For some reason many religious (and some non-religious ones) seem to think that different standards of human rights are in place for atheists. They say things about atheists that they would never say about someone from another religion. To a large extent this is a cultural bias (Dawkins’ meme theory at work), but it is also the result of negative stereotyping by religious leaders (and some non-religious ones). All of the classic comments and phrases that were common in a pre-civil rights victory America are used in reference to Atheists by people who could be called ratheists.
My favourite of these is the overcompensation that happens when these ratheists actually encounter an atheist. “I am [insert religion], but I don’t really go to church much,” is a statement intended to assuage their guilt at their irrational attitude. And, yes, apparently they all have best friends who are atheists.
A survey of University of British Columbia students, a sample of a group one would consider to be intelligent and reasonably well-educated, revealed that trust in atheists was rated below that of rapists. Setting aside the raw logic that one can trust true rapists to do what they do and that atheists are freethinkers and therefore a bit unpredictable, this is a very serious condemnation. I feel that the most defensible explanation for this is the constant cultural pressure these young people feel to belong to some religious organization.
I was lucky enough to move to another town to go to University at about the time that I realized that I had no shred of belief or positive connection with the religion my parents adhered to. The village I moved from was so small that the churches shared eavetroughs, and family secrets were really village secrets. The happy results were that I saved my parents a good explanation effort and they simply acknowledged that they had suspected my disbelief for some time.
Other people of my generation were not so lucky and at least one of them had a serious break up with parents (and their steadies) as a result of announcing their atheism either before of after they left for university. Some of them even remarked that their parents rarely went to church anyway.
I have no trouble understanding that the UBC students are in the same pickle. Even on an anonymous survey, people tend to hedge their bets. Maybe they trust pollsters less than atheists!
People who wish to fit into their societies, particularly in small towns, are really unable to move away from the norm simply because their social circles are small enough already and the effect is compounded by the heightened need on the part of all the members to preserve the social circle. People who buck the norm are thrown out of the tribe with varying degrees of subtlety. Their children certainly pick up on this and, at the very least, discover that it takes an effort to move away from that norm.
While overt racism was not common in the village I lived in (about 15% of the students in the high school were black) religious delineations were. While the villagers worked together closely on a number of charity and community projects, they did not see any reason to combine their various Christian churches (some with only a handful of members). Instead, they reinforced the separate churches by making sure to attend the fund-raisers of the smaller congregations. Religious tolerance, was part of their social structure and removing the need for tolerance would have been an assault on that structure.
Frankly, I think people have a given religion for the same reason that people own bulldogs: their ancestors had one.
Certainly, the leaders of these churches agreed on one thing – atheists would lead their flock away from them into whatever variation of hell was in their liturgy and certainly away from their collection plates. They still operate the same way, although the patina of inter faith councils and religious co-operation (wagons in a circle, perhaps) is a cover for exclusion of atheists. As an active member of two Humanist organizations that are regularly excluded from these groups, I can tell you that the exclusion is not the result of oversight. The key, though, is that the participants are convinced that they are being inclusive.
All religions discriminate against people who don’t follow their set of beliefs (hairsplitting about morality being the only common belief), but our society has nudged them into begrudgingly tolerating each other. Of course, they love to make a great show of this and the tolerance does not include atheists.
The simple act of excluding atheists is an act of discrimination against them. The fact that is such an act is acceptable, even desirable to faith groups, indicates an intention to discriminate. If the same people formed a group that intentionally excluded any race or any religion, they would be called to task immediately. Atheists, however, seem to be the last group against whom it is almost universally acceptable to discriminate.
A church in BC had to be taken to the human rights tribunal there to be taught that posting a sign saying, “Humanism is the New Evil” violated someone’s human rights. A church in downtown Toronto posted a sign that said, “Atheists are Fools.” Can you imagine the outcry that would occur if they had simply substituted the name of a religion for the “Humanist” or “Atheist?”
We atheists must start calling these people on this nonsense. There is no co-relation between atheism and evil by any acceptable social definition. Atheists are good without god(s). We need to make the statement clearly and with conviction. Survey says, “Too many intelligent people are letting social pressure push aside their intelligence.
