Dear Editors,
I was shocked to read Charlotte Allen's recent display of religious bigotry and stereotyping in your paper. Ms. Allen's essay is something that one would expect to find in the "Bible Belt" towns of Shreveport and Bossier City, Louisiana where I live.
But her bigotry wasn't something that I would expect in a major daily newspaper in California.
Instead of criticizing ideas connected to atheism, free-thinking, and naturalistic philosophy, Ms. Allen simply goes to the cheap stereotype ("crashing bores," "atheist victimology," etc).
Imagine if she had done this sort of stereotyping with any other group -- let's say Christians, Jews, Moslems, women, homosexuals, etc. Would the LA Times print unfounded smears about these groups like they did about atheists?
Atheists and other free-thinkers may sound angry but their anger is justified. Given the role that religion (as it is actually practiced and not as it's taught in seminary) has in promoting injustice, ignorance, hatred, war, and terrorism, we can't afford to be unquestioning about religious ideas anymore. Religion is too influential and has the power to hurt too many people to go unquestioned.
For example, Proposition 8 in your state was heavily supported by religious people -- the exit polling showed a strong correlation between church attendance and voting yes on 8. However, atheists and non-religious people didn't support treating some Californians as second-class citizens.
With Charlotte Allen's column in your paper and the recent Proposition 8 vote, it appears that California isn't really that different from a "Bible Belt" state like Louisiana, Texas, or Oklahoma.
You may have better museums, restaurant choices, and entertainment options than we do. But you also appear to have the same religious prejudices that we have in the "Bible Belt." Welcome to the club.
Sincerely,
Steve Caldwell
Bossier City, Louisiana
Commentary on Unitarian Universalist faith development in congregations and the wider liberal religious community
21 May 2009
So Religious Bigotry and Stereotyping is OK if Atheists are the Target? (Response to Charlotte Allen)
Here is my response to Charlotte Allen's recent column in the Los Angeles Times ("Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining," LA Times, 17 May 2009):
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6 comments:
Here is my response to Charlotte Allen's anti-atheist diatribe in the Los Angeles Times as posted to the pertinent blog that responds to her somewhat off-base Op/Ed -
I agree that Charlotte Allen painted atheists with too broad a brush in her Opinion Editorial piece and thus engaged in at least moderate anti-atheist bigotry. Most ironically it seems quite clear from her Op/Ed "rant" that it was the intolerance and bigotry of what I often term "fundamentalist atheists", and sometimes even Atheist Supremacists where this is warranted. . . that provoked her public attack which did not distinguish such intolerant and indeed bigoted atheist zealots such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and P. Z. Myers et al from the more moderate mainstream of atheists who have no great quarrel with believers and seek only to be allowed to adhere to their atheistic world view in peace, if not a reasonable amount of acceptance and even some respect. In fact it seems that a rather bigoted statement made by that world-famous pompous ASS* Richard Dawkins in a recent interview is what set Charlotte off. If she had only inserted the word fundamentalist before atheists or had substituted the term "Atheist Supremacists" for atheists in the following telling statement should could not justifiably be accused of anti-atheist intolerance, prejudice or bigotry at all -
:Maybe atheists wouldn't be so unpopular if they stopped beating the drum until the hide splits on their second-favorite topic: How stupid people are who believe in God. This is a favorite Dawkins theme. In a recent interview with Trina Hoaks, the atheist blogger for the Examiner.com website, Dawkins described religious believers as follows: "They feel uneducated, which they are; often rather stupid, which they are; inferior, which they are; and paranoid about pointy-headed intellectuals from the East Coast looking down on them, which, with some justification, they do." Thanks, Richard!
As we can readily see, professor Richard Dawkins is in full Atheist Supremacist Spokesperson mode here in suggesting that God believing people are uneducated, "rather stupid", and even altogether *inferior* human beings. . . Where have I heard talk of *inferior* human beings before? Yes, Charlotte Allen "misspoke" in painting all atheists with too broad a brush, but Richard Dawkins' rather disturbing Atheist Supremacism, as evidenced by these and other well documented public statements, seems to me to be a rather worse form of intolerance and bigotry. Thank God Richard Dawkins is only a 21st century university professor rather than a high ranking politician in the Stalinist Soviet Union or Maoist China. . .
