I felt violated, as I have recently succeeded in quitting drinking without “God’s” help. So, I picked the right moment and spoke up about the fact that the AA textbook was dated, and was using an old definition of atheism (namely that atheism is putting forward the positive claim that Gods do not exist, rather than the definition that I use — that atheism is simply not agreeing with the unproven claims of the various religions). The meetings are held in a rented church classroom, so I was sure to tread lightly. Nobody was offended, but one fellow was persistent in classifying me as “agnostic” so I told him that we probably are just using a different definition and gave him a firm handshake. Everyone thanked me for speaking up, and most agreed that it was fine to replace the word “god” for whatever I personally believe/disbelieve.

Anyway, I think it would have been a perfect opportunity for you to speak up at the Habitat for Humanity event. I think people’s response would have been positive. (choice of words, tone, and demeanor chosen carefully, as always).

for example you could have just waited to the end of the prayer and said: “and I’d just like to add that nonbelievers are interested in helping too”

You have publicly made a religious claim that is vague or has no trustworthy basis in fact. If I had remained silent, you might have erroneously assumed that I agreed with you. Because I value our relationship, though, I am hereby taking this moment to advise you of my disagreement.

http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/04/15/gentle-%e2%80%9cmiranda-warning%e2%80%9d-cards-for-religious-moderates/

Consider the morning prayer that used to start the school day in public schools. The practice was stopped because it was said to promote religion on public schools. That I find a plausible argument. However, the minute of silence that many teachers started after the prayer ban to me seemed a good idea as it allowed the students a transition from socializing with their friends to a mental state that allowed them to be more focused on the class material that was about to be presented.
The minute of silence was stricken down as also encouraging religion in public school.

I don’t buy into the second argument. In the first case, we had a government employee leading the class in a religion specific ritual, in the second case, any religious student had the freedom to pray silently as their own religion specified, and those that were not religious could look around contemplate their recess plans or whatever.

You can’t push someone in to a specific philosophy. You can only reason with them and let them decide. Your rights end where their rights begin, but the reverse is also true, and this is why religion has no place in government.

A closer look at the “Nones” — people who said “None” when asked their religious identity — shows that this group (now 15% of Americans, up from 8% in 1990) opts out of traditional religious rites of passage.

It’s a continuum, you’re right, but the chips always seem to fall to their side of the table if we give them the benefit of the social doubt and I’m tired of it. It may be that they don’t know what they’re espousing is nonsense—that they “borrow” their opinions from some large pool of belief—but ask yourself how this plays out if someone were to start talking about the “fact” that [name your ethnic group] are all lazy and do nothing but make babies and draw welfare. The speaker may well believe that’s true. Are you polite to them? Of course not, but the current zeitgeist is on your side if you call them on it. It doesn’t make it any less the case when a believer spouts nonsense, but the zeitgeist is on their side.

I sympathize with Kurtz and was making no prescriptions for anyone but myself. For me, I no longer believe patient persuasion is worth the effort when every interaction as already rigged to validate the bullshit because we aren’t prepared to say as much.

I should clarify a few things.

1. When I hear people claiming that the Earth is 6,000 old or that Jesus actually walked on water, I think to myself that these are absurdities and that these people either A) don’t really mean what they are saying or B) that they are severely disconnected from reality. For various reasons having to do with the critically important evolutionarily-honed function of social bonding I suspect that MOST of the people making these claims don’t really mean what they are saying. I have come to this tentative conclusion based many things, including my own observations, the Soloman Asch experiments regarding group conformity from the 50’s, Zahavi’s writings regarding the expensive signaling, Geoffrey Miller’s writings regarding the use of ideologies as social displays and many other sources.

2. In my experience, believers have practiced the ability to click into “religion” mode and utter these sorts of fantastic claims to facilitate group bonding. Though the words they are saying are not literally true, they are not using these words to convey a literal truth; instead, they are using their words to navigate social space. In my mind, believers’ undisciplined thinking does not rise to the intentionality of lying. These are people who are uttering things that are important to them (in terms of group cohesiveness) but not literally true. Assisted by these displays of belief (which do not equate to actual belief—see Daniel Dennett’s claim that they believe in belief), kind-hearted groups of religious folks are more able to accomplish kind-hearted things, and hard-hearted groups of religious people attempt to accomplish terrible things.

