Guest blogger Sastra:

When I log into Pharyngula, as a matter of habit I usually glance at the little Recent Comment bar on the side, to see who has just responded to what. It helps to show which threads are particularly lively at the moment. Every now and then there’s someone responding to an “old” post – one that’s been otherwise inactive for days, weeks, months, or, in very rare cases, years. Given the recent major fuss caused by “Crackergate,” we can still notice the occasional newcomer weighing in on the contents of PZ’s kitchen garbage can. Presumably they’ve followed one of the many links still hanging around out there. The cracker threads are not quite ready to die.

I don’t think the issue and its moral ramifications (or the interest in them) are quite finished and over yet, either, so – here ya go — I’m going to bring it up again. Those who are sick and tired of the topic may lightly skip to the next post.

I have, like most (though not all) of the regular Pharyngulites, been – by and large – supportive of PZ’s action, and the rationale behind it. However, I think it’s simplistic to see this as a simple issue, which is easy to explain or defend. There are some good, hard, and reasonable points on the other side, as well as arguments which sound reasonable, but are only superficially plausible. But, judging by the continued reactions, our replies and responses are not always getting through, and we can’t just assume it’s because the other guys aren’t listening. I don’t know — maybe a new approach might help.

So I thought it might be interesting then to take another stab at trying to explain the why behind it, by coming at it from a different perspective.
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Fellow minion Sastra checking in…

You know, whenever things get dull among atheists, there are a few surefire topics to spark some conversation. You can always do the atheism vs. agnosticism debate, of course. That’s usually good for hours. Free Will perks at least some people up. But bring up a symbol for atheism …

And here it is!

(Forgive me if the image is not quite clean, I’m still figuring this blogging thing out.)

Some of you may remember that last year I was thrown out of several print shops and refused service for ordering a poster which had to do with voting for an atheist symbol. They were “Christians” (ie true Christians), and therefore couldn’t deal with atheism or atheists. Ah, well. The prerogative of a free society and private business. The poster was eventually made, however, and at the Atheist Alliance International convention in Washington DC, the attendees (which included Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett) cast their votes between 6 candidates.

I am only showing the ‘winner.’ Because I know what many of you are doing. You’re going to tell the rest of us about this other symbol. A different one. Which you like better.

Unless, of course, you are preparing to explain why atheists should not have a symbol at all.
Frankly, I’ve probably already seen the symbol (or something very like it), or heard the reasoned rationale for none at all. The committee looked at hundreds, from sources all over the internet, as well as submissions.

We also considered the arguments against a symbol. Though I’m somewhat sympathetic, I think the problem is moot. Bottom line, a designated symbol of some sort is eventually going to come up from grass roots and become popular, because there is need to identify a group which no longer wishes to remain ignored or marginalized. Yes, the “group” is diverse and technically defined only by a negative – but, contra Sam Harris, the word ‘atheist’ is pragmatically useful, and used, and words themselves are symbols for things.

And if there is going to be a symbol anyway, all things considered, it should be one that offends and bothers the LEAST number of atheists possible. That’s a very tough standard indeed.

This particular symbol was designed and released to public domain by Michigan graphic artist and retired schoolteacher Diane Reed. It’s simple, positive, unique, and attractive. The circle represents the natural universe, the point is the inquiring mind, and the resemblance to the Latin “A” is both a nod to the language of science, and to the necessity of having some easily graspable connection to “atheism.” It doesn’t imply that atheists believe in nothing; it doesn’t confuse the issue with evolution; and it doesn’t stick a gratuitous finger in any religion’s eye. You could tattoo it on your arm, dangle it from a necklace, and draw it in the sand with a stick. It’s identifiable in any color, and identified with no specific person. And it gets along nicely with whatever other symbol you prefer, because you either like it, or you don’t.

And that’s that.

Sunday at 9am Central, tune in to Atheists Talk radio for a chat with Lori Lipman Brown of the Secular Coalition and Louis Appignani, Humanist Philanthropist.

Sastra here again.

We anticipate it. Or, at least, I do. Whenever some lunatic in a not-so-happy place in his life goes into a happy place with a gun and starts to shoot at random human targets, sooner or later someone blames it on atheism. Or links it to atheism. Or compares it to atheism. Or otherwise brings up atheism, as the not very random target of ultimate explanation.

It didn’t take long for someone to use the recent tragic shootings in the Unitarian Church in Tennessee to illustrate the dangers of “militant atheism.” The Life!beliefs section of my local paper regularly features a syndicated columnist, Rev. Norris Burkes, who is “a civilian hospital chaplain and an Air Guard chaplain in northern California.” I occasionally glance through his column, which tends to focus on the pleasant, reasonable, ecumenical spirituality of good works and thoughtful counsel. He seems like a nice guy. He almost certainly is.

I didn’t much care for his recent column, though, which was titled “Turn deaf ears to whispers of hatred.”

After bemoaning the hatred that drove killer Jim Adkinson and others like him, Burkes rhetorically asks where it came from. Whence that infectious strand of ignorance, apathy, violence, and hate? Well, the killers yell what others whisper.

“In the world of religion, I’ve yet to see more infectious carriers than I’ve seen in the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. These evangelical atheists would have you believe that all our problems stem from all forms of religious faith.”

Oh NOES! Not “atheists think ALL our problems stem from religion!” Not the “atheists only see the bad side of religion” meme again! And what about STALIN and POL POT? How do you explain THAT? Yes, the ‘pygmies and dwarves’ of atheism show up, on schedule.