* Atheist Supremacist Spokesperson
end quote
Allow me to take this opportunity to remind you and other U*Us that anti-religious bigotry and stereotyping is 100% OK in the U*U World if Robin Edgar and other theists are the target. . . In fact, the UUA's very aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee is on record as saying that the quite egregious anti-religious bigotry and stereotyping of one Rev. Ray Drennan is "within the appropriate guidelines of ministerial leadership." I have yet to see the UUA retract that effective endorsement of fundamentalist atheist "Humanist" U*U minister Rev. Raymond Drennan's anti-religious bigotry and stereotyping of yours truly and/or hold him accountable in the slightest manner for his anti-religious bigotry and stereotyping of me personally and God believing people more generally.
Robin wrote:
-snip-
"In fact it seems that a rather bigoted statement made by that world-famous pompous ASS* Richard Dawkins in a recent interview is what set Charlotte off."Robin,
If you're going to post on my blog, you will need to refrain from calling people asses, assholes, or any other typographic cuteness that you've invented for name-calling.
I'm not going to delete your reply but please consider this a fair warning.
Then Robin quoted Richard Dawkins saying the following in a recent interview:
-snip-
"They feel uneducated, which they are; often rather stupid, which they are; inferior, which they are; and paranoid about pointy-headed intellectuals from the East Coast looking down on them, which, with some justification, they do."Yes -- this sounds very rude.
But remember that Professor Dawkins has made some claims and I bet there is some social science data that addresses the claims he has made. Does the available empirical data support what Dawkins has said? If it does, what does that mean?
What do we know about correlation of religious belief with education, intelligence, and/or geography?
Perhaps this would be a more effective approach than name-calling?
And would Dawkins be less "rude" if his statements were accurate? And if he were accurate, would that change anything for us?
Keep in mind that Dawkins (from what I've seen in his interviews, documentaries, and books) is a cautious and measured speaker.
His world view is grounded in naturalism and what can be observed.
I haven't heard him make any "Fundamentalist Atheist" claims like "I know there are no god or gods" based on belief and not evidence.
Dawkins describes himself as an agnostic who is a de facto atheist -- a person who cannot know for certain but who thinks God is very improbable and lives life on the assumption that God does not exist.
This sounds very non-fundamentalist to me (and I live in the "Bible Belt" of the USA -- I have first-hand knowledge of Fundamentalism in religion).
People who believe in god probably don't realize it but folks like Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, etc are doing them a favor as one can see from the following quote:
"It is the role of unbelievers to force religions to be benign." Martin Marty (Lutheran theologian)
:But remember that Professor Dawkins has made some claims and I bet there is some social science data that addresses the claims he has made.
Right. . . Did you ever hear of Social Darwinism Steve? Proponents of Social Darwinism, eugenics (a Unitarian favorite. . .), and some forms of racism or ethnic discrimination often pretend to have "social science data" backing their claims.
:Does the available empirical data support what Dawkins has said? If it does, what does that mean?
Good question Steve. Does the "available empirical data" support Richard Dawkins' assertion that religious people are "uneducated", "rather stupid", and no less than *inferior* human beings? You tell me Steve. . . I will willingly concede that *some* religious people are indeed uneducated and even rather stupid, but the same can be said about *some* atheists including no shortage of the obviously uneducated and rather stupid followers of Richard Dawkins and P. Z. Myers. . .
When people start suggesting that other people are "inferior" however they are skating on very thin ice. White Supremacists believe that non-whites aka "people of color" are *inferior* people. Atheist Supremacists like Richard Dawkins believe that God believing people are *inferior*. Do you really want to join *that* club Steve? I do not call Richard Dawkins an Atheist Supremacist Spokesperson for nothing you know. He has repeatedly suggested that God believing people, or what he name calls "faith heads"* are less intelligent or otherwise inferior to atheists. What do you think got Charlotte Allen's back up?
As for the rest of your dubious apologetics supporting Richard Dawkins and other Atheist Supremacists there is plenty of empirical evidence available showing that he and they are often rather less than measured in their words about religion and God believing people. Right now I have better things to do than thoroughly rebut the rest of your comment but it can be done easily enough. As far as your parting shot argument from authority goes all I will say is tell that to Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. . .
