Would you say most atheists are tolerant or intolerant of people with religious beliefs, regardless of how some religious people are toward atheists? I can respect any atheist and their beliefs as long as they are good people and don’t push their agenda on me. My question ultimately leads to a description of the difference between an atheist, and an antitheist.
Thank you for your time.
Posted: May 13th 2011
brian thomson www
I’m not in the USA, but if I look at what’s happening there from the outside, it seems to be getting crazy. The First Amendment in your Bill of Rights clearly forbids the “establishment” of a religion by Congress, which covers the Federal government, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s “Due Process” clause extended that to State and Local governments (see Incorporation Doctrine). That is the law of the land, yet anyone who points out violations of the law is accused of being “intolerant” and “attacking religion”. Get a grip, people!
This complaint about “intolerant atheists” seems, to me, to be confined to the USA. I live in a historically Catholic country, Ireland; one whose history has been shaped by historical religious intolerance at the hands of English Protestant rulers – and yet a transition to a truly secular government seems to be a distinct possibility. It’s more about removing religious intolerance, such as the predominantly Catholic school system that accepts non-Catholic students with the dishonest goal of converting them. When an atheist here points that out, only the Catholic clergy call that intolerant, but it’s obvious that they have a vested interest in the status quo.
Why am I describing the situation in Ireland? To show Christians in the USA that enforcing their Constitution is no threat to their religion. You are free to do as you wish in your own time and on your own property, but you have no right to push religion where it is not wanted: at government buildings, in public schools, or via publicly-funded media. That way, your religion enjoys the same protections as all the other religions – and no religion.
Posted: June 3rd 2011
Dave Hitt www
I can respect any atheist and their beliefs as long as they are good people and don’t push their agenda on me.
That is exactly the way I feel about religous people.
Most of my friends are moderately religious. A very few are very religious. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as they don’t try to force me to do things in the name of their religion.
I do think religion is dangerous and is, overall, a negative force in the world, so I do rally against religion on my blog and in forums. I’m guessing you’d call me an antitheist based on that. But in the real world, if we ever met face to face, it’s quite unlikely the subject would even come up, and if we had something in common (and it doesn’t take much in common to form a friendship) it’s likely we could be friends.
Posted: June 2nd 2011
bitbutter www
Whether or not most atheists (I’ve spoken to) are tolerant of religious beliefs depends a great deal on how we define tolerate.
Tolerate
1. to allow the existence, presence, practice, or act of without prohibition or hindrance; permit.
2. to endure without repugnance; put up with: I can tolerate laziness, but not incompetence.
On the above definition it’s possible to say that many atheists are intolerant of religious belief in the sense that they will vocally challenge it in certain settings—I think it’s fair to characterise this as an attempt to hinder belief (evangelical Christians for instance can be similarly intolerant of atheism).
On the subject of respecting the beliefs of others, I have an old YouTube video explaining why I’d prefer that you don’t respect my beliefs. I have trouble understanding why one would want it any other way.
You’re correct to draw a distinction between atheists and anti-theists. I believe that the anti-theistic subset will tend to be the more visible part, which may skew ones impression of atheists as a group.
Posted: May 16th 2011
donsevers www
Do scientists push chemistry on you? Do climate scientists push climate change on you? No, facts push themselves on all of us. The only way out of this is to resist science. You can do that, but you can’t be scientific while doing so; you can’t have things both ways. If we are going to be scientific, we can’t pick and choose from what it tells us. That’s not scientific.
So, is atheism a scientific claim? I think it is. It is skepticism about god claims. Science is inherently conservative about what it considers knowledge. It has standards of evidence that no theism meets.
So, are atheists tolerant of people with religious beliefs? Sure, we’re tolerant of those people, but not their beliefs. You aren’t, either. You wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, tolerate someone’s belief that they are Elvis. The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is no better than the evidence for Bigfoot. The only reason we treat religious claims differently than other delusions is that we have to get along with the billions of people who hold them. If a billion people believed in Bigfoot, we would tend to nod politely at that belief, too. Except for the atheists. We demand scientific evidence to take something seriously.
We are all skeptics when we buy a house or a car. It’s an important decision, so everything must be well supported. But when it comes to gods, we relax our standards. This makes no sense to a scientific thinker.
Posted: May 15th 2011
George Locke
Bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. (Merriam-Webster)
In general, antitheists are intolerant of religion, not religious people. Antitheists don’t burn churches, assassinate religious leaders, or commit violence of any kind (black metal enthusiasts aside). They may write angry articles attacking religious ideas or argue passionately (or sarcastically) against religious practices, but that is not intolerance. That is disagreement. (If you think that’s intolerance, ask yourself, are there other ideas that are out of bounds for public debate, or just religious ones?) Note that not all atheists are antitheists, and not all antitheists are atheists.
Atheists, just like other people who care about the world, often have political agendas. You wouldn’t fault a civil rights activist for trying to stem the spread of racist ideas, but then you probably agree that racist ideas are poison. You may disagree about whether religious ideas are poison (I don’t agree, at least not categorically), so you may not like it that there are people trying to get rid of them. But it’s going a bit far to say that having a political agenda per se is a bad thing.
(Religious agendas have a problem to the extent that they derive from faith. As a secularist, I feel strongly that faith has no business determining public policy, which ought to be based on reason and evidence.)
Posted: May 15th 2011
logicel
Any atheist is an antitheist towards theocracies. Most atheists are intellectually dismissive of non-evidential beliefs, and that would include religious faith. However, some atheists are more mild mannered while partaking in such criticism, and others are more snarky. Most atheists support the right of religious believers to believe in the nonsense that they do as long as they do not break the law. There are also a number of atheists who believe in belief, that it is just fine for others to suspend rationality and believe in the stuff they themselves dismiss as nonsense.
Note that atheists do not have beliefs, they all share just one aspect in common, and that is the lack of belief in the supernatural/gods. This one atheist, that is me, has no need or desire for your respect, just for your support that I can hold no god belief. I have no respect for any religious belief, but I have total respect for the right to hold these ridiculous views.
Posted: May 14th 2011