Atheists can be such uptight downers. And I say that completely seriously and non-sarcastically, despite being a card-carrying atheist myself.
The latest example appears at the Illinois State Capitol, where someone from Freedom From Religion Foundation had the genius idea of erecting this sign among the holiday displays (via PZ):
At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
Well now, there’s an uplifting and positive message. I’m sure that lots of religious folks came along to read that sign, and immediately thought “Gee, whoever wrote that sounds so much smarter and more correct than me! I will throw off my superstitious shackles and join them in the celebration of reason.”
There is a place to argue for one’s worldview — but not every single place. I happen to agree with all of the sentences on the sign above, but the decision to put in front and center in a holiday display merits a giant face-palm. (So does calling it “hate speech,” of course.) It’s like you’re introduced to someone at a party, and they immediately say “Wow, you’re ugly. And your clothes look like they were stolen off a homeless person. And you’re drinking a domestic beer, which shows a complete lack of sophistication.” I don’t know about you, but I’d be thinking — “Such taste and discernment! Here’s someone I need to get to know better.”
Until atheists learn that they don’t need to take every possible opportunity to proclaim their own rationality in the face of everyone else’s stupidity, they will have a reputation as tiresome bores. They could have put up a sign that just gave some sort of joyful, positive message. Or something light-hearted and amusing. Or they could have just left the display alone entirely, and restrained the urge to argue in favor of waiting for some more appropriate venue. (Maybe they could start a blog or something.)
Understanding how the real world works is an important skill. So is understanding human beings.
Thanks for this post, the delta with PZ Myers’ of the same topic is a perfect summation of the difference in belief I have with the more aggressive atheists.
Thank you for posting this. It will be great day on earth when we can live and tolerate each other’s beliefs, and not try to shove our own beliefs down each others throats.
I wish all of you a happy holiday, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, happy new year, and enjoy the season however you will.
Religion doesn’t harden hearts. It inspires people to give their time, money, and talents to charity in the service of others. It inspires people to help those whom society has forgotten or chooses not to pay attention to, and it inspires and motivates people to give voice to the voiceless and helpless in our society.
And if a physicist can believe in the multiverse without there being an proof, so then a person can believe in God without there being any proof.
Nice piece. I consider myself agnostic with an atheistic leaning. But the fact that I can’t know for certain means that I tend to be accepting of those with a strong faith, as long as they don’t try to impose that faith on the wrong things, like science or my life. Likewise I don’t try to impose my beliefs on others, I just describe and defend my position.
Certain members of the so-called “new atheists” can be just as dogmatic and hateful as many Christians. When your belief system allows or causes you to treat others with less than respect, to actively attempt to hurt the feelings of others, or to view other as less than human, there’s a serious problem with your thinking.
No one has a monopoly on the truth. The problems seem to start when some person or group forgets that.
@Victor: So are you saying that without religion, nobody would give time, money or talents to charity? And that religion is the ONLY motivating factor to encourage people to help the less fortunate and forgotten?
You underestimate humanity, I think.
I thought being distasteful was part of the point, not everyone finds the nativity scenes tasteful, and the idea was to stir things up enough so in the future the capitol decides that, instead of putting up a whole bunch of different tasteless religious displays, they don’t put any religious displays at all.
Personally, I would have gone with something a lot sillier.
“And if a physicist can believe in the multiverse without there being an proof, so then a person can believe in God without there being any proof.”
Never understood the ‘yeah, my reasoning is bad, but yours is just as bad as mine, therefore I’m right’ argument.
Lockwood:
“Certain members of the so-called “new atheists” can be just as dogmatic and hateful as many Christians.”
This meme has been done to death, and it’s lame. Please point to the holy book or some other manifesto that the ‘new atheists’ are being dogmatic about by accepting as truth that cannot be questioned. Or, admit that dogmatic is utterly the wrong word, and what you mean is ‘intolerant’.
“When your belief system allows or causes you to treat others with less than respect, to actively attempt to hurt the feelings of others, or to view other as less than human, there’s a serious problem with your thinking.”
Like I said, intolerant. But you fail to distinguish between respect for ideas and respect for people, because you try to claim that the ‘new atheists’ are intolerant against people, and that’s wrong. Everyone has the right to exist and live their lives by any philosophy or religion they like, and be as vocal as they want about it, but they do not have the right to avoid criticism and not have their feelings hurt. Intolerance against ideas; like dishonesty, and ignorance, and arrogance, and bigotry; is not a bad thing. I’m proudly intolerant of those things. But to conflate that with intolerance against the people who embody those is disingenuous.
Personally, I think there’s something ‘seriously wrong with your thinking’ if you imagine hurt feelings to be more important than these things, so that we must allow them to spread and harm people because we don’t want to hurt the feelings of the ones spreading them.
….amen
and Happy Festivus!!
While I am also not very impressed by the wording of the message, it does seem to me that you have misunderstood its purpose. It is not there to convince people to renounce their religion – it is a protest against the government supporting Christianity. It is not about making small talk at a party – it is about evicting a persistent gate-crasher.
@Victor: “Religion doesn’t harden hearts.”
What a sheltered life you must have led.
Neither a nativity scene nor a solstice banner should be displayed in a government building. Showing partiality towards any belief system is not the domain of “perspicacious” local legislative employees. A secular symbol for holiday revelry would suffice.
However, Sean’s right. Playing one-up is not going to hasten the dismantling of tawdry scenes suggesting that there was a nine-month incubational pregancy period endured by the “virgin” Mary after a supposed March impregnation by Yahweh to square the circle and make the birthday of Jesus logically consistent — even though it clearly implies the need for embryonic development whereby Jesus would be subject to the same inherent laws of biology responsible for zygotic maturation, a phylotypic stage and general chordate ontogeny.
