As those of you who read the Raving Atheist know, he regularly critiques the God Squad column from Newsday, in which a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar — uh, I mean, answer reader letters about questions of faith.
The May 7th God Squad entry (”God Squad: Anti-religious bias has multiple roots“) is really worth reading, as is RA’s critique (”God Squad Review CXXVII: Atheist Persecution of Christians“). The Invisible-Daddy lovers consider the reasons why it is that, as they say, “the last acceptable prejudice in our society is the prejudice against people who take their faith seriously”. RA does a decent job of taking them to task for spouting the standard Big Lie about how Friends of God are really the ones being oppressed, because a small minority (that would be us) sometimes make fun of them for their idiocy.
The “oppression” and “predjudice” faced by “people of faith” has become the Big Lie of the current plunge toward theocracy.
I’m in complete agreement. Maybe the poor persecuted Christians are actually aware (at least at some level) that they are idiots, making them even more sensitive to our criticism.
When you live in a society where an open display of faith is a requirement to acchieve any kind of high political office, and open atheism is political suicide, the idea that they are the ones being discriminated against is laughable. The funniest part is that they have various faith types together saying this… when for the most part, discrimination against one type (say, muslims) is created and directed by another (christians).
I figure this atheist-conspiracy crap is just a pre-emptive strike against the charges they know will be laid against them for anti-atheist discrimination.
In defense of the God Squad, let me put an idea out here. Even if we agree that there is no general discrimination in the U.S. against religion–which, sure, seems about right to me–could it be that those who are *particularly religious* do live with a constant background sense that they and their ardor are not taken seriously in this society anymore? As examples of the particularly religious I would include any clergyman or any person whose religion is an overt and substantial feature of their personality. So the God Squad, being a priest and a rabbi, would qualify as such. These guys are not young men anymore, and can remember a different era in America when religiosity was much more commonly connected with wholesomeness, societal respect, nobility. A movie such as “The Bells of St. Mary’s” (Bing Crosby as an earnest priest) made today might turn on devout Catholics but will also arrive in a time when Catholic priests are to some extent associated with child sexual abuse. In the 1920s and 30s, Irish or Italian American parents would be proud to have a son join the priesthood–how common is that now? Isn’t there just a *little* sense that the boy who joined the Jesuits is a touch “odd” somehow? Don’t some of us–even rather conventionally minded people–think the young man might be gay, or might out of touch with reality, or unable to get a “real job”?
And what about very devout laiety? What image have religious zealots in our society enjoyed in recent years? The “holy roller” born-again Christian? The mormon men in their matching shirts and ties? Zionists? Devout Muslims? Jehova’s Witnesses? Many (though yes not all…see below) associate such types with a real disconnect with the day to day normalcy of modern life, and are rather turned off by them. My own family provides examples of people with irrational/religous beliefs who still look down on those who wear their creeds on their shirtsleeves. And I think this is fairly common. Overt religiosity turns a person into a caricature, a joke. (How to square this with electing G.W. Bush? I leave that for another thread).
Now, this is far less applicable in some pockets of this country, such as swaths of the deep south and such. There are places where overt religiosity is the norm. And perhaps they are growing and that is a concern for atheists. But general popular media so far only has small incursions of overt religiosity (such as thanking God after a football game/winning an award) and few if any overtly relgious characters on popular tv shows. I submit that what the God Squad and the woman who wrote them are feeling is the marginalization that the overtly relgious have felt for some time. They are wrong in thinking religiosity is persecuted of course, but overt and extreme religiosity *does* engender many an eye-rolling from those smack dab in the center of conventionality in this culture…and so they’re feelings may be understandable.
Oh no, eye rolling!
Ok, Badger, your point is well taken, but here’s the thing. Back in the day when the overtly religious ruled over everything, people who were atheists, or of other faiths, had to endure MUCH worse than eye-rolling and caricature. The less religious society gets, the more tolerant it becomes. Meanwhile, we still have real discrimination going on against the gay community (among others), and this is actively supported by many of those overtly religious people. When they use the language of discrimination to make themselves martyrs and create sympathy for their cause, without living up to that same standard of behavior towards the groups THEY don’t like, well, it just adds another reason to roll your eyes when somebody starts babbling about jesus.
Good post, Badge. I think individual psychological attitudes and reactions toward specific kinds of social norms is interesting. But they only really become validated with some other independent justification of those attitudes, something that the “overtly religious” (i.e., religious wackos) don’t have.
To Kevin and Bob, I agree with both of you that a) there is *real* nasty prejudice and discrimination in this society against groups like gays, and b) that the Squad’s hurt feelings are, in some sense, “invalid”–or at least less valid or warranted than other feelings which are shored up by more rational justifications. And it would seem (a) and (b) are related.
I guess what is most focused for me to take issue with is the way this article by the God Squad was misrepresented on this site. The statement on this site was:
The “oppression” and “predjudice” faced by “people of faith” has become the
Big Lie of the current plunge toward theocracy.
