How Christians (often) treat atheists

Comment by: Marty

Ir (Helen) said: My main thought is that it’s probably counter-productive to say “Let’s treat Christians as badly as they treat us”. I think that will only confirm to (some) Christians that atheists should be treated badly.

I’m not really sure whether it will work but I’d like to try the Hemant approach of being a friendly atheist and see if it helps.

As a Christian, who has learned much from the friendly Atheists on this blog and through that dramatically changed my perpective on Atheists and become a proponent of their cause - I could not agree with Helen more.

I am aware that it must be immensely frustrating for the Atheists and I don’t know how well I would do at being friendly if I was in their shoes - but I am very sure that being friendly (while being very much out there like Hemant and other Atheists are) is the only path for Atheists to overcome the prejudice of many Christians - who unfortunately seem to have power over the non-believers.

I think it would be an ineresting study to go back through all the threads on this board and see the evolution that ocurred in the first three months or so as, through the wonderful example set by Hemant and Jim most of us had our rough edges rubbed off, we really listened to each other and came together particularly when the focus shifted to sharing how we can make the world a better place rather than trying to cram our theology or lack of theology or our science down each others throats.

I do think that it would be good for the Atheists to speak up more - in a friendly way - and hopefully those who are Christian will speak up and support them in the public debate.

For those who were not around in the early days of this board, there were some on this board who were quite strident on each side. The fact that we somehow transcended most if not all of that is what has made this board do special and different from most other blogs who deal with Atheist/Christian matters. Those who took strident positions, regardless of whichever side they took - did their sides no good.

More recently, but still a couple months or so ago - Helen and Dr. Lueking had a fabulous dialogue that went on in their local newspaper and through personal meetings that also showed the power of respectful dialogue.

Comment by: MTran

Ir (Helen),

Thank you for the special care you took when posting my comment here from another discussion. I want people to know that I am not normally vehement in my conversations about god or anything else. (I deal with enough professinoal level argumetnation in my work that I don’t need to seek it out in my private life ;-) )

We’ve all heard that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar (assuming they aren’t vinegar flies. Public debate has never been known as a locus of sweet good nature, though.

Most Christians I know are horrified and angered by the far-out fundamentalists such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Ted Haggard. Yet these are the voices of “Christianity” that are wildly popular in the media and in many of the mega-churches of fundamentalist America.

By comparison with the voices of these very visible Christians, Dawkins, Harris, Dennnet, et al., are soft spoken indeed.

I’ve said on other sites that I have not yet observed instances of offensive language or behavior from these atheists. So I have concluded that it is the message itself that offends most believers who complain about these men.

So how should they go about explaining their positions? Speaking and writing with care and inoffensive language has been decried by many as being mean-spirited, rude, etc. Should they soften the substance of their messasges? If they soften the substance, are they saying anything at all?

For all the editorial lamentations about how awful Dawkins & Co. have articulated their ideas, their books dave become top sellers. Are only “fellow traveler” atheistis buying these books? I kind of doubt it. I have almost no interest in these books because they have nothing in them that I haven’t heard before, long long ago. Among the atheists I know, I am the only one who has any interest in following the reception of these writings by their critics. And the only reason I even bothered to look at them was to see what all the ruckus was about. I didn’t see anything worth getting riled about. And not much to argue with, either. (By nature and profession, I play devil’s advocate with nearly every line of opinion and analysis I read. I don’t play softball with the arguments I agree with, either.)

I have, though, read a few atheist authors whose books do, in fact, offend me. Chief among them is Uta Ranke-Heinemann, author of “Putting Away Childish Things.” Originally published in German as “Nein und Amend,” one might be tempted to think that a bad translation distorted the content. But I’m pretty convinced that Uta’s content was no more than “This idea of virgin birth is stupid and Jesus never existed anyhow, you blithering idiots.”

There was so little substance or usable evidence in that book that I stopped reading in disgust about half way through. That has not been my experience with the current crop of atheists who are explaining their positions.

Comment by: MTran

Eliza said: My question is, how to be “out there” without literally wearing a label, or being chair of the Board of the SSA?

Eliza, I think you are in a particularly “sensitive” type of profession: your patients need to feel comfortable with you in order to respond in the healthiest manner to your services.

My own profession is not generally so bound up with the “ultimate” beliefs of my clients’ or students’ lives. Still, I have found that when people insist on putting forth their religious beliefs in the hopes of eliciting some sort of concurrence on my part, they are usually happy enough if I say something like “Well I guess a lot of people feel that way,” or “You’ve got plenty of company in that belief.” It’s only when I’m pushed by their insistence that I will state with no ambiguity, “No, I don’t believe in any of that at all. I’m an atheist and have been for most of my life.”

The fairly consistent response I’ve gotten (with only a few exceptions) is something like this. “Oh, my! I could never be an atheist! But it’s okay for you because you’ve got so much education and you’re really intelligent and really a nice person.”

I normally reply with a “Well you’re pretty nice yourself but I think you’d be a nice person regardless of whatever religion you had or didn’t have.”

It has always unsettled me that my co-workers and acquaintences would think that only overeducated nice people can be atheisits. The underlying message seems to be that “mean” or “unintelligent” people “need” to have religion. I think that’s kind of weird but that’s been my most typical experience.

Often, I’m the only atheist that a co-worker has “known,” and I find myself being deliberately brought into other people’s discussions in order for the unititiated to get a load of the atheist. As I said, it’s kind of weird and my own experience is not likely to be typical.

Comment by: NCxian

I don’t know that I have a lot to add to this discussion that hasn’t already been said either here or on the Kristof original thread. I don’t find you combative at all, MTran, and I am glad you are happy to have found us. We like having new blood sometimes, too!

You said (in response to my comment):

Atheists have no “belief system” to criticize. Atheists do not believe in any god(s). To call that lack of belief a “belief system” is like calling “bald” a hair color.

It is a little bit of a struggle working out language in the atheist/Christian dialog that works for everybody. One of the toughest places for me has been what to call folks’ “foundational premises” when you are trying to take in all points of view. I used the term “belief system” in this context to try to point to each person’s basic starting point, whether theist or non-theist.

What I believe that I have learned from other atheists in this discussion is that their premises (what I called “belief system”) usually include an understanding of the universe that says something like the following: all truth can (potentially, if not already) be verified scientifically. Some atheists, not all, might add, to the extent that a truth might exist that cannot be verified scientifically, it is not sufficiently “knowable” to be taken into account in my view of the world. Is this consistent with the way you see things? This is the sort of thing I was trying to refer to when I said “belief system”.

I have occasionally tried to use the term “faith position, including no-faith”. Does that sound better? To this point, I have teneded to prefer to leave the word “faith” out of it, because it elicits the sort of response you gave to “belief system”. I haven’t found people to be quite as touchy about the word “belief” as they are about “faith”.

Comment by: MTran

Re NCxian #8:

I think you’ve hit on one of the largest stumbling blocks we have in these discussions: finding common terminology.

Words are inherently ambiguous and words that describe personal or religious positions can be highly charged in ways we don’t expect.

You seem to take care in the way you phrase your comments. My responses are there simply to highlight the very different frameworks from which we are working. Since most atheists were once theists of some sort (in America, usually Christian) it’s probably easier for an atheist to “remember” the “believer” vocabulary than it is for a continuing believer to grasp how those common phrases sound outside of a belief system.

I was using similar phrases to describe my own non-theistic positions for a long time after I had shed the last vestiges of belief. So the word hurdles can be quite substantial.