Cecil Bothwell’s web page, includes a donation link:

http://www.cecilbothwell.com/

Thank you so much for posting this, Amanda.  Thinking about our abusive political system this morning had me literally researching immigration law for my favored places to flee to.  I’m finding that I really can imagine the political climate here going “notorious sectarian violence” pear-shaped not just in my lifetime, but while I’m still young.  As if the status quo didn’t keep me up nights.

It’s a huge boost to have new (or new to me) good guys pointed out and causes where our support can be really meaningful—rather than just cutting our losses.  Normally I spend all month deciding where to send the allotment of charity/cause money I can afford, but I think it might now be spoken for.

Maybe Oliver Willis will partner up with you on this: he hates Heath Shuler, though less for his politics than how he stunk up the joint as the quarterback for the Washington Deadskins. 

...Tim McGraw to run against Rand Paul in Kentucky, which would mean exchanging an actual liberal with buckets full of redneck appeal

Tim McGraw calls himself a “Blue Dog”: ““It’s innate in me to be a blue-dog Democrat.” (From People Magazine, Sept. 10 2008, online)

I think atheists in the public sphere are more like gays than other minorities.  An atheist can hide in their own closet - he/she can pretend around his/her family and friends that they’re not an atheist and only be “out” around those who will be sympathetic.

And like gay rights the only way that people will become comfortable with us atheists is if we come out of our closets and tell people “hey I’m an atheist”.  Yeah it can be obnoxious - people trying to “convert” you, friends who stop talking to you, relatives who keep trying to get you to try their church - but I’ve been told by a gay friend that his experiences with their friends and families were similar - people trying to convince him he was really straight, friends who stopped talking to him, relatives who kept trying to set them up with women - so that just reinforced my idea that the two are somewhat similar.

*sigh* Meanwhile the recent beloved and feared Aunty Helen had no problems being elected and reelected despite being an agnostic.  America is just weird (tm).

Perhaps, tess, but I was under the impression—-maybe incorrect—-that he’s a lot more liberal than the likes of Shuler.

Piator, I think the unelectability of atheists is one of those pieces of common wisdom that stays in place more because it’s not tested not because it’s accurate.  People used to say that gay polticians were out of the question, too, and yet.

Chile, one of the most Roman Catholic countries in the world, was willing to elect an atheist as president (Michelle Bachelet.)  Why can’t the United States?

Even if McGraw and Shuler are exactly the same in views, the nature of the senate means that it might be worth having a DINO there and the nature of the house means it might be worth it to not have Shuler. It costs the Democrats a lot less if primarying Shuler leads to the lose of a house seat and every time we can bash the Democrats in the face with ‘Don’t piss off the left’ is helpful.

I think the section about ” I don’t get my opinion cavalierly dismissed or harassed on the street because I don’t believe in god, but I do get both of those on a regular basis for being female”  is true to an extent because people can’t really *see* that you are an Atheist just by looking at you, and typically it can be seen that one is female.  Having said that, I think that the view of others can definitely change once they know you are an Atheist.  I know when I openly tell people that I am one, some of them look at me differently, and sometimes in a negative light, but that’s their problem, and I understand that.  Sadly, as a female Atheist in the “bible belt” region, it makes matters worse.  Luckily, I am in Austin, Texas, so we’re very liberal here in this city, as you know.

Chile, one of the most Roman Catholic countries in the world, was willing to elect an atheist as president (Michelle Bachelet.)  Why can’t the United States?

Does Chile have a wide section of the polity and media engaging in out-and-out hysteria as a valid political tactic?

NY just endorsed gay marriage - has anyone gone back to the idiots complaining and asked them to put their money (or credibility) where their mouths are as regards their predictions of the consequences?

You have a United States of Amnesia, where every issue of the day is Armageddon and Apocalypse until the next A&A, and no pundit or spokesperson is ever held accountable for their words.

Women are expected to advocate for everybody but themselves. And nobody’s supposed to advocate for women. It holds true in atheist and liberal circles as well as anyplace else.

+^Outside of explicitly feminist spaces and The Rachel Maddow Show, how much has anybody here heard about the ChristianFamilyValuesTM war on women Congress is currently waging? Is the religion-out-of-government set particularly concerned about any of that?

“Palestinians” cites on on this page = 3, “Palestinian” = 7, “Gaza” = 4

Helena Cobban is a Quaker.

