{"id":278,"date":"2012-08-02T07:56:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T11:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=278"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:25","slug":"the-persecuted-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Persecuted Atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, the Financial Times put together a sob story<\/a> about the ruthless persecution of atheists in the United States.\u00a0 The writer collects a number of anecdotes of discomfort at family gatherings, difficulty rising through the ranks of the Boy Scouts, and worst of all, lost baby-sitting opportunities.\u00a0 Of course, I doubt that any of these brave atheists would be inclined to trade places with the 100,000 Christians who are murdered for the faith every year<\/a>.\u00a0 What is most striking about the piece, however, is not the triviality of the “persecution”; it is the complete obliviousness to exactly why atheists rank lower on America’s social totem pole than gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, and so forth.<\/p>\n

The author inadvertently provides the quintessential example at the end of the piece with a woman living in Alabama.\u00a0 Though this poor, persecuted young lady admittedly has the love and pride of her family, one thing is still missing:\u00a0 she’s not allowed to babysit.\u00a0 This might just seem like another trivial discomfort brought on by her beliefs, except for the fact that she goes on to explain exactly why she’s not allowed to babysit:\u00a0 “I have all these cousins who need babysitters but they\u2019re afraid I\u2019ll teach them about evolution, and I probably would.”\u00a0 So… she’s not allowed to babysit because she has every intention of undermining parents on a subject they obviously find to be important.\u00a0 How she can complain about not being trusted when she is admittedly untrustworthy is a mystery.\u00a0 It’s not just her, though–the only thing the author finds “extraordinary” about the situation is that the parents<\/em> would hold such a view.<\/p>\n

The ongoing misunderstanding in this article and society at large is that discomfort at atheists fulfilling certain societal roles is some kind of a religious test.\u00a0 As the article notes, “Americans” tend to be more ok with minorities such as Jews and Muslims despite their different religions.\u00a0 For that matter, a polytheist will probably receive the Republican nomination for president.\u00a0 In light of such facts, the better explanation is that the test is ethical rather than religious.\u00a0 Yes, I know; atheists can be just as moral as Christians.\u00a0 This is true to a point, but there is still the matter of the first table of the Law–the one with commandments necessarily excluded by atheism. As many scholars have noted, the common ethical beliefs across cultures nearly universally mirror a generic reading of the Ten Commandments.\u00a0 This includes the commandments about respecting the supreme benevolent being or beings and refraining from blasphemy.\u00a0 Why then should we expect people to not look in askance on those who intentionally flout these universal ethics?\u00a0 Mormons and Muslims may be blatantly wrong in their beliefs, but they do respect a higher power–they’d fail a religious test, but pass a generic ethical one.\u00a0 On the other hand, go right back to the example of the baby-sitter girl to see what happens when one sees herself as the highest possible authority by default.\u00a0 Even those atheists who do embrace a “higher power” tend to embrace the constantly shifting and politicized winds of scientific consensus.\u00a0 Even if it were reliable, however, the fact that it’s methodologically blind to things like goodness and beauty make it a poor higher power indeed with respect to ethics and how we ought<\/em> to live amongst each other.<\/p>\n

When religious people see the most popular atheists openly compare religious upbringing to child-abuse & write books about ending religious faith and then look at the track record of 20th century atheist political leaders who have actually had the power to do something about it, we get understandably nervous.\u00a0 After all, a substantial part of those ongoing 100,000 annual martyrdoms are still at the hands of atheists in countries like North Korea, Vietnam, China, etc.\u00a0 We aren’t oblivious to people condemning us as hopelessly ignorant and then desperately trying to make sure our children and our society are “safe” from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, the Financial Times put together a sob story about the ruthless persecution of atheists in the United States.\u00a0 The writer collects a number of anecdotes of discomfort at family gatherings, difficulty rising through the ranks of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,23],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Persecuted Atheist - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Persecuted Atheist - The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Earlier this year, the Financial Times put together a sob story about the ruthless persecution of atheists in the United States.\u00a0 The writer collects a number of anecdotes of discomfort at family gatherings, difficulty rising through the ranks of the … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-02T11:56:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-24T11:17:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matt\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"headline\":\"The Persecuted Atheist\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-02T11:56:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/\"},\"wordCount\":661,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Atheism\",\"Ethics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/\",\"name\":\"The Persecuted Atheist - The 96th Thesis\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-02T11:56:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:25+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-persecuted-atheist\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Persecuted Atheist\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The 96th Thesis\",\"description\":\"The Devil Never Sleeps; 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