Rallying against the atheist bogeyman

Sometimes I think that certain other atheists are exaggerating when they claim that American society at large is out to get them.  This suspicion is usually proven wrong.  The past few weeks have been no exception.

It's official: "atheist" is a dirty word

It's a sad realization we've come to time and time again as godless Americans: to be an atheist is inherently offensive.  It's bad enough that we're labeled "angry" or "militant" for applying critical reasoning to people's deeply-held religious beliefs; now it's apparent that we can't even publicly announce our existence.

A group of atheists in Pennsylvania decided to steer away from the "your religion is a myth" theme of recent billboard campaigns and come up with the most innocuous message they could think of to advertise their group's existence:

This was apparently too controversial to appear on the side of a bus.  I'm shocked, but at the same time not as shocked as I probably should be.  Public displays of godlessness fit right into the worst fears of people who believe agents of Satan are lurking around every corner.

Seeking to lampoon the ridiculousness of it all, my fellow atheist blogger Astrid created an even less threatening image that's probably still too controversial to make the cut:

How abrasive, in-your-face, and militant is that?

When "reaching out" becomes "targeting"

This may come as news to some people: black atheists do exist.  There.  I hope that no one sustained any injuries when any stereotypes they held about atheists and/or black people came crashing down.

Now that we've established this fact, it should come as no surprise that said black atheists might want to reach out to other members of their racial demographic who are having doubts about religion.  And they've been doing exactly that, with the most innocuous advertising possible.  African Americans for Humanism launched a billboard campaign this month letting other nonbelievers know that they're not alone.

This, of course, makes some religious people very upset.  The headlines themselves are telling:

• "ATHEISTS’ ANTI-RELIGION BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN TARGETS AFRICAN AMERICANS"
• "Atheists Target Blacks During the Month of February"
• My personal favorite: "Atheist Billboard Targets African Americans: Satan Wants Black People In Hell and Not Believe In God"

Note the word choice here.  Atheists are targeting black people.  It's stated as though the two are non-overlapping circles, and that some godless outsiders are seeking to spread discord among the African American community.  The intention of the authors is clear: exploit racial tension to promote anti-atheist bigotry.  It's the exact opposite of what AAH's positive campaign seeks to accomplish.

(A big thanks to Dren Asselmeier for her many tweets on this topic!)

Santorum seeps into the church-state divide

In order to get elected, John F. Kennedy had to reassure the majority-Protestant electorate that he wasn't a Catholic theocratic mole who wanted to turn our country into a satellite state of the Vatican.  A half-century later, Rick Santorum is twisting JFK's words around to tell us how the concept of separation of church and state makes him nauseous:

He had said that he "almost threw up" after reading JFK's 1960 speech in which he declared his commitment to the separation of church and state.

Perhaps he'd also feel a little queasy if the Protestants he panders to called his Catholicism into question in the general election.  Secularism starts to look pretty good when you're the target of bigotry from the majority religion.

Isn't mocking the Prophet a crime in this country?

Last Halloween, a random Muslim man physically assaulted an atheist who marched in a parade dressed as a Zombie Muhammad.  Police were called and a court case ensued.  The perpetrator learned that you don't assault people for saying something you don't like, right?

Wrong.

It's bad enough that some Muslims take their religion seriously enough to get violent when someone satirizes it; worse yet is when our legal system decides that you were asking for it when you're the victim of such violence.

And what I'm frightened of is that they call it God's love

Cranston High School West in Rhode Island lost the court battle to keep its school prayer banner on display.  Not a big surprise, given the precedent that publicly funded schools have no business officially sanctioning prayer.

Secular activists are lauding the young Jessica Ahlquist for her central role in the push to remove the banner as well as having the courage to come out as an atheist to an intolerant community.

For those who haven't followed the story, here's an image of the offending banner:

At its core, the banner's message really is a good philosophy for the school's students: do your best to grow mentally, morally, and physically; be kind and helpful; be honest; be a good sport; be a good person in general.  I don't think anyone should have a problem with those values.

What is a problem is that they are encapsulated in a prayer.  The assertion that these virtues come from a "heavenly father" rather than within the individual implies that engaging in prayer is essential to being a good student.  No public school should be saying such a thing to its student body.
 

In this country people are free to practice whatever religion they choose, or no religion at all; this certainly applies to students and faculty at a public school.  The school itself, however, is not a person, and ought to be neutral on matters of religion.
*****

In the wake of the court's decision, the good Christians of Jessica's hometown are letting her know how they feel about her role in the lawsuit.  Sweet, benign messages about how they'll "pray for her" and hope that she opens her heart to Jesus, right?  At worst, a fire-and-brimstone warning about the eternal consequences of her atheism?

