Atheists, wake up to the way your world works

There are a lot of Christian movies coming out: we had God is Not Dead and The Passion of the Christ, and now a remake of Left Behind with Nicholas Cage is hitting the theaters. A review of the trend points out how bad these movies are, and that rather than propping up Christianity they seem to be doing a better job of exposing its stupidities.

I agree with the review, and I’m sure most atheists wouldn’t find much cause to argue with it, either. But I’d like to point out one telling phrase that emerged when the author was explaining his background.

By way of background, I have lived both irrational religion and right-wing politics. To “find myself” and salvage a crumbling marriage, I converted to fundamentalist Christianity in my early twenties. Both my religion and marriage ended up failing, but I remained supportive of right-wing social politics for several years after, because “religious values” were part of my political identity. I opposed gay marriage long after I left the church (I am very, very sorry), even though without religious motives there is no logic behind such discrimination.

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Another weird twist on the argument

When I argue that atheists ought to aspire to be better people, I always get this weird counter-argument, along these lines: Ayn Rand was an atheist, and she pretty much opposed every single thing you lousy Social Justice Warriors stand for. Are you saying she wasn’t an atheist? No. I’m saying she was a rather crappy person, and that maybe atheists ought to aim a little higher, and not insist on reducing every atheist to the same feeble common denominator. That the general term encompasses some awful people does not mean we’ve been given a pass to be awful ourselves. If the atheist movement were synonymous with the objectivist movement, I wouldn’t be proud to call myself one.

Here’s another perspective:

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Sunday Sacrilege: The Responsible Atheist

I’ve been vicariously following the #MovingSocialJustice conference this weekend, and feeling that these are really my people. At the same time, though, my nominal people, the ones called atheists, seemed to be remarkably stirred up and have been hitting me with messages of protest: don’t you know that atheism only means you don’t believe in gods? It has zero meaning beyond that. It’s just a straightforward, simple term that has been overloaded by those nasty Social Justice Warriors.

I don’t know what has roused these guardians of the One True Meaning this week — I suspect it’s the latest idiocy from #gamergate — there is some overlap between atheist and gaming communities, and definitely between some atheists and the anti-feminists.

So I get bizarre comments like this one:

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Your astrological forecast for October: you’re a gullible twit

I read on Jezebel that Susan Miller is sick. I had no idea who Susan Miller is until I read the article, and then I was aghast on multiple levels.

Susan Miller is the unrivaled Queen of Astrology. She is known for her affable delivery, her reverence in the world of fashion and, most importantly, her accurate horoscope forecasts which she publishes monthly to her site Astrologyzone.com.

Miller’s monthly forecasts—generating 6.5 million unique monthly visitors—are released on the first of each month as her readers anxiously wait to see, they believe, what their future holds and to use the readings to help guide their real life decisions. Her fans are devoted and some might even say rabid. Many readers will begin to panic if an updated forecast isn’t published on AstrologyZone on the first of the month. If such a horror occurs, the anxiety only increases as the horoscope-less days tick away.

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The Atheist Disillusionment

I’ve been writing about atheism for about 10 years now. What has driven me is a combination of awe at the amazing insights produced by science, so much deeper and more substantial than any collection of myths, and a furious rage at the lies and injustice and corruption of humanity by religion. For a while there, in the middle, there was also an ebullience at the growing success of atheism, and hope that someday we would be able to cast aside the follies of faith. The awe is still here, the rage is still burning, but the optimism is fading and is being consumed by a new anger at the incompetence and betrayal of the self-appointed atheist leadership.

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