Religion’s sinister fairy tale: Extremists, the religious right, Reza Aslan and the fight for reason

[Warren Stupidity]

We must no longer ignore the propagation of apocalyptic fables that large numbers of people take seriously
Jeffrey Tayler

I would like to thank Reza Aslan. In his recent Salon rebuttal to denunciations (including mine) of religion put forward by people the media has come to call New Atheists, he resurrects a word the late Christopher Hitchens, now three years departed, used to describe himself: antitheist. (Aslan even provides the link to a relevant Hitchens text from long ago that is well worth reading.) Antitheists hold that the portrayal of our world and humankind’s place in it as set out in the foundational texts of the three Abrahamic religions constitutes, to quote Hitchens, “a sinister fairy tale,” and that “life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.” The reason? “[T]here may be people,” he wrote, “who wish to live their lives under a cradle-to-grave divine supervision; a permanent surveillance and [around the clock] monitoring [a celestial North Korea],” but he certainly did not. The eternally repressive alternate reality concocted by the religious of eons past, if true, would be, in his words, “horrible” and “grotesque.”

Well said! Speaking for myself, I’m happy to be labeled an antitheist. Or an atheist. It makes no difference to me. The point is, I do not, cannot, believe, and do not wish to believe. I have never envied people of faith their worldview, never esteemed the ability to consider something true without evidence, never respected as morally superior those who manage this feat of credulity and illogicality. For that matter, I have never had an experience for which I sought a religious – that is, supernatural or superstitious – explanation. For Aslan, though, the semantic distinction between “atheist” and “antitheist” is key and intended to discredit those speaking out for rationalism and against religion.

“Not only is New Atheism not representative of atheism,” he writes. “It isn’t even mere atheism.” It is in fact antitheism, which he finds “to be rooted in a naive and, dare I say, unscientific understanding of religion – one thoroughly disconnected from the history of religious thought.” He contends that “atheism has become more difficult to define for the simple reason that it comes in as many forms as theism does” – negative atheism, positive atheism, empirical atheism, and even agnosticism. He cites an obscure poll dividing nonbelievers into categories – academics, activists, seeker-agnostics, “apatheists” and “ritual atheists,” with the least numerous (and hence ostensibly least credible) being the antitheists, who account for only 12.5 percent. His conclusion: “the vast majority of atheists – 85 percent according to one poll – are not anti-theists and should not be lumped into the same category as the anti-theist ideologues that inundate the media landscape.”

Just how an atheist’s understanding of religion per se differs from that of an antitheist Aslan does not say. Neither of them, after all, believe in God. And is he saying that an atheist’s concept of faith is more “scientific” (and thus presumably more accurate) than an antitheist’s? Doubtful: Aslan is a Muslim. The critical factor would appear to be that unlike (upstart) antitheists, (old-time) atheists, at least as he sees it, don’t speak out much about religion. Presumably, (plain-old) atheists keep quiet and humbly listen to scholars such as Aslan explain away the role of faith in, for instance, the barbarities that assault us daily in news from abroad. If, however, atheists forcefully advocate their rationalist convictions, they become antitheists and join the negligible 12.5-percent minority of his poll, to be safely dismissed or regarded as an annoyance.

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/04/religions_sinister_fairy_tale_extremists_the_religious_right_reza_aslan_and_the_fight_for_reason/

[Cartoonist]

1. Great takedown of Aslan. nt

[trotsky]

2. Key quote:

Presumably, (plain-old) atheists keep quiet and humbly listen to scholars such as Aslan explain away the role of faith in, for instance, the barbarities that assault us daily in news from abroad. If, however, atheists forcefully advocate their rationalist convictions, they become antitheists and join the negligible 12.5-percent minority of his poll, to be safely dismissed or regarded as an annoyance.

The same attempt to demonize and silence happens here too, sadly.

[Cartoonist]

5. the barbarities that assault us daily in news from abroad

But that has nothing to do with religion, or so I've been told in another thread.

[rug]

3. Aslan really got under his skin.

And he hasn't been able to get him out.

[okasha]

4. And I don't think nail polish will work.

(Classic remedy for chiggers, for the uninitiated.)

[edhopper]

6. Always a good tactic

ignore the intellectual content and just attack the writer on emotional grounds.

[rug]

7. Which is precisely what he's done.

[edhopper]

8. fixed it for you.

" Which is precisely what I've done."

[rug]

9. As usual, when you attempt to replace my words with yours, the content degrades.

[Curmudgeoness]

10. I used to be one of those old-time atheists,

who did not believe in any gods, but also didn't give a shit what other people believed. I saw no reason to say much about religion or my lack of religion. Although I still don't care about other's beliefs, I have come to the conclusion that the louder the religious people get about their perceived persecution and their rights to bring their religion into the public sector, the more I see the need for me, and all atheists, to speak out.

At least for me, the move from old-time atheist to upstart atheist is a direct reaction to the upstart religionists.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. I am an old enough atheist to remember that old time athiest Madalyn Murray

Who was also told to shut the fuck up and be a good little atheist but instead established the right to not have our children be subjected to religious indoctrination in our public schools. I'm that kind of in your face old time atheist, and proud to be as in your face as Madalyn was. She was hated and reviled and still is to this day. And she did Good Work, and made the world A Better Place.

[Curmudgeoness]

12. That is the truth....

and I love that she did it. I also wonder, now that I think about it, if her persecution was not the reason that I was a quiet atheist. Then again, sometimes you have to get older to get the nerve to be the person you want to be.