Loud Atheism

"We are star stuff." ~Carl Sagan
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Lately I've been seeing a lot of the same bullshit, written in different ways, from the religious community AND from other atheists.

"Don't disrespect my beliefs"
"Believe what you want but shut up about it"
"Some atheists just don't know how to be respectful"
"I don't care what you do, just don't disrespect my religion"
"Atheism is a religion"
"Atheists MUST believe in god since they talk about it so much"
"You can think what you want, but..."

and it goes on and on.

The noted author/speaker Sherman Alexie, who I've always had great respect for, lost some of it when he recently tweeted "I choose not to call myself atheist because of the proselytizing."

I'll address Alexie shortly.

To get directly to the point of it, it seems that the ability for atheists to form communities, to find like minds, and to spread their ideas to the general public is causing the religious panties to bunch.

The religious are not generally known for their enjoyment of differing viewpoints, but when you toss an atheist in the mix they seem either completely confused, totally ignorant, or stupidly violent.

The problem? Atheists finally have a forum to voice their points of view, after centuries of oppression and murder.  Atheists don't have to worry about being stoned to death these days, and atheism is growing steadily in the wake of the aging baby boomer population, the decline of the republican party in many ways, and that information previously unavailable is now all over the internet for people to learn from.

When someone tells you not to disrespect their beliefs, often what they are really saying is "stop questioning my worldview."  People can only feel their beliefs are disrespected by contrary information if that information is in some way personally inflammatory; otherwise, it's usually the fear that comes along with the unknown.

Humans don't like change.

When someone tells you "you can believe what you want, but..." what they are really saying is "you can believe something else as long as you don't ever talk to me about it or assert that you're correct."  People will cling to their indoctrinations like lifeboats, because that's all they know and all they're interested in knowing.  Any time there's a "but" involved, it's the same as when someone says:

"Free will was given to us."

Sigh.

Moving on, to be told, after centuries of persecution, hate, murder, torture, and other religious AND secular oppression, that atheists need to be quiet, stop "proselytizing" or "persecuting" religions is abhorrently ridiculous.

Oppression will NEVER stop unless people are VOCAL about it stopping.  One cannot live freely in a society that keeps them quiet to maintain the status quo. One cannot live freely when they are told, at every turn, that their lives are incomplete because they don't bow to the mainstream. One cannot live freely when they are constantly told they are going to burn in fiery pits or be stoned to death or beheaded for their beliefs. To have people from the top 3 religions in the world claim that atheists are PERSECUTING them is, on face, absurd.  How on earth are we persecuting the very groups which have oppressed us and continue to try doing so for centuries?

We're not. We're just finally getting loud about it.

To address Mr. Alexie's comment, I don't know what he calls himself when it comes to religion. He's a native american, but I don't know him well enough to say what his personal beliefs are.  My issue comes with the "proselytizing" part.

I have to see bible verses on cars, billboards, twitter, facebook, and church signs daily. I have to listen to people tell me how my life can't be moral because I don't believe in gods. I have to explain to people that atheism is simply this:
a=without
theos=belief in gods

It is not a religion, there is no dogma, we don't agree with each other on many things, and we do NOT believe in "god" because we talk about it with the religious--we believe that the religious believe in a god.

I have to deal with people like Joel Osteen & Deepak Chopra, not to mention the televangelists; I won't even get started on the fundamentalists that prowl around with flags and Pro-life signs with Jesus holding dead fetal tissue (seen just yesterday).  I drive past the hundreds of churches, mosques, temples, etc on a daily basis, all of which attempt to draw you in with either fear or promises of chocolate eggs if you put ashes on your head for a day.

My point is, how is it that WE proselytize, yet have no religion we wish to convert people to? How is trying to explain a point of view not well understood to the indoctrinated anything but a wish to be seen as equal human beings?

I'm sure there are atheists somewhere going "shit yeah, let's take another one away from christ or allah or whatever" but I have yet to see them. The atheists I know are just sick and tired of life being explained by magic dictators, mystical animals, and other ridiculous, unprovable nonsense.  Do we sometimes get annoyed? Sure.  However, I've yet to see an atheist condemn another to...er, nothingness after dying.  For most of us, we want to be understood and recognized as a legitimate group within society.

To address a few other things I've seen, quickly:
Atheists are capable of morals because morals are inherent AND societally taught;
This country was NOT founded on christianity, nor were its founders mostly christian
Hitler was not a fucking atheist, holy shit.
Atheists celebrate holidays for the same reasons you do: presents and family.
Einstein was NOT fucking religious. STOP THAT.
There are atheists in foxholes, on planes going down, and on their deathbeds.
Atheists laugh out loud when you tell us we're going to hell.

There are many more, but these I've seen most recently.

I suppose I'll end this rant here, for the moment. This issue is dear to me, so I reserve the right to edit in the future.