3. I’ve come to a position much like Paul Kurtz after repeatedly considering this question: “What is my end game?” When someone comes to my door and tells me that I’m going to go to hell unless I affirm the divinity of Jesus, I need to decide what to do about this person. Is it my job to destroy his or her religious beliefs? Or rather, would I get most of what I’m after by merely letting them know that their views are simplistic and unfair? What I mostly want to accomplish is to create a community that stops treating non-believers as per se immoral and dangerous. I want to stop the bigotry. I want people to stop stereotyping non-believers. I can survive quite well in a world where there are religious believers who don’t try to confiscate the power of government to enforce their supernatural world view on others and where they don’t try to exclude non-believers from full participation as citizens. In my view, believers should be free to believe whatever they want, and to practice whatever they want as private citizens and in private spaces like churches. Here’s one other thing I’d like to accomplish: while I’m trying to stop the bigotry, I also want to challenge believers to be self-critical when they consider the merits of their own religious claims; this is not so much to damage their religious beliefs but to soften their sense of certainty so that they are more willing to show tolerance toward non-believers.

4. If I call proselytizers “idiots,” or ridicule them for the sport of it, this merely reinforces their stereotype of non-believers as angry and dangerous people; in my experience, attacking believers makes them dig in further and become even more certain of their beliefs. Thus, I think that Richard Dawkins was not furthering my end game in his 2006 interview published by Time Magazine, Dawkins (referring to fundamentalists, stated: “Why bother with these clowns?” (“God vs. Science, Nov 5, 2006. Web version at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132-1,00.html). As much as it viscerally feels good to mutter the word “idiot” when people make unsupported claims, it doesn’t further my end game (not that I don’t sometimes silently utter ridicule at people in my own head when I hear far-fetched claims). I believe that non-believers need to conduct ourselves as good-will ambassadors for other non-believers. Therefore, I try to avoid ridicule for the sake of ridicule, but not just because I’m trying to be nice, but because in my opinion it is more likely to advance my end game. This is not to say that I won’t deliver hard blows to the supernatural claims themselves; I sometimes will. But I no longer feel the need to shoot down every religious claim I hear uttered in my presence. Just because I disagree with someone (including the claims of non-believers) doesn’t mean that I always feel compelled to speak up.

5. Again, I don’t always have the patience to practice what I preach; there’s a huge gray area running from the believer and the supernatural claims he/she utters. To the extent that people strongly identify with the things they utter, they would like to claim that any attack on their ideas is a personal attack. I don’t buy that. Believers quite often claim that I am attacking THEM when I criticize their beliefs, but they will have to live with that, on those occasions when I choose to speak up (just like they will subject me to their own criticism when I speak out).

6. My end game has this to offer: In terms of how to run our world, many believers have far more in common with me than some non-believers. I’m not going to mouth off an spoil an incredibly fruitful working relationship because I disagree with a believer’s world view. If we’re both out to achieve the same type of widespread social justice, I don’t feel compelled to always say something critical and questioning when I hear someone say “Thank God” or “I can’t make that appointment, because I will be going to church.” I think it’s often much better to letter some issues slide by in order to preserve what is highly functional working social relationship. I was thinking thoughts like these last week when the dozens of volunteers for Habitat for Humanity started their day with a prayer to their “God.” http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/10/15/let-the-free-market-take-care-of-all-of-our-problems-except-for-our-houses/ I was thinking to myself, “These are good and decent people. They are not fundamentalists who are trying to divest me of my political rights. They are not intending to demean me by saying this prayer, even if I do feel a bit excluded. Let’s go build some houses!”

7. Gandhi once said, “Hate the sin; love the sinner.” How about this as a paraphrase: “Hate the ignorance; love the ignorant.” Or at least don’t overlook that opportunity to work with good-hearted people to make the world a better place just because they believe in supernatural beings.

Then there is of course being the spoiler at family gatherings sort of blackmail, in which grand dad goes off on the miracle he experienced etc etc and aren’t all those scientists just a bunch of curmudgeons for wanting to take our superstitions away from us. Again, they rely on the fact that no one wants to fart at dinner to pull this off.

And of course we have the ubiquitous mailings at holiday seasons where relatives and friends get roped into forwarding nonsense in the guise of the “Oh, we’ve turned our back on god so Katrina drowned a bunch of people” meme. And when you point out to them that it’s a fraudulent claim, YOU’RE the asshole for not believing in god.

It’s all blackmail and they depend on our unwillingness to call them on it.

As I’ve noted before, proselytes who knock on your door with “The Good News” have to make a basic assumption about you before they do—that you’re stupid, ignorant, or evil. It’s a de facto insult and to remedy your benighted condition they have this no-obligation free for a limited offer of salvation based on chanting, the giving of money, and the denial of reason.

IT’S CRAP.

And I’m convinced that either they know explicitly what they’re doing or simply don’t care because they’ve elevated their neuroses above any other consideration.

Based on that assumption, being polite fixes nothing and simply justifies them in their continued purveyance of nonsense.

But of course we, being reasonable and decent people, we’re the ones left feeling guilty when we kick their puppies, and they rely on THAT, too.

Bullshit.