No mention of the AFSC. No mention of the name “Berrigan”. The SCLC gets two hits.
The second list is mostly from the past, but you don’t seem to know the past. And you make the mistake that Dawkins and Hitchens make.  Have you heard of the Hitchens Blair Debate?  Two war mongers arguing over religion. Did that description ever occur to you? 

Did it occur to you that American exceptionalism is taken as an article of faith by even by atheists and that that faith might be misplaced? Did it occur to you that Israel was founded as a secular state, on ethnic cleansing and the faith in Zionism?
Did it ever occur you that you have an incredible amount of faith in yourselves and that a lot of people, even members of religious groups may think that faith as misplaced as it is in Hitchens, Rumsfeld and Rove?  All three atheists.

I’m a third generation secularist. I’ve talked to women in hijab who have a better understanding of the role of the US in the world than you do.

Human Rights Watch This Alien Legacy  The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism

“This 66-page report describes how laws in over three dozen countries, from India to Uganda and from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860.”

Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800

Desiring Arabs

<a href=“http://southissouth.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/the-women-of-hamas/”>The Women of Hamas<a>

See the links of comments as well.

I’m out.

As an skeptic who tries to be a good feminist, I totally agree with Amanda’s sentiment.

Also, regarding NonyNony’s point, there is some similarity, but it’s still much harder for gays to live normal lives and keep their sexuality hidden from people who would oppress them for it than it is for atheists.  Just going out in public with your s.o. is enough to out you as gay, while if you don’t live in an area where church attendance is considered mandatory or there is a lot of public prayer, being an atheist may never come up.

Regardless, that brings up another obvious alliance: gays an atheists.  And it’s for the exact same reason that feminists and atheists should be on the same team.  In fact, all oppressed people should be “on the same team” regarding oppression because allowing any oppression gives moral cover to all oppression.  When people in the skeptical movement condone sexism, they’re unwittingly propping up the very hierarchies which are in turn used to marginalize them.

Seth Edenbaum, did you post that in the wrong place? This post has literally nothing do do with any of those topics.

@Dave Fried #18 - IMO the important reason for an alliance between women and lgbts and atheists is that I’m pretty sure religion was invented to institutionalize the gender binary and enforce patriarchy. It’s just enforced these institutions so thoroughly for so long that a lot of atheists (and women and lgbts) have internalized their principles and don’t even realize it.

@snobographer #20 - precisely.  I suppose someone could reject religion and *not* reject the artificial power structures it engenders, but ... why?

But I’d go a step further.  Religion and magical thinking in general have been a force behind other forms of discrimination and oppression; just look at the history of slavery, colonization, and war based on the ideology of superiority of one nation over another.  Jingoism and nationalistic/racial exceptionalism are just two more examples of irrational belief that cause people to harm or subjugate others.

(It’s no surprise to me that the history of racism, at least in the U.S., is tied up with religion.  Not because religion necessarily encourages it, but because if you’re already holding one set of irrational beliefs, it’s easier to just add a bunch more onto the existing ones.)

I actually know a lot of atheists (I’m married to one, actually) and frankly, I think y’all would have better luck forging alliances if the most vocal among you didn’t tar all religious believers with the same brush.  There are actually a lot of progressive believers (last poll I saw had Catholics supporting same-sex marriage by a larger percentage than the national average, and historically it was religious folks who really lead the abolition charge) whose desire for economic and social justice link up nicely.  But having an atheist tell me that he’s surprised that I have religious beliefs because he thought no one with my level of education was stupid enough to buy that nonsense is kind of a turn-off.  While I have no problem voting for an atheist, it’s hard to get behind someone who assumes that my fundamental beliefs about the world are ignorant, uninformed, and irrational, without knowing anything else about how I arrived at those beliefs or why I continue to maintain them.  I mean, I don’t try to convert atheists, so why they feel the need to convert me is a mystery. 

I guess I would say that there is some value in remembering that all religious people are not fundamentalists, and that decent people of faith often find that their faith inspires and motivates them to work to alleviate the suffering of the poor and vulnerable and to treat all people with dignity.  The good-bad divide is not between religious and non-religious, it’s between totalitarian/fundamentalist/absolutist and humanitarian.  I mean, Ayn Rand was an atheist.  Stalin was an atheist.  But I bet that Ayn Rand would have been a fundamentalist if she’d been religious, and Stalin would have been a dictator if he’d ruled a theocracy.  The enemy is not religion, it’s fundamentalism and intolerance. 

