Notes from Evil Bender

I present the following as an observation about the differences between us mean atheists and reasonable religious people.

Last week I attended a honors society dinner at my University. The speaker was a nice business and accounting professor who spoke in vague platitudes, as is the near universally-accepted method at events like these. Then, for his last point of the night, he began by saying “I know this is a public University, but…” and I knew we were in trouble. Sure enough, he went on to say that he hoped we didn’t wait for times to get tough before we “darkened the door of a church, temple or mosque.”

Now I expect vague religious sentiments at these sorts of events, and they generally do not bother me. But this was different: he obviously thought he was being inclusive, but not only was he (as is usual in American society) leaving out the godless, he was also being dismissive of anyone whose belief systems don’t involve spending weekends inside buildings having someone who dresses funny tell you how to live your life. He wasn’t just endorsing connection with one’s “spirituality” or vague religiosity: no, he wanted to urge his audience to participate in organized religion.

Imagine the reaction if he’d instead asked his readers to “darken the door” or a CCommunist Party meeting or a gathering of John Birch society loons.

But what struck me most about this speech was that our speaker’s faux-inclusiveness stood in sharp relief against another speech: PZ Myers’ commencement speech to the Keck School of Medicine. Quoth PZ:

Go ahead, be offensive. I’m offensive all the time, and I’ve got reams of hate mail to prove it. I say that women should have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies, and are just as good at science as men, and the angry mail streams in. I say that gay people should have the same rights as straight people, and I have offended a vocal horde right there. I say that all religion is foolish tosh and an affront to reason and the dignity of humankind, and boy, do I get outraged letters. And it’s all good. You don’t have to agree with everything I say, because the role of the public intellectual is to spark the argument and provoke change, not to dictate it. Do it.

PZ has a well-earned reputation of being an outspoken atheist and harsh critic of religion, a role he is exceptionally good at. He’s one of the mean “new atheists,” we’re told on a regular basis, who wants to shove his atheism down others throat. Yet PZ, mean ogre atheist general, encourages those who disagree with him to speak out. He makes no effort at conversion: quote the opposite! He wants a vocal public debate. Such is the sin of the new atheists.

Meanwhile, as PZ is advocating discussion and encouraging dissent, Mr Nice Professor at the honors dinner is blathering about how important it is to participate in organized religion, making no allowances for the non-religious or those whose religious path differs from organized hierarchical models.

Admittedly, this is only one comparison, but it’s part of a larger pattern I see: atheists are told we’re big meanies for expressing our opinions, while religious people routinely proselytize for their worldview, insist that our only hope is to share their belief in superstition, and demean and exclude atheists from the public discourse wherever possible. Not all religious folks do it, but a lot of them do, and religiosity is so culturally ingrained that they don’t even seem to realize they’re doing it.

Which is to say, this sort of interaction is something to keep in mind the next time you see someone ripping atheists for being nasty and mean.