Just a quick hit to let ya’ll know there’s a great interview up at Nevada Today with Lori Lipman-Brown of the Secular Coalition. I especially enjoyed and agreed with her statement that we should, as the most hated minority group in America, try to avoid unnecessary conflicts with each other.
Do you ever worry that by lumping all nontheists, humanists, atheists etc. into a single category, and then tackling specific issues, you might be misrepresenting anyone? Can a humanist/non-religious individual be, for example, anti-abortion or against stem-cell research?
This is exactly why we do not take a position on abortion. We do however support embryonic stem cell research because attempts to protect blastacysts at that stage are based on theological notions of a soul being imbued at the moment of conception.
Occasionally some of our supporters disagree with us on an issue, but I’ve often supported groups with which I don’t agree 100 percent of the time. For example, we opposed the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment last year on the grounds that, while religious organizations are free to choose whom they will marry, we do not believe that a theological definition should be imposed on the civil contract of marriage. One of our supporters, an atheist, told me that he had very strong beliefs about gender roles and he believed civil marriage was for the purpose of men taking care of women, and therefore he saw it as a non-religious argument about gender roles.
In any event, I don’t believe it does us any good to engage in infighting. We are already the most hated minority group; we need to come together even though we are a diverse population encompassing every political, ethnic, age, etc. realm. We can disagree on some specifics, but that should never interfere with the larger goal of eliminating the prejudices and unfair treatment. That’s what the Secular Coalition for America is all about: bringing diverse nontheist groups together to support each other and make us all stronger politically. I also work well with nontheist groups that are not members of my organization, as well as theistic allies. They are also essential in our struggle.
by Karen on March 14, 2007
Suzanne Fields of the Washington Times has a new article out and she starts swinging with the opening sentence.
There are no atheists in foxholes, as any dogface soldier could tell you, and neither are there many atheists in politics. Looking death in the face, whether in a foxhole or at the polls, makes a believer of almost everyone.
Why does crap like this keep getting published? It’s par for the course for fundamentalists, but mainstream media? This isn’t reasonable disagreement. It’s blatant bigotry. It should not be published by major media outlets anymore than a screed against Jews, blacks and/or Catholics by a racist should be published by the same outlets.
I think this just goes to show how well ingrained anti-atheist bigotry is in America. I’ll even bet Ms. Fields does not think that declaring all of us atheists who have served (and continue to serve) as some kind of fakes is a bigoted thing to say. Yet, I’m sure she’d have no problem in recognizing the bigotry in declaring all black people stupid, all Hispanic Americans illegal and so forth.
It boggles the mind!
Matt Cherry of the Institute of Humanist Studies, where I heard of this, is encouraging people to write local papers who carried this article or the Washington Times where it first appeared. His letter to his local paper can be found at the bottom of his article if you need help coming up with something polite to say.
by Karen on March 14, 2007
Here’s a good interview with Brian Flemming, the man behind The God Who Wasn’t There and one of the founders of the Blasphemy Challenge that has sent many of a theist and even a few atheists into a full-blown tantrum.
Some excerpts:
On the Blasphemy Challenge: The Blasphemy Challenge is radical compared to how we normally talk about superstitions such as Christianity, but it shouldn’t be.
On other religions: I don’t see much difference between the beliefs of, say, Scientologists, and those of Christians. The space-alien theology of L. Ron Hubbard is no more or less ridiculous than the flying-dead-man theology of the Holy Bible.
On atheist cohesion: I think we’ll see many different atheists concentrate on many different messages. Declared atheists tend to be independent-minded folk with strong points of view, so we’re never going to gather under a single banner.
One thing that really sticks out is his optimism about the future of America which Brian seems to expect will eventually follow the lead of European countries who are religious more or less because the state says so.