This elevator thing has made me embarrassed to be an atheist. It hasn’t magically made me think there are gods, but I feel let down by the atheist community and don’t think the majority of them care about making the world better for anyone but themselves.

I like to think of myself as an atheist and a feminist but I came to the conclusion years ago that the “skeptical” movement is so sexist that I can’t be a part of it.

To see if this had changed in the last five years I did a little test. I typed “skeptic” into google, went to the first hit (skeptic.com), went to their forum, went to their subforum with the most topics (Skepticism and Critical Thinking), scrolled through the topics, and sure enough there was a sexist thread on the first page (“What’s with pretty and stupid?”)

Some people replied with sexist things, some people corrected them, a bunch of people make sexist jokes. In fact the original post was apparently a sexist joke. It actually doesn’t matter that if it was a joke or that people tried to inject some sanity in the mix.

What matters is that it doesn’t matter when I look at a skeptical site, there is always sexism, racism, homophobia, or some other bigotry right below the surface. At least this time it wasn’t some study proving how women or black people are stupider, I guess.

Skeptics really need to look at debunking sexist pseudo-science rather than debunking insanely fringe stuff like what “ghosts” in photographs really are. Actually I think there’s a place for both, but that one should be more prominent than the other.

Two comments to add the those of Kit-Kat.

It’s the religious party that’s responsible for the progress towards democracy in Turkey.

Secularism is a result not a cause. It doesn’t begin with the dogma of atheism. If you want to be a skeptic begin by looking in the mirror, seriously for once.  If you feel obliged to “support” the troops knowing what the war’s done in Iraq and Afghanistan (even believing that they should be brought “home”), does that mean that Iraqis are under the same obligation?  If they refuse are are “wrong”?  If that support is not a universal moral imperative what is it?

The Constitution is words on a page.  The Miranda decision turns guilt into innocence like water into wine.  “You didn’t have a warrant? The video is inadmissible. That’s all you have? Case dismissed!”

I’m a secularist, but I prefer the company of those with an open love for god than a tacit adoration of themselves.  Do you think the religious are the only ones to mistake generosity for narcissism?

“One that movement atheists like to dwell on is the prejudice against electing atheists to office.”

I’ve been an atheist since I was around 14, or rather, that was when I realized I was an atheist.  since then I thought I might be a movement atheist, but I have discovered that I am really a bowel movement atheist.  I believe that atheists need to get more fiber in their diets.

Skeptics really need to look at debunking sexist pseudo-science rather than debunking insanely fringe stuff like what “ghosts” in photographs really are. Actually I think there’s a place for both, but that one should be more prominent than the other.
Comment #24: Lily on 07/08 at 01:15 PM

Much of that ev psych stuff a lot of them get into bears an uncanny resemblance to religious mandates for gender roles. Men as rational-thinking conquerors, women as passive vessels hard-wired to exchange sex for security, etc.

But having an atheist tell me that he’s surprised that I have religious beliefs because he thought no one with my level of education was stupid enough to buy that nonsense is kind of a turn-off.

But nobody with any significant level of education should buy that nonsense.

Since, as has been said, feminism is the radical notion that women are people, I refuse to believe that one can be a genuine rationalist without also being a feminist. And I see evidence for that position in the credulity of some of the little “skeptic”-boys with respect to evo psych.

I suppose someone could reject religion and *not* reject the artificial power structures it engenders, but ... why?

Comment #21: Dave Fried

Because that someone benefits from those artificial power structures.

Kit-Kat@22
Well, if you stop suggesting that I, as an atheist, am somehow responsible for things the “most vocal” atheists do or say just because we both call ourselves atheists, then I won’t hold you accountable for the things the fundamentalists say or do.  Deal?

Also, are you aware that more than half of Americans think that you have to believe in god to be a moral person? (from the 90s, but I’ll bet things haven’t changed all that much)  So that second paragraph is wrong, and uses the strength in numbers of religious people to legitimize the extremists.

@felagund—to which nonsense are you referring?  Which of my religious beliefs do you specifically find nonsensical?  Do you even know what I believe?  Do you know why I believe what I do?  Of course you don’t.  If you have a stereotype of religion or think that all religious people are fundamentalist bigots or believe in an old white man in the sky, it allows you to dismiss other people and their beliefs automatically, which seems to me kind of antithetical to the claim that atheism should ally itself with feminists and other social progressives.  (My husband tells me that I am far more informed and thoughtful about my religious beliefs than most religious people he knows, but I really can’t be that much of an outlier.) 

