to publish a wide variety of opinions. I believe it is our duty to create a space where differing views can be expressed and thrashed out.

I do not believe it is our duty to create a 'safe space' for a counter-hegemony.

[Lonespark]

This thread seems to have wonderful discussion and lots of anger and the usual difficulty of communicating about concepts that mean very different things to different people.

As a theist (hard polytheist, agnostic really on the truth claim aspect because that's beside the point) I'll stay out except to note that I really don't appreciate what RodeoBob said about it being a worthy goal to get people to disrespect Abrahamic monotheism as much as they already rightly disrespect astrology and the Hellenic pantheon. I do not find that expression helpful or respectful, although I am very pleased it wasn't Vodoun mentioned that way this time around.

[Slow Learner]

Long ramble in response to this post ahead: bones of my question start at 1)

I can get on board with the many and varied arguments against proselytisation. You should never approach another human being with your primary aim being to spread your beliefs.

However, that is not the same as saying that it is in any way wrong to discuss your beliefs; and if you discuss belief with someone who disagrees, of course you can ask questions about any aspect of their beliefs that seems inconsistent to you; and of course you can explain what you feel are the strengths of your beliefs. Now the prospect arises that the person with whom you have had this discussion may go away feeling that you made a good point, and think it over, and end up changing their beliefs. While I accept Froborr's point that this can be traumatic, it is a potential consequence any time people discuss issues they hold dear, and I do not think it reasonable to cease civilly discussing the issues with interested parties on that account.

Now, I believe atheism to be more true than theism, and to thus be better supported by evidence and argument. Given all the complexities of 1) Life, and 2) People, I do not expect all people to agree with me on this; nor do I expect all people to be interested in the discussion. That is okay.
However, I have an expectation that is corollary to my belief:
That in an open marketplace of ideas, more people will move from belief to atheism than make the opposite journey.
If I assume that the marketplace of ideas remains open, I should therefore expect atheism to increase in numbers.
As someone who holds the truth to be important, of course I am pleased when I see more people holding to what I believe to be the truth. Would I like everyone to believe the truth? Yes, of course.

Now, do I think that in the real world, religion will ever completely die out? No. Do I think it is okay for Atheist Evangelism Teams to search out anyone open to the Good News and spread it? No.

I've realised I'm rambling a bit here, so I'm going to try to boil it down:

1) I believe that there is no God or gods, and nothing but the material universe.
2) I believe that true beliefs are better to hold than false beliefs.
3) I believe that talking about beliefs civilly and respectfully with others willing to join the discussion is in no way wrong.
4) I believe that over the long term, where they are discussed honestly and openly, true beliefs win over more people than false beliefs.
As a consequence of the above, I expect the proportion of people who consider themselves to be atheists to increase over time, and (on the basis of point 2) I think that this is a good thing.

Now, my confusion is, that Froborr seems to be calling the consequence I have described "evil in one of it's purest forms"; however as far as I can tell it is an inescapable conclusion of the beliefs I listed...and I do not think that any of these beliefs are morally objectionable.

Can someone please explain what I'm missing?

[Izzy]

I find trying to actively convert people to or from anything pretty damn offensive. Answering questions if asked, putting what you believe out there on your blog or website, sure--but "hey let me bother you about your beliefs and explain why you're wrong and poke poke poke do you think like me yet" can fuck off, regardless of the source.

"I want a world with no religion"...so, you want a world without me? Or a world where I'm miserable? Yeah, *that's* gonna make me like you. If what you mean is "I want a world where religious dogma doesn't determine social standards or public policy," great. Say that. If you mean "I want a world where people determine their morals out of secular values rather than Fear of God," say that. These statements are not equivalent.

For the record: vague pagan. Don't really care if other people believe what I do, am sort of sad about people belonging to religions that are sex-negative or heavy on the strict gender roles; get pissed off if these people try to convert me or to get their beliefs made law/common standard; also find what RodeoBob said pretty damn offensive, although haven't been quite able to take astrology seriously myself since I learned that Libras are supposed to want everyone to get along.

And Froborr rocks.

[Kit Whitfield]

I'm going to respond to the post itself, because I think it deserves more than a fight about whether it should have been published at all.

I think a lot depends on how one proselytises, of course, but the thing I really disagree with Greta Christina about is whether or not religion is harmful. I used to follow her blog - she's a good writer, and often perceptive - but I lost the desire after reading a post* in which she described how she reserved the right to consider it 'bullshit' when religious marchers in the Pride parade applauded their atheist signs because she'd never had a debate about atheism with a progressive religious person that didn't end up with the religious person mad at her. (I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that was the gist.) Because:

a. The common factor in your debates isn't just theology; it's also, y'know, you. If you can't discuss something without pissing off everybody who disagrees with you, you might want to consider both possibilities.

b. If you consider people the enemy even when they're cheering you, I hope you never get too much power, because you scare me.

So I think her statement that religion is actively harmful and everybody would better without it is based on a rather selective reading and interpretation of the evidence. I don't think it's wrong to wish more people agreed with you, but I do think it's harmful to conclude that if people don't agree with you they must be the enemy, even if they aren't acting like it because to you, that just means they aren't acting like it yet.

Whether or not it would traumatise people to change beliefs, I don't know; I suspect it varies from person to person. But I do have a problem with intolerance, and I think her stance about proselytising is based on a fundamentally intolerant attitude.

I'm an agnostic myself, and I don't have a problem with atheists thinking that theists are wrong. I just start to get nervous when atheists conclude that theists are wrong and they can't live with the frustration of knowing that the theists believe something they think is wrong, even when the theists aren't doing anything wrong.

(And no, I don't like it when theists do it to atheists either.)

(I'm also a bit ticked that she described Jen McCreight as not being 'hostile or alienating' when I do believe it was Jen McCreight who described children as 'a sexually transmitted disease', but that's another argument. And it was in a talk I saw, and I can't remember where, so I can't substantiate that. But anyway, I don't think she's especially parent-friendly.)

*http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2011/06/atheists-in-the-pride-parade.html