Robin wrote:
-snip-
"Did you ever hear of Social Darwinism Steve? Proponents of Social Darwinism, eugenics (a Unitarian favorite. . .), and some forms of racism or ethnic discrimination often pretend to have "social science data" backing their claims.Robin,
I'm very aware of this history. I've read Stephen J. Gould's book The Mismeasure of Man that addresses the misuse of science to argue for inborn biological differences between different races and genders with respect to intelligence.
I don't think that any of the "new atheist" writers are saying anything like that. They are not saying that differences in religious views lead to unchanging innate biological differences in intelligence.
I do know that some of them may consider some traditional religious thought to be a harmful environmental influence due to its effects on education, politics, science, etc.
Again, I'll throw these questions back to you:
(1) What do we know about correlation of religious belief with education, intelligence, and/or geography?
(2) If the available data backs up what you're assuming that Dawkins said (more about that assumption later), are there other explanations for the observations?
I will address your quoting of Dawkins out of context in my next reply.
Robin,
I should have looked up the Dawkins interview quote to see the context for his words instead of trusting you to not quote someone out of context because you have quoted him out of context.
In the interest of full disclosure, the Dawkins quote you mentioned can be found here:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2044-Atheism-Examiner~y2009m4d14-Meeting-Richard-Dawkins-Part-3--The-interview
Dawkins is not talking about all religious believers.
He's talking about that subset of religious believers who reject evolutionary biology.
Here's the interview quote with enough surrounding context so you and others can decide for themselves about what Dawkins is saying in the following bold text:
Trina Hoaks: There is so much controversy about evolution, as I am sure you are well aware. What are your thoughts on why certain religious people tend to focus more on evolution than, say, paleontology or archeology, which can certainly be just as damaging to their religious texts as is the theory of evolution?
Richard Dawkins: Well, paleontology, of course, is one of the main evidences for evolution, so that goes there. I suppose it’s become a kind of red-rag issue. It’s become like their piece of tokenism in a way. They feel uneducated, which they are, often rather stupid, which they are, inferior, which they are, and paranoid about pointy headed intellectuals from the east coast looking down on them, which, with some justification, they do. They tend to be the sort of people who vote for Sara Palin instead of voting for someone who’s qualified to lead the country. They think “I’d rather vote for someone who’s just like me” under this weird idea that they want to be governed by people who are just like them. Similarly, I think there is a sort of inferiority complex and that could be part of it. I suppose it’s also true that much of science doesn’t directly contradict what’s in the Bible whereas evolution does. But mainly, it’s become a sort of red-rag issue by historical tradition.Since there are groups of religious believers who do accept the findings of evolutionary biology and paleontology (e.g. Roman Catholic Church, Judaism, mainline Protestant denominations, Unitarian Universalism, etc), it would be inaccurate to say these things about all religious believers.
Furthermore, Dawkins isn't saying that about all religious believers -- just those who reject paleontology and evolutionary biology because it directly conflicts with their hermeneutic model for the Bible.
And if you continue to assert that Richard Dawkins was talking about all religious believers in his quote, you will demonstrate to us that you want to be intellectually dishonest.
Perhaps you owe Professor Dawkins a retraction and an apology?
Robin wrote:
-snip-
Right now I have better things to do than thoroughly rebut the rest of your comment but it can be done easily enough.Robin,
Before you begin rebutting anything, you may want to first apologize for quoting Professor Dawkins out of context. I would suggest that you owe both Dawkins and the readers of this blog an apology.
Then Robin wrote:
-snip-
As far as your parting shot argument from authority goes all I will say is tell that to Stalin, Mao and Pol PotGee ... I thought you would have appreciated a pithy quote from a Christian theologian and Lutheran minister like Martin Marty.
It wasn't an "argument from authority" -- simply an observation from a religious believer like yourself who appreciates what non-believers do to help religion be better.
Regarding logical fallacies, the Stalin - Pol Pot reference is a textbook example of an "association fallacy":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy
Here's a brief description from Wikipedia:
"An association fallacy is an inductive formal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association."In some cases, an association fallacy can also be an ad hominem fallacy.
Again, you're pushing the envelope for respectful discourse here and that raises concerns that you would rather engage in name-calling instead of dialogue with others.
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