@Dave Fried—It’s also possible that someone would reject the artificial power structures engendered by certain forms of organized religion but keep the religion part.  It’s not religion per se that creates oppression—it’s human nature.  Without religion, people have found and will find other ways to justify imposing hierarchies.  Some forms of religion may be inseparable from, because they are built on, inequality, but other forms are compatible with more progressive views of society.

@rain—I never said you were responsible for the things that the most vocal atheists say or do.  I don’t think you are.  Given that I am married to an atheist, I think it’s pretty clear that I am capable of distinguishing individuals from categories.  If I thought my husband resembled Christopher Hitchens I wouldn’t have married him, any more than I would have married Jerry Falwell.  I just think atheists would make more headway if their movement wasn’t represented in the public mind by people who think that religion = ignorant fundamentalist bigot.  Frankly, *I* know that I’m not accountable for things that fundamentalists say or do, and I speak out against those things when I witness them, so I don’t really care if you “hold me accountable” or not.  I just think it’s hard to claim the moral high ground if you think that your beliefs are so superior to others’ that they justify you mocking them and stereotyping people.  Because it makes you sound like the fundamentalists you claim to abhor. 

The most recent poll I saw from Pew was in 2007, and while 57 percent of Americans responded that you have to believe in God to be moral, only 51 percent of those 18-39 years old agreed with that statement and 61 percent of those 40 and over agreed; in other words, that attitude is changing and losing ground among younger Americans.

  I just think atheists would make more headway if their movement wasn’t represented in the public mind by people who think that religion = ignorant fundamentalist bigot.

I also have no control over who “the public mind” thinks represents the atheist “movement”. I don’t know what you think atheists are suppose to do here.

The most recent poll I saw from Pew was in 2007, and while 57 percent of Americans responded that you have to believe in God to be moral, only 51 percent of those 18-39 years old agreed with that statement and 61 percent of those 40 and over agreed; in other words, that attitude is changing and losing ground among younger Americans.

That’s still over half of all Americans, so if you eliminate the non-believers, you could say that it’s representative of the views of the religious, not just fundamentalists.  Also, you overstate the significance of youthful attitudes, as they change as people get older.

@rain—I guess I’m just suggesting that atheists who do have a public platform should make an effort not to paint all religious people with the same brush.  Bloggers and writers who are serious about making common cause on social issues should be equally serious about not alienating people who might be allies on many issues by announcing that all religious people are credulous idiots or all religion is a force for evil. 

And I disagree that the attitudes of the young always change.  Attitudes towards interracial relationships have changed, attitudes towards same-sex marriage are changing—I see no reason why attitudes related to religious tolerance should be any different.  People get more used to the idea that people have different religious beliefs, including no religious belief at all, and that changes their ideas about who is a “good” person.

I disagree that the attitudes of the young necessarily change as they get older.  IMO, it seems more that they stay static and the world progresses around them (in some ways) making it seems as if they have become more conservative.  On the other hand, some people go through some pretty drastic swings of what they profess to believe.  These folks mostly seem to be situational.  (e.g. It’s easier to be a liberal in most of CA and MA than in most of PA or much of FL.)

“Some forms of religion may be inseparable from, because they are built on, inequality, but other forms are compatible with more progressive views of society.”

But all religions require you to believe in something without having evidence for it.  People who can do that strongly and without questioning are scary.  And I don’t think that type of belief meshes well with feminism.

I know we’re swimming in examples of people who question one widely accepted, but mistaken belief (religion) but won’t question another one (patriarchy.)  But usually it’s easier to question religion than patriarchy, since patriarchy is more universal than any one religion.  If people can’t take that first little step, to think, “wow, the people around me are spouting bullshit and they all seem to agree” for religion, but still be stubborn enough to resist the pressure to believe in something against all their sense, how can they be expected to do that under the greater pressure of resisting patriarchy?

Or maybe it really is the same situation as Elevatorgate, where people are willing to question the system that doesn’t benefit them personally, but they will defend the one that brings them advantages?

I guess I’m just suggesting that atheists who do have a public platform should make an effort not to paint all religious people with the same brush.  Bloggers and writers who are serious about making common cause on social issues should be equally serious about not alienating people who might be allies on many issues by announcing that all religious people are credulous idiots or all religion is a force for evil.