On my front lawn this would be in your face. Putting this on a capitol lawn is a political statement. As long as branches of government fell compelled to allow religious displays – at any time for any reason – then this is a reasonable response.
Although I agree a sillier statement might have been more effective. I would really like to see a well lit FSM — with a sign that states: “Our god is more edible than your god”
Thing is, there’s not too much joy to be found in the atheistic message, so it’s kind of hard to come up with a more uplifting message. Really, how can you beat “this day is in remembrance of the coming of our Lord and Savior, the one who removed the shackles of sin and death, the Lord of Peace and Love.” Sure, some Christians twist their religion until there’s not much peaceful or loving to be seen. That doesn’t change the “true meaning of Christmas”, if you’ll forgive the cliché. But to a true and faithful Christian, there literally is no more hopeful and uplifting message that could possibly be spoken! It just can’t be beat. Not much point in trying if you ask me.
Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, I always say 😉
The fact that a statement may be reasonable doesn’t necessarily prevent you from being an @sshole for stating it.
You know, way before the early church co-opted the pagan solstice celebrations, the winter solstice celebrations were, amongst other things, dedicated to Bacchus (in the Brumalia festival), the Roman version of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and intoxication.
I just thought that some of my fellow posters would duly appreciate that entertaining bit of historical trivia.
So happy winter solstice celebration everyone!
Well said Sean.
The new atheists probably don’t realize how they are being perceived. This is especially true with the atheist blogger(s) because they are constantly getting positive feedback from regular (fellow atheists) posters and immediately dismiss feedback from the faithful as being from ignorant kooks.
Peter Davis:
“Thing is, there’s not too much joy to be found in the atheistic message, so it’s kind of hard to come up with a more uplifting message.”
Really? That’s news to this atheist-former-Christian, who’s found more beauty in a worldview that doesn’t require me to believe in a Big Brother who threatens to punish me for eternity if I don’t abide by his completely arbitrary rules. “I’d rather be a rising ape than a fallen angel” – Terry Pratchett.
Of course I’m sure how much ‘joy’ is to be found in different views is highly dependent on the person and a lot of people are quite happy with yours. The point is, your blanketing of all atheists as unhappy (not explicitly stated, but implied) is wrong.
“That doesn’t change the “true meaning of Christmas””
You mean Saturnalia, right? The solstice festival of the atheistic display is far more ‘traditional’ than the Christian one.
“to a true and faithful Christian”
No True Scotsman fallacy. ‘Those hateful Christians aren’t REAL© Christians. Of the some 30,000 different interpretations of Christianity, you are the final authority on which is correct.
Sorry, Sean, but the holiday displays don’t belong there and are offensive to some. This sign belongs there as much as the rest.
Jason, notice I did not claim Christmas was anything other than an observance of Jesus’ birth, because the fact is we have no idea when it actually occurred (Springtime, maybe?). Just as good as any other day. And I’ll take my lumps on the “Real© Christian” thing…you’re right, there are countless varieties of Christians who all call themselves by the same name, some of whom I don’t agree with. In the future I’ll try to avoid blanketing all Atheists into the same category, asking in return that other folks don’t lump all Christians together either.
But the main point of my post is responding to—and agreeing with—Sean’s point. The Illinois atheists’ message here is hopelessly ineffectual. Can atheists be happy? Sure. I believe you when you say you find more hope in the atheistic message than the Christian one, though by your citation of “arbitrary rules” and “…fallen angel” I’d argue that perhaps the message you received suffered from religious distortion. There are only two rules, “love thy God” and “love thy neighbor,” with everything else falling out of those…anything else I agree is completely arbitrary, and worse, though under the auspices of religion, is non-Christian by definition. Similarly, we don’t get to be angels. The Christian message is that we don’t need to be angels…we have a loving and personal God who offers all the hope we need. *IF* you believe that, how can any other message compare?
Sure, it’s a pretty dull statement, but provocative messages have their place and their uses.
Happy Winter Solstice/Christmas/holidays everyone! Now forget about believing and disbelieving and get this party started.
“Religion” is not the problem. Belief in gods is not the problem. They are not so different really from my belief in Mother Earth, to which my ashes will joyfully return. The problem is organized religion, which is to religion as the United States Senate is to democracy.
I have been considering your point on my own these last few days – Whatever December 25 and the post-solstice period might have historically been, it is now Christmas and it doesn’t hurt to say, Merry Christmas.”
The reason I am commenting, however, is that I read your blog through Google Reader and the ad inserted this post was ManifestTheSecret (dot) com offerers to teach the “law of attraction”. That has to be at least at intrusive on a skeptic’s blog as the FRFF display.
I still don’t know how we reach the conclusion that unmeasured things cannot exist.
Even if you want to futz with the realm of “things”.
Sean you are such an uptight downer. There are many atheists, me included, who would love to see that sign and to know that their own beliefs are also represented, that after all those years rationality finally has a chance to proclaim it’s own balanced message for those who might be interested in it.
If you want to whine about it then whine about putting such signs there in the first place as everything you said applies equally well to each and every one of those other religious displays. Actually I am sure those other signs are much more offensive – filled with a noxious mixture of lies, propaganda and nonsense.
The sign is great, I really enjoy seeing it and am glad somebody put it there.
At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
All smart people are of the same religion – and they never say !
Religion, or the lack thereof, should be exercised with discretion. It is something not to be flaunted.