On Picking Our Battles

Since my recent encounter with La Vista Mayor Douglas Kindig, a small part of the criticism I've received has come from other atheists.  They've joined some Christians in not understanding how Separation of Church and State works and getting the details of what happened wrong.

A post about it on Atheist Republic is a great example of atheists getting it wrong.  They got numerous small details wrong, including when I approached the mayor.  Their post claims I approached him "in the midst of" the event when I intentionally waited until the event was over.  It's a small detail, but it shows the disregard for accuracy (or perhaps honesty) that permeates that post.

But worse than the lazy writing in this hyperbolic work of click-bait, is the opinion offered by the author at the end of the post:

While I am certainly disturbed by the mayors alleged sentiments, I must in rare form disagree with the atheist activist in question about any alleged violation of separation of church and state here. While the city may have organized the event, they state that it was funded by local church groups who are not part of the government body. Additionally the event was held at a public park which is open to all the public and no one was denied entry as far as we know.

I think we need to pick our battles a bit better than this, because things of this nature give off the appearance of being petty and intentionally confrontational when no confrontation is necessary.

But that's just my two cents.

He starts by acknowledging that the city organized the event.  Nothing said after that is relevant.  Who paid for the event is not relevant.  It was exclusively and explicitly Christian, and it was part of the official La Vista event called La Vista Daze.  No effort was made to even consider anything else.  When we asked the city about it, they admitted that it had never occurred to them.    Of course the city states they didn't do anything wrong.  That's what they would be doing either way.  But one thing is key and undeniable.

The city organized the event.

The fact that it was on public property is not at all relevant.  The Constitutional issue would still be there if it had happened exactly as it did on private property.  And there would be no issue if it had been the churches having the event on their own in the same location.  The location isn't the issue.  The issue is the fact that the city organized the event.

Regarding picking our battles, the author reveals even more of his ignorance of the situation.  Ignorance that would have been avoided if he'd done 2 cents worth of research before posting.

He clearly never found my initial post on the matter, where he could have learned that I wasn't looking for a battle at all.  I attempted a civil discussion.  It only blew up because of the mayor's reaction.

He may also have learned that the response from Omaha Atheists was to use the attention educate and to reach out to believers in the community to open dialogue between our groups.

I've since had the meeting with the mayor that I was seeking that day, where he apologized in person for his outburst.  The city appears like they will be taking my concerns seriously, which at this point is all I was asking for.

I also spoke to the city council and have offered to participate in the planning of future events to help ensure inclusiveness by representing a group not currently considered.  After I spoke, the preacher who organized the event in question spoke, praising Omaha Atheists for our civility and willingness to work together.

He did get one thing right though.  No confrontation was necessary.  Other than the outburst that made news, that we've since moved beyond, no confrontation has been necessary.  So far, all parties are working together civilly.

So, who has "the appearance of being petty and intentionally confrontational when no confrontation is necessary"?  The group who is working toward a litigation free resolution to a legitimate issue or the blogger who picked a fight with a fellow atheist by writing an ill-informed, hyperbolic, and dishonest piece to get some extra hits?

If this writer at Atheist Republic gives a shit about honesty, I suggest he pick his battles better than this.

Atheism Is Not An Intellectual Luxury For The Wealthy - An Open LetterTo Chris Arnade

The following is an open letter to Chris Arnade, in response to his article on AlterNet, titled "Is Atheism an Intellectual Luxury for the Wealthy?" (originally in The Guardian).

My answer to the question you pose in the title of your article, is an adamant "no".

You start the article with a story from your adolescence similar, in regards to interactions with believers, to the stories many of us who were atheists at that age have.

Preacher Man's eyes narrowed. He pointed at me, "You are an APE-IEST. An APE-IEST. You going to lead a life of sin and end in hell."

You then describe your later life.

Three years later I did escape my town, eventually receiving a PhD in physics, and then working on Wall Street for 20 years. A life devoted to rational thought, a life devoted to numbers and clever arguments. During that time I counted myself an atheist and nodded in agreement as a wave of atheistic fervor swept out of the scientific community and into the media, led by Richard Dawkins.