That makes as much sense as saying that people who do not believe in carnivorous garden fairies should make an effort not to paint all people who believe in fairies with the same brush, because some of them might be feminists.  It’s silly no matter who believes it, and pointing it out isn’t going to make the fairy-garden feminist a misogynist.  Neither is believing in carnivorous garden fairies a force for good or evil, unless, as is so common, the main forms of fairy-belief involve a written book of rules about why bitches ain’t shit.

@Nimravid—people believe in lots of things, all the time, without having evidence for them.  Seriously—we take other people’s word for things, even people we don’t personally know, constantly.  We could not live our lives if we demanded proof of everything before acting.  And sophisticated religious thinkers both accept and embrace doubt and questioning.  I think many religious people get that there is no empirical or logical proof that their beliefs are true—hell, I learned that in my freshman philosophy class at a Catholic university.  But that is not the only way that people come to believe things—we form our beliefs based not only on reason, but also on our experiences, our culture, our intuition.  For me, I believe what I do based on my experience, which I know is not shared by everyone, as well as my intellect and my values. 

Religion and skepticism are not mutually exclusive.  Which is why I object to lumping all religious believers in together—many religious people have questioned their faith, and continue to do so.  Unthinking acceptance of the pronouncements of authority is not a universal condition of the religious.  Often, they reject the “bullshit” parts of what they have been taught, but retain the parts that speak to deeper truths or come to understand simple things in more complicated ways.  Often, they learn humility and openness to different ways of understanding.  Which is why I distinguish between fundamentalist and liberal rather than religious and non-religious.  Some people tend to authoritarianism, and they believe what they are told without questioning, whether that is atheism or religion, and reject anything that comes from outside their system.  Frankly, I find their refusal to question rather immature, whereas the truly religious people I have known were much more mature.  In some ways, it’s how one believes, not what one believes. 

And as a religious feminist myself, it’s really not that hard.  If you start from the premise that humans are created in the image of the divine, it’s not a big jump to believe that all humans deserve to be treated with dignity, equality, and respect, regardless of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation.  And to support programs that assist the poor and vulnerable.  And to object to aggressive war and capital punishment.  And to believe in our responsibility to act as good stewards of the earth.  And reject the idea that men are superior to women or any variant of thereof. 

Isaac Bashevis Singer: “Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.”

Paul Tillich: “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.”

@Nimravid—that comment about the carnivorous garden fairies?  That’s kind of what I’m talking about as being alienating.  Because I bet you “know” all sorts of crap that turns out not to be true, but you’re willing to say that religious people of all stripes are morons because of a belief that you think they share that you think is silly.  And many of those people that you insult are decent, even good, people, who are humble, kind, wise, compassionate, and loving, and you just get kicks out of saying that they’re all stupid for believing in some kind of sky-fairy (which most of them don’t, because they aren’t fundamentalists or six-year-olds).  So who cares if they are also passionate advocates of human rights or gender equality or economic justice?  It’s more fun to mock them than to find out whether you share any fundamental values.  So, sure, you mocking me isn’t going to make me change my mind about the equality of the sexes, but it is going to affect my decision whether or not to work with you on a particular project or initiative or campaign, because why would I give my time and energy or vote to someone who thinks I’m an idiot?  If you don’t care about constructive alliances, fine, don’t give a crap about needlessly offending people.

I will say that your logic (“What, they’re going to stop being feminists just because I tell them they’re idiots?”) is similar to the logic of the Democratic party towards some of it’s constituent groups (“So what if we’re not doing enough to uphold reproductive rights—who are you going to vote for?  The Republicans?”).  And I bet that pisses you off, too.  So if you want to complain that religious people won’t vote for atheists, it’s worth remembering that according to you, atheists shouldn’t bother even pretending that they respect religious people, even religious people who agree with them on social issues.

It’s worth noting that a lot of religious liberals feel free to mock the faith of religious conservatives like Michele Bachmann while demanding respect for their own unsubstantiated beliefs.

1)  Basic necesity of fighting against The Man:  Cleaving off people with authortarian personalities, the glory hounds, the fair weather smugs, etc.

2)  Part of doing that is by having a coherent theme of strictures that do not allow people a la carte selection of what they are for.  You want to cut down on psychic free-loaders, such as the “skeptics” who think evo psych that confirms their biases is just soooo cooooool.  Yeah, as a comment above, just one rule is needed for skepticism—first examine your own beliefs.  That’s the whole of it.  At the end of the day, you can’t convince other people to think the way you do, see the way you do, do the way you do.  All you can do is benefit from your own capacity to learn, and if people think you’re cool, well that’s a neat side bennie.