The Squad never put forth this “big lie”. What they said is that people who take their faith *seriously* (what I was calling the overtly religious, since typically taking one’s faith seriously has a way of showing up in your personality) are the targets of a prejudice, but not just any prejudice, the last *acceptable* prejudice. Do all these qualifiers matter? I think so. E.g., Prejudice against gays, as mentioned by Kevin, could be argued to be an “unacceptable” prejudice in 2005 in terms of things like hiring discrimination laws, polite norms of being civil to gays, etc. (and of course you can argue that point particularly with all the bans on gay marriage! I think the Squad’s statement used far too broad a brush). Likewise, anti-black prejudice has come to seem unacceptable (associated with ignorance) in 2005 compared to 1950 (witness how quickly Trent Lott had to step down after his blunder praising a racist Strom Thurmond campaign). One could argue that there is in fact an “acceptable prejudice” against the seriously relgious and that’s what I tried to give evidence for in my post. This is all they were stating. The word “oppression” was never used, and the idea of prejudice was never generalized to people of faith in general, only to those who “take their faith seriously”.
I’m not sympathetic to the Squad’s beliefs, so why do I care about getting this right? I don’t quite know. Maybe I feel that what is important is getting things clear, getting things right, sorting theist and atheist statements/stances properly. There are more rational and less rational theists (and atheists), and understanding this, instead of conflating all religous folk into one general bin of wackjobs, may give some insight into…what? how are world could ever possibly get rational some day? Help me out here. Am I trying a case on a technicality or does it matter to get it right?
I think you have this whole discussion all wrong.
Yes, of course “people of faith” far outnuber athiests. Most single denominations far outnumber athiests. We are not talking about “people of faith” here, we are talking about christians. Christians are the group that have this administration by the short hairs. I don’t think the average christian is thinking “lets say that we are persecuted so that the left leaning people can’t criticize us.”
No, the reason that christians think they are persecuted is becase Jesus SAYS they are persecuted. Jesus told them that anyone who follows them will be persecuted. They therefore think:
“Jesus is all knowing and cannot be wrong”
“Jesus said his followers will be persecuted”
“I follow Jesus”
“Therefore I am pesecuted”
It is this MYTHOLOGY that they are speaking out of when they say that they are persecuted. They have FAITH that they are persecuted, and like any non-reasoning ZOMBEE they focus on anything that smaks of persecution as PROOF that Jesus is right, and they IGNORE any evidence to the contrary, EVEN THE FACT THAT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS ONE OF THEM!
Of course the leadership of the church uses this to great political advantage. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
Psifon, let’s face it: pretty much every group things they’re getting the shaft (”persecuted”, “oppressed”, whatever you like). I mean, what, do we leave out Jews in terms of a people who may just possibly say that they are/have been persectued? Although you’re right that there are references in Christianity to Christians getting the shaft, you find similar things in Islam (the idea of jihad) and as I said in Judaism. Atheists think we’re getting the shaft too. Non-religious issues too: the Basques think it, the Palestinians think it, so too the Quebecois, the Israelis…even types like Pat Buchanan think that they are losing ground unfairly. It’s human nature to go “us vs. them” and to assume that them are are out to screw us. Thing is, of the list above, most of them ARE getting screwed in some ways, and that too is to be expected from our belicose, irrational, and territorial race.
Am I trying a case on a technicality or does it matter to get it right? — Badge, of course it matters to get things right (as all honest thinkers would agree), and I don’t think that your concerns just rest on a technicality. But I do think that a re-characterization would be more accurate and helpful. Instead of phrasing things in this way — i.e., “…people who take their faith *seriously*…are the targets of a prejudice, but not just any prejudice, the last *acceptable* prejudice.” — I would find another way to phrase things — i.e., maybe in relation to validity and invalidity, criticism, or something else. I think the point of Ron’s post was only to point out the very distinct way in which the God Squad phrased things.
Good arguements Badger. I agree that we need to get things right. I would MOST prefer to live in a world where unfair discrimination did not exist. If every human being was judged entirely on the actions they took in their lives, and not on the slew of race/class/religion/age/gender/ect things that people use to pigeonhole each other today. So ideally, people whose faith came out in a obvious but inoffensive way would be treated no differently. This isn’t always the case, and that is not a good thing.
However, I disagree with the contention that prejudice against overtly religious christians is the last acceptable form of unfair prejudice. Certainly it is an acceptable form of prejudice in certain places, this blog frequently being an example. But other forms of prejudice, against gays, atheists, muslims, and many others, have equally large in not larger domains wherein they are considered OK. So while we should keep an eye to our own actions (by ‘we’ I mean atheists who are vocal and proud of our non-belief), and avoid pre-judging peopel when we discover their religiosity, we can’t curb ourselves too completely.
We are fighting against a set of beliefs that had oppressed humanity for all of history. While we can’t blame each and every christian for the multitude of atrocities committed by their predecesors, we can’t forget those atrocities either. The line between saying ‘you know, this sort of belief has led to some very bad behavior in the past, maybe you should examine it and make sure you don’t go down that road’ and saying ’stupid christian, you just want to build another theocracy, don’t you.’ is thin. I cross it from time to time. I feel bad when I do, but I’m not going to stop the whole project because of that.
Still no trackback?
Yeah, still trying to tweak the spaminator to keep all the good and kill all the bad. The hammering from comment/trackback spam is incredible — hundreds of rejected comments a day. I’ll keep trying to get the false positives to an absolute minimum. Bear with me.