Wrong.  Her fellow students tweeted about jumping her after school, someone posted her home address on internet forums, and one "AJ St. Angelo" mused about murdering her.  Below are a few samples:

All of this venom and hatred over a banner that shouldn't have been put up in the first place. Read the rest of them on JesusFetusFajitaFishsticks, or catch up on the whole story over at Friendly Atheist.

Weekly Recap: An atheist asks for advice, The Brick Testament, and more billboard controversy!

I saw this in the local paper while at my parents' house.  It may be a cheesy advice column, but it's a good sign to see the atheist viewpoint getting more mainstream exposure.  I have to wonder if the article offended anyone like certain billboards did, however...

Bible stories, told with Legos!

I recently stumbled across The Brick Testament, a series of biblical illustrations creatively built from the versatile plastic blocks we remember from our childhood (or later in life, for that matter).

Nothing is held back.  No detail is too racy, too gory, too contradictory with other details to be acted out with little yellow people.  Go check it out.

Godless Quote of the Week

One attack I’ve heard theists make against atheists is, “So, you atheists think you know everything? You think you’re smart enough to know everything? You think science can figure out everything? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt…” That quote is from my good friend Mr. Straw Man, but it’s an idea we hear all the time: atheists are arrogant and don’t think they need god, because they’ve got it all figured out. I think people who make that accusation are confusing style with content. I’m a loud, aggressive, strident, outspoken atheist, and I’m an asshole — but what I’m claiming is not in any way arrogant. It couldn’t be more humble. It’s just “I don’t know.”

- magician, skeptic, and crude humorist Penn Jillette, in the intro to his new book God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales.

Sunday Subscription Suggestion

This week I'd like to spotlight Science Sushi, a blog that serves real, raw science without the usual jargon or speculative sensationalism.  The author, Christie Wilcox, is a proud nerd with an affinity for marine life and a penchant for mythbusting.

She infamously ignited a flamewar with proponents of the "organic" agriculture movement by writing a post debunking myths about the "organic" label, and held her ground like a boss.

Weekly Absurdity: Why is this still controversial?

Atheist and secular humanist organizations around the country have been putting up all manner of billboards over the past several months.  Unlike the intentionally incendiary ads sponsored by American Atheists earlier this year, these billboards have all contained a positive message: you don't need to believe in a higher power in order to lead a good life.

One such billboard sponsored by the Center for Inquiry went up in Grand Rapids, Michigan earlier this week:

How offensive!

This message has proven too controversial for many Christians' sensibilities (take a look at some of the comments on the news articles!).  The same billboard was apparently banned in Tennessee for its "offensive" message.  It's interesting how even extremist Christian messages don't cause the same level of controversy.

This, however, is perfectly acceptable.

I know that I've written on this subject before, but it still confounds me.  As always, insecure believers seem to see happy, friendly nonbelievers as the greatest threat to their religion's existence.

(via Friendly Atheist and Skeptic Freethought)

The interblags are on fire again!

Just last week I wrote about how petty controversies within the online atheist community tend to explode into all-out take-no-prisoners no-holds-barred flamewars.

It happened again shortly thereafter, like a forest fire breaking out just after a Smokey Bear PSA.  This time it involves pretty much every blogger whose blog I read; even Richard Dawkins himself felt the need to get involved in the melee by making snide comments on Pharyngula.  And I can't help but #smh at PZ's Twitter feed.

Really, people?  We seem to get angrier with each other over tone and word choice when we disagree than we do at the religious establishment for their usual nonsense.  Maybe it's because we're used to it from the pious ones and expect better of one another?

To sum up "Elevatorgate" for the uninformed: Atheist and skepticism advocate Rebecca Watson was propositioned in an elevator at a skeptics conference.  She wasn't interested and was kind of creeped out, and mentioned the incident in a video essentially saying "guys, don't do stuff that creeps women out.  It makes them not want to come to conferences."  Another atheist and freethought advocate, Stef McGraw, wrote a blog post accusing her of overreacting to the elevator guy's advances.  Watson then called McGraw out on it in her keynote speech at the conference, and then the internet exploded into a storm of rage, feminist and misogynist and everything in between, on a scale unprecedented even by the earlier Gendergate row.

Drama, drama, drama.  I'm hoping that this has finally blown over, and that the next gender-related faux pas doesn't flood the secular/skeptic movement with even more venom than this.