3)  This is sorta part of why I think it’s such a waste of time to yell at believers, for the same reason you usually don’t see black people yelling at white people for all the bad stuff.  Nobody changes their minds and bridges are burned, and the powerful will note this and instigate this as needed.  Meanwhile, the crusade bandwagon fills up with useless people that are going to be a handful in good times and disastrous in bad times.  Snitches, betrayers, dofuses, that sort of thing.

4)  An aside:  One of the elements of Obama’s general political schema that I’ve admired in a cold way, is just how successful he has been at shoring up that right flank (and boy oh boy, he has needed it—and no, I’m not interested in responding to flames by the ignorant) by recruiting what would be, in Europe, the Christian Democrat demo—with each hug to slimey ol’ Rick Warren and pro abstinence policy and more.  He hasn’t spent *that* much credibility, bad policies, and cash to seem open to input from relatively anti-peoplenotthem but socially populist people.  We also have gotten relatively sane policies because he’s managed the log-rolling process well.

One thing I have consistently seen, Kit-kat, is that religious people have a great deal of unexamined privilege.  There are only a few, relatively speaking who are at all capable of heated discussion without flying off the wheel.  I think it’s important not to mock religious people, mostly because smugness is bad for you, and also because it’s not in our strategic, or even tactical interest to be openly hostile and wandering up to religious people who find their way here and greet them with a bit a sarcasm and a flash of jagged broken bottles.

I bet you “know” all sorts of crap that turns out not to be true, but you’re willing to say that religious people of all stripes are morons because of a belief that you think they share that you think is silly.

I don’t think people are stupid for being religious, or for being wrong about many other things.  I think they’re wrong about the supernatural beings, just like I’m wrong about all of the wrong crap I “know.”  It’s different to say, “that belief makes exactly the same amount of sense as believing in any other supernatural being that has no evidence for its existence” than it is to say “that person is a moron.”  I think that the main purpose of religion is to uphold the culture as it exists, to codify it, and to keep people from questioning it, and that the people who are going to resist the culture as it is are very unlikely to be unquestioningly religious. 

“we form our beliefs based not only on reason, but also on our experiences, our culture, our intuition.

For me, reason includes my experiences and what they tell me about life (empirical evidence.)  But a person “knowing” things because their culture tells them or because it “feels” like it’s true, that’s exactly what’s frightening to me.  Because that’s why people believe in patriarchal systems, in “righteous” wars, in homophobia, racial discrimination.  Belief in a god, without any other attached beliefs, is harmless.  Belief in a god, with attached beliefs, is terrifying.  Because if the person has built up an elaborate story about god, who god is, and what follows from that, it is not based on evidence, but on something else, and it is often not possible to reason with them using evidence.  Because they will throw out the parts that are proven wrong, and then come to the same end conclusion by changing their idea about what god is/wants.

I generally find people who are so certain of the rectitude of their paradigm for the universe that they’re willing to consider everyone who doesn’t share it to be fundamentally wrong to the point of being evil or stupid to be rather alarming, regardless of whether they’re fundamentalist or atheist.

It’s not the belief (or lack therof), it’s the childish certainty that stomps it’s feet and says “You are too stupid! You’re ALL stupid!”

Mind you, I have no problem with pointing out particular, specific beliefs and their faults - why they’re illogical, where bad premises lead to bad results, where they’re simply ludicrous, etc.. Or even particular specific belief systems (and no, I don’t mean the Courtier’s Response - pointing out that given systems of belief simply don’t work in the world, have bad results, oppress people, etc, works fine for me.)

But I have yet to see any concrete evidence that atheists, when viewing their beliefs about the world as a whole, are any more rational on average than other groups that value people as individuals and real world results - say the UU’s, or feminists - but doesn’t vet for or against religious belief.

It’s worth noting that a lot of religious liberals feel free to mock the faith of religious conservatives like Michele Bachmann while demanding respect for their own unsubstantiated beliefs.

The argument seems to be that people who are right about their unsubstantiated beliefs are allowed to tell people who are wrong about their unsubstantiated beliefs that they are wrong.  However, their own religious beliefs, being particularly holy because they are the One True Way (even if admittedly without evidence) should be immune from the exact same type of questioning.

