Sunday Morning Blasphemy: Death Threats Against Atheists
on July 1, 2012 at 10:16 am
Whenever I point out that religious people routinely attack or threaten to attack atheists, the Fat Smug Bastard, himself a devout Christian, tells me that atheists would do the same if the roles were reversed. That is to say to, if atheists were the dominant (non) belief system, we would threaten, beat up and kill the religious.
This is utterly not true.
Two things: First, atheists do not feel threatened by a belief in the supernatural. “I believe in God!” is no cause for concern to us. People believe in all kinds of unsubstantiated things. People believe in UFOs, too and that doesn’t bother atheists. What we do feel threatened by is the statement, “I believe in God and you must obey His laws! Or else…” And then comes the violence. Atheists do not do this. You will never hear a rational atheist say “You must not believe in the supernatural! Or else…”
Second: We already have real world examples where religion is the minority. In several European countries, like Estonia and Sweden, the majority of the population is atheist/agnostic/can’t be bothered. Yet, there is no equivalent systematic prejudice against the religious minority. They are not assaulted, murdered or publicly denounced.
The problem is that religion is used by far too many as a means to seize and maintain power. Look at the Republican Party; they use Republican Jesus™ to whip their followers into a religious frenzy over gay marriage and abortion then tell them that tax cuts for the rich is what Jesus would want. The mere lack of belief or, even worse, actively challenging the existence of the supernatural, is a direct threat to an existing power structure. Therefor, atheists are vilified by those that wish to keep their power and they instruct their followers to hate and fear us as well. It just doesn’t work in the other direction.
Great article.
So far, I stand with Justin, the writer of the article, and Roger, who wrote it was a great article.
Atheists have nothing to prove or maintain, but those in faith based religions always do. And when people have something they must prove, they strive to obtain power first, such as with the Roman Catholic Church, and then they start telling everyone how things should be and use Jesus and God as there source. Atheists just don’t believe in faith based religions. And they aren’t particularly concerned with those who do. They are, however, and naturally, concerned when some religious persons ban together to show their intolerance of others, that is, when that intolerance becomes overt threats to non-believers. Atheists, those without cognitive issues, do not try to grab power so they can force everyone to believe what they believe. It just isn’t done by Atheists, but it IS done by those groups with religious beliefs.
As much as I’d like to believe that atheists in power wouldn’t oppress their fellow citizens, history doesn’t support that claim. People are people, and the worst of us seize on power as an excuse to shut out others, or to bend them to our will. Religion gives useful cover to this behavior, but only one sort of cover.
Your second paragraph should have something to back it up. Simply stating its not there is not convincing enough. Any where there is a strong majority that is not encouraged to embrace those who see differently you will have such sparks of tension. Its not a faith, race or some kind of issue caused by anything like that. Its simply caused by an intolerant vocal minority driven by fear. I know first hand speaking with intolerant atheist who have said very unkind things to me. It goes both ways.
How do you prove a negative? If there is no notable amount of violence/threats against the religious in Sweden, there would be nothing to “prove” that except its absence. On the other hand, it would be very easy to disprove. A couple of reports of regular attacks on the religious or acts of discrimination would do it.
It would be proven with the same studies that prove otherwise. Surveys. Now would someone in those countries have done surveys to find out if there’s any prejudice and hate from the majority towards the minority I don’t know but when you make such an affirmative like something never happens, or things never go a certain way, then it should be backed up with something instead of just the claim.
Mmmmmm! Babies!! No seriously, well said! Too bad that no one besides other atheists will ever read it. Even it they did it wouldn’t make any difference because the religious cannot be made accountable for anything. Everything they do & think is justified and is always right…end even if they are wrong, god will forgive them.
it sucks
Interesting that there is a demand for proof yet proof exists in the absence of violence against churches and religious people in those countries where the majority of non-religious people exist.
I suspect the problem is those who believe in the supernatural don’t want to believe their own behavior is worse. Ah well.
On this I must disagree with you. The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism, which largely required individuals to profess atheism, stay away from churches and even vandalize them, especially during the Stalinist era. China, too, is an atheistic state that arrests and imprisons believers.
the soviet union was communist not atheist same for other communist countries and no they didn’t force anyone to be an atheist
I just want to point out the levle of intelligence in this whole discussion. Thank you for providing something for us to think about and thank you responders who retort with intellect and respect.
Sorry about the typo. (oh, the irony…)
No. 1 — the writer seems to equate “religion” with Christianity. There are, in fact, many world religions.
No. 2 — many of the world battles waged over the centuries were between sects of a major religion, e.g., the Sunnis and Shiites, Protestants and Catholics
No. 3 — there are also many wars fought in the name of secularism, e.g., Nazism
No. 4 — Christians today are being martyred world-over by other religions (Muslims, for example) and atheists (North Korea, for example)