Review: 50 Great Myths About Atheism

[rug]

50 Great Myths About Atheism
By Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk
Wiley Blackwell | 2013 | 288 pages



Posted: 01/17/2014 2:05 pm
Steven Paul Leiva
Novelist and Essayist

"There is an old saying about propaganda -- probably not a myth -- that a falsehood repeated often enough will eventually be taken as truth." -- Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk

I am a member of the least trusted group in America. No, not because I'm a book reviewer -- or, worse, a novelist (novelists are known liars, you know) -- but because I am an atheist. According to a series of studies conducted by Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia, the religious distrust atheists more than members of other religious groups, more than gays, and more than feminists. The only group they distrust as much as atheists are rapists. Rapists -- not Wall Street Bankers or late-night TV pitchmen, but rapists! Forty-five percent of them also wouldn't vote for an otherwise qualified presidential candidate if he or she happened to be an atheist. And, for God's sake (if I may be so bold), don't ask them to welcome an atheist into the family via marriage. Lock up your sons and daughters, the heathens are a comin'!

Having been an atheist since my teen years, and not terribly religious before that, I am not surprised by this. I have dealt with misconceptions about atheists and atheism for years. But, considering myself to be a trustworthy individual, and not necessarily liking to be aligned with rapists, you will excuse me if I'm a bit annoyed by it. It's but a small annoyance -- I live in a fairly liberal and tolerant area of the country and commune mainly with fairly liberal and tolerant people. But for people in other parts of the country -- such as the aptly named Bible Belt -- not to mention other countries with other religions that are even more suspicious of non-believers, I can imagine the misconceptions can lead to situations well beyond the simply annoying. From estrangements from family and friends, for example, to free-flowing fatwas.

And the distrust, indeed the dislike, of atheists has been growing of late, possibly due to a bunch of not previously declared atheists suddenly "coming out of the closet," following the lead of their gay brothers and sisters, who are now more trusted than they -- which bodes well for atheists coming out of the closet. That closet door was opened by quite a few writers on the subject in the last decade, but most famously by the ironically dubbed "Four Horsemen," Richard Dawkins, David Dennett, Sam Harris, and the late -- but still incredibly eloquent -- Christopher Hitchens. These gentlemen have all irritated the religious by refusing to show them undue deference, and by considering them as just ordinary shopkeepers in the marketplace of ideas peddling wares that should be as much subject to consumer reports as the wares in any other shop full of ideas.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-paul-leiva/reviewing-50-great-myths-_b_4618150.html

[rock]

1. "I am a member of the least trusted group in America. "

So he's a politician?

[mr blur]

2. No, he's a Catholic priest

[rock]

3. Admittedly, that's neck and neck

[rug]

4. A perfect example of why that myth still has traction.