@Kit-Kat: If women should have human rights because they are created in the image of the divine, rather than just because they’re people, since I am NOT created in the image of the divine, the belief system you laid out implies I do not deserve human rights on my own merit.

I’d rather have Democrats lose with Bothwell than win with Shuler because Shuler is a poison pill.

We all have insufficiently examined, wrong beliefs. I don’t see how it follows from that that we should be more indulgent of such beliefs, as opposed to becoming more vigilant about weeding out our own.

Steve LaBonne - it doesn’t follow that we should be indulgent of such beliefs. It does follow that we should be aware that our own certainty on some things may well be among the wrong beliefs we hold.

IOW, awareness of our own fallibility should lead to some amount of humility.

IOW, awareness of our own fallibility should lead to some amount of humility.

And that humility should lead us to modify our beliefs when the evidence demonstrates them to be incorrect. No belief should be immune to evidence, including god-belief.

Tony Blair believes in God. Christopher Hitchens does not. They debated the existence of God, not the necessity of war.  They were in agreement on the most important issues. But you prefer to quibble.  If you want to argue against faith you need to have less of it yourself. “All… are created equal”  Says who?

You’re less interested in politics than in your sense of your own superiority. Hitchens makes the same mistake, and Dawkins as well, and that allows them all to argue from assumption.  Dawkins is popular and a fundamentalist. Richard Lewontin is less widely known I think, because he’s not
http://www.drjbloom.com/Public files/Lewontin_Review.htm [Don’t click on the link, copy the text] They’re both atheists.

Dawkins attacks religion while Lewontin is an ironist regarding the human capacity for faith. Hitchens argues from faith. American exceptionalism is a doctrine and a dogma, based on faith. The defenders of the (secularist) Turkish military argue from faith (and greed).  People believe strange things. Focusing on others’ assumptions as if you have none, will always get you into trouble. It’s bad politcs, and in Dawkins’ case it leads to bad science, and links from Stormfront

“No belief should be immune to evidence, including god-belief.”
And what is “liberal” Zionism?  Zionism is Garveyism for Jews. Was Marcus Garvey a liberal? 

How hard is it to convince people of the obvious? How hard is it to explain the slackers the hypocrisy of taking over working class neighborhoods and then pounding on their neighbors’ doors while leafletting for Kerry?  Ask a Palestinian for her opinion of American liberals.  Helena Cobban is a Quaker. I don’t care about her god, but I listen to her about Gaza.  Again, you would quibble.

Yet if anyone within the skeptic community is skeptical of Rebecca Watson’s interpretation of events and hence calls into question her interpretation, they are immediately branded a sexist or a misogynist.

Apparently there are some things you aren’t allowed to be skeptical of within the skeptics community.
Comment #48: r3VOLutionist777

Why would you question her interpretation of her own experience? If somebody says “When this happened to me I felt/thought this” it’s absurd to respond with “no you didn’t, you felt/thought this other way.” Do you ever do that to men?

IOW, awareness of our own fallibility should lead to some amount of humility.

To cling to beliefs that are incompatible with well-established scientific knowledge is not humility, but hubris. Submitting one’s beliefs to the test of reality, that is humility. Or IOW, what junk science said @51.

I don’t argue with that - I’m pretty big on evidence myself. Why would you assume I was?

Why would you assume I was?

I don’t, and I welcome the clarification. Still, it’s always necessary to keep in mind that while all our knowledge is in some sense provisional, there’s quite a bit of it that is so massively supported by evidence that it’s hard to conceive of circumstances under which it would become rational to doubt it. Some people- and I’m glad you’re not one of them- tend to confuse insistence on this point with unwarranted confidence in one’s personal beliefs.

Part of the reason that feminism and atheism aren’t mutually supportive in most people’s minds is because there isn’t really an atheists’ rights movement per se: the “new atheists” or whatever you want to call the group of people who read and write books and go to conferences and join clubs about the lack of god(s) (but are totally not a group with any sort of social mores, you irrational mush brain!) are interested in proving to the most people that nothing is super-natural then identifying the ways which atheists are discriminated against and trying to get religious people to realize that atheists are not amoral or satan-worshipers or whatever stereotype. But this thread sort of illustrates that if a religious person has no problem with atheists and would totally vote for them and defend their freedom from religion, they are not wanted as an ally.