Abortion is a complicated issue

My state is once again making headlines: yesterday the Ohio House of Representatives approved the so-called "Heartbeat Bill" (HB 125), which would ban all abortions in the state after the first detectable fetal heartbeat (normally 6-7 weeks along, often before a woman knows that she's pregnant), except in cases where the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. This naturally has provoked the "pro-choice" camp into a defensive frenzy, stepping up the campaign to defeat the bill in the Senate.

In my opinion, the debate over abortion and the restriction thereof is the most legitimate controversy we have in our society. It's an ethical dilemma at the collision point between two rights: that of human beings not to be unlawfully deprived of life, and that of human beings to retain sovereignty over their own bodies. It's an ugly debate convoluted by tough questions and mired by personal insults thrown from both sides, and it needs to be talked about in a rational manner.

Before discussing further, I want to give a curt admonition to each of the opposing factions:

Pro-lifers: Stop disingenuously talking about an embryo with a circulatory system as if it's biologically equivalent to a live toddler. It's not.

Pro-choicers: Stop disingenuously saying that this bill "threatens women's lives" when it makes a clear exception for medical necessity. That alarmist catchphrase should be saved for cases when it truly applies; the issue in contention here is women's privacy and control over their own bodies.

*** EDIT:  As Ginx correctly points out, the bill's passage could indirectly threaten Ohio women's lives by making it more likely for them to seek out potentially risky and unsanitary "back alley" abortions; if the embryo they're carrying has a pulse, then no Ohio doctor could legally perform the procedure.  What the bill directly threatens, however, is their rights regarding their bodies. ***

Is the slogan "Good Without God" controversial?

The series of billboards around Columbus showing the smiling faces of friendly neighborhood atheists doesn't seem to have generated any notable controversy until just now.  It turns out that one of the billboards happened to go up on a church's property on the East side; it appears that the church was leasing the land to the billboard company, and must not have been aware of the new content being displayed there this month.

The church didn't take kindly to a billboard on their premises proclaiming that people don't need what they're selling, so they complained to the billboard company and the ad was moved to another site.

To be fair, a steakhouse probably wouldn't want an "I'm good
without beef" billboard displayed in their parking lot either.

So, a billboard got moved.  Not censored, not stolen, not vandalized, just moved.  I have to say that it's an improvement over what's befallen similar ads in other places (and I must give thanks to Hemant Mehta for diligently calling out such acts of sabotage).  If this is the worst thing that happens, then I'd say this was a pretty successful campaign.  People know that we're here and they seem to be wising up to the fact that we're not evil.  I sincerely hope that one day atheism will be such a non-issue in public life that we won't need to announce our presence like this; perhaps these billboards and even atheist-themed blogs will one day be a thing of the past because they've served their historical purpose.

On a related note, I decided that I'm not sure how well I like the "Out of the Closet" banner that I made previously on the FFRF website, so I made a new one:

I'm still not a big fan of the font they use for these, but eh. ~shrug~

I think that I like the new one better, but the old one has its merits too.  Any thoughts, my tiny band of loyal casually interested readers?

Free Speech and Defamation of Islam

Andrew Stuttaford's recent post over at Secular Right has brought it to my attention that the infamous Pastor Terry Jones is under arrest in Michigan for planning to protest outside a mosque.  Apparently the notion of a "stern talking to" about his bigotry toward Muslims isn't enough for the authorities in Dearborn; they're willing to throw the Constitution down the sewer if it means keeping him from saying something offensive.


There are a few issues on which I have strong opinions, but none that I hold nearly as staunchly as I do my stance against censorship.  Jones is a despicable cur for his Muslim-baiting antics, but he has every legal right to do what he's doing, whether he's burning a book or protesting in front of a building.  We as a free society have no moral authority to stop him.  We can and should criticize him and his message, but he's free to speak his mind.


To be fair, the city does have to concern itself with the practical matter of preventing riots.  Dearborn has a large population of Muslims, both immigrants and natural-born Americans, and a brazen anti-Islam display such as Pastor Jones' usual fare could trigger a violent response among the less sophisticated members of the Muslim community.  I understand their desire to dissuade him from disturbing the peace, just as I might not want someone prodding a wasp nest with a stick if I happened to be standing next to it.


Then again, wasps can't help themselves but to sting anything near them when provoked; humans, regardless of what crazy delusions they believe, are sentient beings capable of rational thought.  We should expect better of the people of Dearborn, as they should be smart enough to know that the best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them.  Let Pastor Jones and his toadies be the lunatics standing on the sidewalk shouting drivel; if he doesn't get the response he's looking for, he might well pack up and go home, just like Fred Phelps has done when some of his recent protests turned out to be duds.


Here's hoping that he's promptly cleared of whatever bogus criminal case the local prosecutor is making against him, and that no one gets violent in response to the venom he spews.