I’m not sure if Burkes has read any of the books himself, or if he’s only read the Nicholas Kristof op-ed which ran in the Times last December. He assures the reader that what Kristof characterized as “the increasingly assertive, often obnoxious atheist offensive” was subsequently soundly trumped and defeated by bringing up Stalin on one side, and soup kitchens on the other. Poor Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins apparently never considered, never addressed, never even thought about either totalitarian Communism, or the fact that religions do good works, too — in addition to the witch hunts, honor killings, and massacres, of course.

You know, I’ve read the books by all three gentlemen – Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins – and I have a vague sort of recollection that maybe they did deal with those issues once or twice, in passing. Like devoting several chapters to them, or setting them up as the starting point for their theme, or something like that.

But no matter. Enough of religious intolerance, on both sides. Burkes puts forth the solution: “We must allow room for the conversation.” Conversations, that is, with GOOD atheists, and not the hate-filled, militant, in-your-face kind. Rather, Christians seek and honor the brand of non-believer who is gentle, nice, and neither in-your-face nor in your bookstore nor in your television on PBS. And he specifically spells out what it takes to be the right kind of atheist:

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[[Oops. Forgot this on the first post. MAJeff here.]]

It appears we’ve got more than a few Ottawans here (Ottawegians? Ottawites?) It also seems they’d like to meet each other. I’ve also seen a few Massholes (what do we call ourselves?) saying they’d like to get together again. I’m not surprised. We are, after all, a social species.

It’s kind of funny to see Nisbet complaining about the loners over here when we are actually engaging in very social activity by sitting here chatting. Some of us may be sitting alone in physical space, but the intensive communicative action in which we engage is pretty much the opposite of “lonerness.” (You’d think someone who’s supposedly an expert in communication would recognize that it’s a form of social activity, but….) We’ve gotten to know things about each other; many of us have connected off-line; we sit and chat about each other’s lives in these very threads, often ignoring or forgetting what the original post was about.

It’s the social I want to talk about this morning. In 1912, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim published his classic work, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. I think that one of the most powerful conclusions to be taken from the book is that religion is simply the group worshipping itself. His analysis divided social space into two basic categories–the sacred and the profane. Now, being in profane space doesn’t mean being in space where everyone gets to “take the name of the Lord in vain” or say, “fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck,” but I won’t complain about doing either of those. The profane is simply the space of everyday life, of eating, drinking, working, fucking, playing, whatever.

Sacred space is set off from everyday practice as a special place where the group comes together to engage in ritual practice. These practices serve to reinforce the group itself. Members are reminded of the values and identity they share, and of the importance of the relationships between them. The ritual activity occurring in these sacred spaces is an enactment of the community, and in doing so, they are worshipping themselves. Why do gods always reflect the various values of different groups? Because those groups are their gods.

I know a number of atheists who attend Unitarian and Quaker services, as I’m sure many of you do as well. In TGD, Dawkins discussed atheists he knows attending Anglican services. These folks are all reinforcing relationships between themselves and the other members of the group. On a weekly basis, at a minimum for many of these folks, they get together with people they know and care about and re-establish their relationships with each other in order to reinforce their values and sense of collective self. Again, they enact community. I think we make a mistake when we fail to engage in some of these wider analyses, when we fail to see the other things going on because we focus only on the dumb ideas.

Religion is more than stupid beliefs.

As social beings, we all–at some level–desire to know and be known by the others in our communities. Religious organizations allow for that. While we can focus on the really dumb things it does, focusing on what religion–not religious belief, but religious practice–provides for people is absolutely necessary. If we are going to attack religion–or, at a minimum, its privileged position in society–we need an analysis that recognizes these social aspects. And, we need to understand how people might find them in other spaces. How do we create other “sacred” sites?

Well, the Pharyngufest is one of them, however small. I think I sort of got the first one going here in Boston this past winter. On a few of the threads recently, Boston-area folks have been sort of asking for another one. I’m going to refer folks around here to the Boston-area Skeptics-in-the-Pub, run and organized by Rebecca of Skepchick. There seems to be a pretty big overlap of readership, so the piggy-backing scheme seems to make sense. (I see on the Skepchick calendar that there’s one scheduled for the 25th of this month.)

The ability to overcome religion means providing alternatives to it, and that means providing spaces for humans to enact community. So, let’s chat about the social, about how we create spaces of community, and how we’ll meet for food and drink.

You can now listen to today’s Atheists Talk, or you can download the mp3. This was the session with Jeff and Lee of KKMS Christian talk radio, and I found it infuriating — they never answered any questions with a straight answer. Out of exasperation, I sent in this question, which was read on the air:

Jeff and Lee were asked a straightforward question: what is their best evidence for a god? Their reply was a shameless exercise in longwinded vacuity. Could they possibly simply ANSWER THE QUESTION, without babbling about the trinity and other such nonsense that even they admit they don’t understand?

That finally got them to try and answer…they claim to believe in a god because the world looks created to them. That’s awfully shallow and silly — they understand even less biology than they do theology, and that answer doesn’t explain at all why they believe in Jesus rather than Thor — but it’s something I’ve encountered often. It reinforces the importance of evolution, and explains why the religious are often so adamant in opposing science: it undercuts their rationale for believing in such goofball ideas.

Theonoma. Look it up.

Remember—Sunday morning at 9 Central tune in to Atheist Talk radio. This week, August Berkshire has two fundamentalist evangelical Christians on the show, Jeff and Lee from the Twin Cities Christian talk radio station, KKMS. I’ve dealt with these guys before, so my lip will be curled the entire hour. August will deal with them politely, you can be sure.

Hank Fox also tells me that Sunday is National Friendship Day. So what say you all try to get out and meet some new atheist friends? Look up your local godless group and see if they’ve got any fun events going on, and get to know someone new and intelligent and interesting? Last week I got to know Makita — there are all kinds of fascinating people out there, so talk to some!