Good morning, all! Installment #4 of Atheism Mythbusting, again from the blog of Greta Christina: Myth #4: Atheists are disrespectful, intolerant, and mean. Sometimes. What with us being human and all. But all of us? Even most of us? As a defining trait? And more than religious believers? Really? (I know, I wasn’t going to get snarky about religion here… but can you really look at the grotesque intolerance so many believers have inflicted, on atheists and one another, and still argue that atheists are the big meanies?) Okay. Snarky mini-rant over. Here’s where I think this myth comes from. Atheists see religion as just another hypothesis about how the world works. We decline to treat it with more respect than any other opinions, theories, philosophies. We decline to treat its writings with more respect than any other books, its leaders with more respect than any other political or community figures. We think this special treatment unfairly armors religion against legitimate criticism. Besides, we don’t see any reason for it. But religion has long been treated with special deference, getting a free ride in the marketplace of ideas. And believers are accustomed to this… so accustomed that questions and criticism seem like the grossest disrespect. As commenter Lynet wrote in another blog: People are so used to whispering around religion that an everyday voice sounds like a shout. (I think this myth also crops up because these conversations are often on the Internet… where, alas, many people are more disrespectful, intolerant, and mean than we are in person. The next time you think atheists are being unusually disrespectful, read the conversations on the political blogs. Or, for that matter, the celebrity gossip and sports blogs.) Further reading: Does The Emperor Have Clothes? Religion and the Destructive Force of Asking Questions
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:30:23 +0000
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