I have seen not only religious bigots, but also other atheists make the ridiculous claim that atheists who speak out against bigotry have a persecution/victim complex. These “Uncle Tom atheists” (a term I didn’t coin, but love because it describes them perfectly) have internalized the societal view that atheists simply should not speak out, even when they have a legitimate complaint. One cannot have a victim complex if they are in fact victims of persecution, and atheists clearly are worldwide.
Such persecution may not be as bad as what other groups have gone through physically, as I have discussed in the differences between our movement and the black civil rights movement, but it is horrible culturally. For social beings, is such social ostracizing not one of the worst forms of persecution possible? Just being truthful about one’s lack of belief will commonly make others immediately think worse about you, and therefore treat you differently. Speaking out or “complaining” about such ingrained bigotry is not expressing a persecution complex, but is necessary if this will ever change. As clearly shown by other movements, such as the gay rights movement, the only path to social change is forcing the issue into the public consciousness. This is impossible without calling out bigotry, discrimination, ostracizing, and persecutions against atheists wherever we see it.
Criticize us for What we Do Believe, not what we Don’t
Atheists don’t ask for the religious to accept or even like our atheism, just as many of us don’t like or accept their religiousness. Unfortunately many religious people are unable to make that distinction. In their eyes, if our viewpoint is contrary to theirs we must be bad people or at the least untrustworthy. It is understandable theists wouldn’t like atheism, as it is in direct opposition to their own religious beliefs. That doesn’t make it okay to lack respect for the people who are atheists, simply due to their lack of belief. If you are going to hate a person, at least do it for some actual trait the person has, not simply their view on religion. Atheism tells you nothing of what kind of person someone is. It asserts no dogma, and is in fact the lack of dogma. To then think you can judge someone’s overall character solely due to the lack of religious belief is ridiculous.
Atheists know that, although sharing similar belief, not all religious people share the exact same political views or values. Religious groups exist to the right, the left, and everything in between. Religious people need to understand that it is no different for us, and if anything we share ever less. Atheists are simply, and only, bound by one single aspect: our lack in belief in a god. We don’t necessarily share anything else, so to classify us all as bad or immoral could not be more wrong. Just as anyone of any belief system, atheist’s values vary. Some who are so critical of atheists would be surprised to learn that many of us probably have practically the exact same values and morality and they do, we just get our morality from sources other than religion. What those sources are, though, is a post for another time.
Just as we don’t accept religious beliefs, we don’t expect the religious to accept atheism itself. But, despite the caricature bigots have of us, atheists as a whole don’t see all religious people as bad simply due to the fact that they believe something we don’t. Yes, many of us see religious belief as a flaw, but that doesn’t mean we distrust others simply due to their religiosity. Any rational atheist understands that we all have flaws, and criticism of one flaw is not a direct attack on the people who have it, but an attack on the flaw itself. Sure, we criticize actions and people who take such actions that we see as wrong that are influenced by religion, but this is not an attack on religious people as a whole. We simply ask, no demand, that the religious give us the same basic courtesy and understanding.
The Veil of Ingrained Cultural Anti-Atheist Bias
This is not to say that there aren’t anti-religious bigots that hate all religious people simply due to their belief, but those are nowhere near the majority, or even a plurality of atheists. How then, could we live in a world and have civil discourse with others in a world of the religious, and in the Unites States, a country of which a majority are Christian. We are a minority. Many of our friends therefore tend to be religious. Do we look down upon them simply because we think their beliefs are ridiculous? Of course not! We all have flaws. Part of friendship and simply dealing with others in society is accepting flaws. This is something religious bigots are unable to understand when it comes to the supposed “flaw” of atheism.
Unfortunately, many can’t see through the anti-atheist bias their culture, churches, mosques, synagogues, etc. have instilled into them since day one. This lens of bigotry makes some unable to see that a criticism of religion is not the same as a personal attack on them, and that atheists can have the same or similar good values as them even without religion, and – to get back to the point – that atheists do face strong cultural persecution in this country. Those who see us through their bias will see any claim of prejudice, discrimination, or persecutions as playing the victim card, but that doesn’t make our complaints any less valid.
The fact is, even if some other atheists who have been blinded by the veil of society’s religious bias such that they can not see the societal discrimination against their own brothers and sisters as bad as it is, we are the last acceptable prejudice. We may not be the “most discriminated group,” as one Uncle Tom atheist says in his criticism of the movement. This is true to the extent that it is not as visible as against blacks in the 1950s. If anything this just makes the prejudices against us more insidious. Such prejudice is constantly in the background of all American societal life. The unquestioned ingrained notion of many that we are lesser people, less good than those with religion certainly makes us the most quietly (and many times not so quietly) despised people in the U.S.
Association with Atheism is Political Death
The only way to break our society of such ingrained prejudice is to speak out every time prejudice reveals itself in practice, such as a politician being attacked by the opposition, simply because she had contact with a lobbyist concerned with the rights of atheists. It would be absolutely unacceptable and considered religious bigotry to criticize a politicians for meeting with lobbyists representing the interests of Christian religious groups, but it is seen as perfectly fine to criticize her for meeting with those representing the interest of atheists, and as such insulting all atheists who are a member of their constituency. This is the kind of bigotry our movement is concerned with, that simply having any contact with an atheist can ruin a political career, or even make other suspect you may be an atheist too, as if that is a bad thing. It’s not a persecution complex when we are persecuted. Until there is a major change in the public consciousness, as eventually happened for other discriminated groups that wouldn’t shut up when told to, we won’t shut up. Not when bigotry such as this is accepted, and encouraged in this country.
The Real Persecution Complex: Christian Special Interests
If you want to criticize a group for their persecution complex, a much better example than atheists is The Catholic League and other Christian groups. These groups want us to believe that anti-Christian persecution is somehow endemic in theist
U.S. The cognitive dissonance it takes to believe such is astounding. To believe this, you need to ignore that the large majority of Americans are Christian, that belief in God (especially the Christian god) is basically a prerequisite for election to political office, and a laundry list of other special cultural and political privileges Christian groups get in a country with a supposed “separation of church and state.”
They are the ones with the persecution complexes, and should be laughed out of a discussion if they ever dare the claim they are discrimination against in this country. Despite their claims, they are not for religious rights; they are for special rights for Christians (which they unconstitutionally already have). While atheists simply want to be allowed to live their lives openly and truthfully as anyone else does, the Catholic League wants their ever whim catered to. If not, they are “discriminated” against in their eyes.
Yet atheists are the ones with the persecution complex? It would be laughable if I wasn’t so disgusted.
