Jessica Ice, president of “Individuals for Freethought,” responded (”Free thinkers speak out: We need no dogma“) yesterday in the K-State Collegian to Levi Russell’s article (”Freethought group contradicts own principles“).  In his article, Mr. Russell attempts (badly) to contradict the tenants of freethought, including an implied criticism of the right of the group to exist.  Criticizing the freethought movement, even if the criticisms are false, is at least acceptable discourse.  When criticizing the group’s existence in a free marketplace of ideas, that crosses over into bigotry.  Would Mr. Russell write an article criticizing a different religious faith’s student group’s premise as “hopelessly illogical?”  This is doubtful, because unlike the religious in the United States, bigotry against atheists is still tacitly accepted and in some cases openly encouraged.  Rightfully, Ms. Ice doesn’t let him get away with this:

To say the premise of a freethinking group is “hopelessly illogical” is to undermine its importance in a democratic state, especially on a campus that has more than 30 religious groups. Individuals for Freethought is the only organized voice for non-theists on the K-State campus. I think students should value diversity and acceptance of new ideas that question dogma, and do not harm others. We should not have to live in fear of losing our free speech as we saw with the desecration of our chalking.

I’ve been a part of the nonreligious movement for a long time, and I have never seen anyone in our movement criticize a group in which like-minded theists congregate in such a way.  We criticize the beliefs and ideas, as the writer of the attack article can do with our views, but he goes too far, attacking the group for supposedly contradicting its own principals, principals of which Mr. Russell clearly doesn’t even understand.  We would never tell others that they are illogical for forming a group based around shared viewpoints.  That is an important part of an open society.

Ms. Ice’s continued response shows exactly why the article is bunk, and explains why we have every right to be open about our ideas, and will no longer be silence by religious bigots.  As is to be expected in such articles, Mr. Russell’s contains the same tired, flawed, and downright ridiculous arguments that tend to be so logically inconsistent as to need no opposition.

It is true that calling arguments “tired” can be a fallacy.  Theists use that argument against atheist’s arguments all the time.  The difference is that the arguments they target are repeated because they are supported by the facts.  Mr. Russell’s arguments are not just patently false, but ridiculous altogether.  They show themselves to be untrue on their face.  These are the type of arguments that I – even when I was a believer – would have been embarrassed to see another believer use.  Now, as a nonbeliever, I see it as another example of the fact that we are ultimately on our way to winning both the culture war, and winning our right to exist as opposition to the prevalent unsubstantiated superstitious beliefs.
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Before the real content, here is a bit of comic relief today as a break from the seriousness of this blog:

Now it’s time for something actually on topic.  Randall Balmer [barnard.edu], professor of American religious history (yay, roughly my academic field!) and author of God in the White House: A History, was interviewed by John Stewart on The Daily Show last Thursday.  When asked what type of person would be the last elected as president of the United States, it is no surprise that atheists came last.  Don’t criticize Balmer for this, he was simply expressing the facts of the bigotry (or to put it more mildly lack of trust) that the majority of religious Americans have against atheists.  He also expressed one of the biggest problems which we nonreligious face: that although religion does not equal morality and is not necessarily required for a person to be moral, much of the U.S. doesn’t see it that way.  With this false premise in mind, the bigotry we see should not be surprising.

A partial transcript (stolen) from Friendly Atheist [friendlyatheist.com]:

Jon Stewart:… Do you think we could ever elect an atheist?… Now, we have a black president. Could an atheist – What will come first: black, woman, Hispanic, gay, Jew, Atheist? Where do you go?

Randall Balmer: I think, pretty much, in that order…

JS: [Laughs] I hope somebody wrote that down!

RB: And I think atheist is probably at the end. Because we Americans want to know about our candidates’ faith. What we really want to know is: Are they good people? Are they moral? Are they trustworthy?

JS: But when did “good person” get intricately linked to faith? Why can’t goodness be a virtue without fear of Biblical punishment or any of those other…

RB: Well, it certainly can. But in America… religion is a proxy for morality… the only way we can frame the question is ask, “Do you go to church?” “Are you a religious person?” And I think the problem is that we, as the voters, take those kind of blithe responses at face value and we should interrogate those claims…

I will, when I cannot write a detailed post, show some examples of bigotry against the nonreligious on the internet. I am still recovering from a recent medical issue, so this is as good a time as any. Many of these could just be trolls when written anonymously, but many people disgustingly see nothing wrong with expressing such hatred and will do it under their own name! Even when anonymous, many times it allows those who are not simply trolling to express the hate they wouldn’t otherwise.

I ask you, would these sorts of statements, lies, and mean-spirited generalizations be acceptable if they were levied against any religious or minority group other than atheists? Of course not. Yet we, who lack belief in a supernatural deity, are protected by our very first constitutional amendment, just as the religious are. Where is the outrage by those of all faiths and philosophical viewpoints?

I feel the need to say one more important thing before I show some recent examples.  I am bringing this to light simply because everyone should know what kind of bigotry is pervasive in culture, specifically American.  Despite the disgust I feel towards these statements, everyone has the right to freedom of speech and should be able to say whatever they want without censorship.  This doesn’t mean, though, that our culture as a whole should tolerate it, but that we should speak up against these people and fight for our place in the marketplace of ideas.

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