You're incorrectly equating atheism & science and lending credibilty to the silly notion that Dawkins is some kind atheist Pope, but that's only minor criticism.  My problem is more with what followed.

I eventually left my Wall Street job and started working with and photographing homeless addicts in the South Bronx. When I first walked into the Bronx I assumed I would find the same cynicism I had towards faith. If anyone seemed the perfect candidate for atheism it was the addicts who see daily how unfair, unjust, and evil the world can be.

You expected the homeless drug addicts to be atheists.  This is insulting for a number of reasons and reveals your ignorance in a few ways.

When you expected to meet other atheists you assumed they would be just like you, as if we're all identically cynical.  The atheists I've met have been the least cynical group of people I've ever encountered.  I tend to be fairly cynical, and it shows most when shown next to the optimism of the atheists I know.  And yet we still constantly face this stereotype.  Maybe you didn't know many atheists or knew nothing of what atheism really is, but either way, you were reinforcing that stereotype.  I doubt that was your intention, but it was nevertheless the result.

In addition to your ignorance about atheists, you reveal an even greater ignorance of both the poor and of religion.  The most common path from religion to atheism is indeed a level of inquiry not available to the homeless, whose entire focus is rightly on merely surviving.  This fact could have been a good argument in favor of a "yes" answer to your titular question, but you didn't address it all.  I suspect you left it unaddressed because it never even occurred to you.  If you'd realized that economic status is not relevant to belief in a god, you'd probably have spared us the article entirely.

How else could you have been so surprised that they're not only believers, but they're more so than most others?

None of them are. Rather they are some of the strongest believers I have met, steeped in a combination of Bible, superstition, and folklore.

Of course they're strong believers.  Religion provides hope to the desperate that their current situation is a temporary stepping stone to something far better.  It's a false hope, but that's irrelevant to the desperate.

Also unaddressed was how religion uses that false hope to prey on the desperate.  Religious charities often use the promise of help to coerce people into letting themselves be preached to.  Religious charities promise religion will make their lives better and then give them things, like food & shelter, that actually will make theirs lives better.  It's not far fetched to expect that the people being helped would mistakenly attribute the improvements in their lives to the religion and not to the food under a roof.

And that's all assuming that everyone in that situation is even a believer.  It ignores that many may have left religion before they they encountered hard times.  It disregards the fact that atheists can become homeless too.  It ignores the fact that homeless atheists often feign belief when it's what's required to eat.

You may have left your cushy Wall Street job to photograph the homeless, but you appear to still have some things to learn.

They have their faith because what they believe in doesn't judge them. Who am I to tell them that what they believe is irrational? Who am I to tell them the one thing that gives them hope and allows them to find some beauty in an awful world is inconsistent? I cannot tell them that there is nothing beyond this physical life. It would be cruel and pointless.

At least you got this part right.  Sort of.  Of course we shouldn't be preaching atheism to them.  As noted above, their focus is on survival.  Preaching atheism to them would make us no better than the religious ghouls preaching religion to them.  They don't need to be preached at.  They need something more tangible.

This is all obvious to most atheists I know, so why include this?  Do you think atheists are going around preaching to the homeless?  I'm not aware of any atheists who would call that acceptable behavior.  Including that bit suggests that atheists running around acting like assholes, preaching to the desperate, when we're doing no such thing.  You needlessly throw us all under the bus.

And for what?  To make yourself feel superior about not doing that thing that none of us are doing?

Soon I saw my atheism for what it is: an intellectual belief most accessible to those who have done well.

I'm sure your intention was not to suggest that atheism is only available to the rich.  You tried to qualify it by saying "my atheism", but the rest of your statement negates that by talking about atheism in general.  It's a blanket dismissal of all the working class atheists who exist.  That, by the way, is a hell of a lot of atheists, including myself.

You were a rich guy interacting with the opposite end of the spectrum.  You ignored the majority of people in between those two extremes of economic status.  You also ignored all the rich people who are devout believers, especially those who became rich via those beliefs.

I also see Richard Dawkins differently. I see him as a grown up version of that 16-year-old kid, proud of being smart, unable to understand why anyone would believe or think differently from himself. I see a person so removed from humanity and so removed from the ambiguity of life that he finds himself judging those who think differently.