I don’t believe in the supernatural and would describe my political views wrt religion as wanting atheists to have equal opportunities to political office, self-expression etc, and wanting to work to end the worst savegeries perpetuated by religion by working to move extremists to moderate views and insure muslim immigrants don’t feel rejected by society so that they are integrated into the main-stream (like in the US, as opposed to being ghetto-ized and radicalized in France) etc. I tried going to atheist events and it was made absolutely clear to me that my views were not welcome. I grew up liberal in a red area, argued that abortion to be legal to people at my Catholic church, etc and have never been screamed at the way I was at the last atheist meeting i attended.

From my experience, many atheists assume that since they rejected religion, they are automatically rational so of course their “common sense” is based on cool observation and not just because the brain clings to anecdata that confirm pre-existing stereotypes. Furthermore, it has always seemed to me (and after the “muslima” bit more than ever) that Dawkins, et al only really like to harp on women’s rights because it makes religious people look bad, and not because he wants to do whatever he can to minimize the suffering of women, the poor, etc. It can also be seen as “rational” to look around and see who is successful, has the best test scores, runs the most companies and so on and decide that white dudes, on average. are just a whole lot better than everyone else. The whole “every body is equal” thing is an assumption that has inspired people to dig deeper to identify and ameliorate the causes of inequality.

Anyway, that was a bit rambling, but my point was that I have found that, as a social justice advocate, atheists groups aren’t really good allies because they seem to be predominantly truth-seekers and not rights-seekers, and while their are many people who work tirelessly on both causes, I think it is off-base to rely on spreading atheism to promote social justice.

Atheist groups, to the extent that they consist of self-satisfied men with little concern for anything that doesn’t inconvenience them personally, are not good allies for feminists. That doesn’t make rational, evidence-based thinking any less valuable for any person or group, especially progressives. Like someone pointed out above, we all need to avoid the trap of thinking that something is true because it “feels” true, no matter who our allies are.

“this thread sort of illustrates that if a religious person has no problem with atheists and would totally vote for them and defend their freedom from religion, they are not wanted as an ally.”

No, the offer was that the open-minded and tolerant religious people might consider voting for atheists and defending their basic rights, if only we would stop criticizing religion.  Only certain religious beliefs (the ones not shared by the open-minded religious person) are wrong; we should recognize that some religion is better, and those obviously better beliefs, atheists should just shut up about and never criticize, otherwise they were concerned the open-minded and tolerant theists might not be our allies.

It doesn’t seem like such a great tactical move to agree to shut up about your beliefs in order to advance them.

#58: junk science

It eludes me why self-satisfied men with little concern for anything that doesn’t inconvenience them personally are so widely viewed as being capable of rational, evidence-based thinking.

Whether or not they are, they will pay lip service to evidence-based thinking at the very least. This is valuable because our culture as a whole doesn’t recognize its importance.

@Nimravid—

As to feminism and religion, I was only explaining the logic by which a religious person could also be a feminist in a way that is not only consistent with, but springs from, their religious beliefs.  Whether or not you personally share those beliefs doesn’t have anything to do with that.  Seriously, way to twist my words. 

And “the offer” you speak of was not mine—I’m not sure what basic right atheists are being denied, but I would vote for an atheist, not if atheists would stop criticizing religion, but if that particular atheist candidate wasn’t the sort of atheist who thinks that telling people of faith that they are stupid and their beliefs are nonsensical is necessary, let alone useful or helpful.  Frankly, I don’t vote for any candidate who treats me like I’m an idiot or indicates that they hold one of my fundamental values (economic and social justice, human rights, opposition to aggressive war, etc.) in complete contempt.  Why make an exception for atheists? 

And I don’t make fun of Michele Bachmann et al because their beliefs are “wrong”—I criticize them because they are divisive, hateful, and bigoted, whether their beliefs spring from a belief in god or from some other source.  As a Christian, I don’t think that brand of fundamentalism is very reflective of the values and teachings of Christ, who had a lot to say about caring for the poor and almost nothing to say about same-sex marriage.  I don’t care if people handle snakes or speak in tongues or meditate in temples or foreswear leavened bread or pray to Mecca or wear special underwear.  I care what the consequences of their beliefs are—do those beliefs motivate them to work on behalf of the poor and to oppose torture, or do they motivate them to impose their beliefs on others and exclude and punish those who don’t share their beliefs?  I care if they are humble and compassionate, or arrogant and selfish.

So, Kit-Kat, you’re a methodist (of whatever denomination)?  By our deeds, et al?