I see someone doing what he claims to hate in others. Preaching from a selfish vantage point.

Preaching from a selfish vantage point is precisely what you were doing with this article.  You're preaching at the atheist community for being proud of our reason.  You're projecting your own arrogance onto Dawkins and the rest of us.

Dawkins is indeed arrogant about his intelligence.  But that doesn't make him out of touch or so single minded that he cannot understand why people believe differently from him.  He understands it well enough to have a written a book, The God Delusion, that many atheists credit as sparking their path to atheism.  The only other book I see given such credit more is The Bible.

You, on the other hand, seem to have trouble figuring out why people disagree with you.

When the religious disagree with you they worry for you, talk about hell, and bring you things to read and eat. Atheist call you dumb
— Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade) December 27, 2013

Given that tweet, you also apparently have extremely limited experience interacting with both the religious and with atheists.  This seems pretty odd to me, since you're more public to the religious than I am.  If you got the e-mail I receive, you'd know better than to suggest they simply bring things to read & eat to those they disagree with.

And if you knew the atheists I know, you would know better than to suggest that they're hypocritical assholes.

If you're going to talk about us in the future, please do us the favor of actually learning about us.  That would be much more appreciated than preaching from your Wall Street high horse.

Twelve Apostates - JT Eberhard

JT Eberhard, author of the popular blog WWJTD, is a fast rising star within the atheist community.  He knows it but doesn't behave like it, and I do not think he ever will.  It's just not something that seems within his personality. 

JT co-founded Skepticon, the largest free atheist convention in America.  Of the few I've been to, it's my favorite, with the exception of the Reason Rally of course.  Their speakers have included Richard Carrier & PZ Myers (who have both been at all 5), Dan Barker, Matt Dillahunty, Hemant Mehta, Brother Sam Singleton, and more.

He also spent some time with the Secular Student Alliance, helping kids in high school start SSA chapters at their schools.

At Lobby Day, the day before the Reason Rally, there was some buzz about the fact that he was there participating.  Although, that was mostly centered around comments about him and his girlfriend being excessively cute together.  If you've seen them together, you know what I mean.  Especially if you saw his talk at Skepticon 5.

As good as that talk was, his workshop on activism, earlier the same day, was better.  It was informative and fun, which fits his main point about how to do activism effectively.  Make it fun.  This attracts both attention to the cause and people to participate.  I previously said the debater I most wanted to emulate was Christopher Hitchens, but the activist I would choose to emulate is JT.  I'm hoping to get him to Omaha to do that workshop for the people here, who I already know are interested in activism.

I doubt JT would like being put on a list like this one, but having met him a few times, and being aware of what he's done for the movement, I wasn't left with any other choice.  He's done amazing things for the movement and will likely do even more.

It's those things done that has him on this list.  He's not content just to write a popular blog, which he does well.  He's not content just to debate Christians, which he does well.  As he once put it (in a post I was hoping to link to but could not find), he's out there doing shit.  We should all be so motivated.  After all, we know he's doing shit for a very worthy cause.

Find JT on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+

Some Atheism Plus Links

Atheism Plus is still in its infancy, and confusion about it is rampant.  If you're inclined to do some reading about it, here's a few links that might be informative.  I'm updating it as a I find more.  If you have a suggestion, please share it in the comments.

2012-08-18 16:40 How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy’s Club & Why It’s Time for a New Wave of Atheism, Blag Hag (Jennifer McCreight)

2012-08-19 13:06 Atheism +, Blag Hag (Jennifer McCreight) - The first use of the term "Atheism Plus".

2012-08-20 12:25 The New Atheism +, Richard Carrier - This post received a lot of criticism, including from McCreight

2012-08-21 05:11 Why Atheism Plus Is Good for Atheism, Greta Christina

2012-08-22 10:13 I’m pretty sure the ACA has been an Atheism+ organization for years, Kazim (Russell Glasser of The Atheist Experience)

2012-08-22 14:51 What Atheism Plus Might Mean for Atheist Organizations, Greta Christina

2012-08-23 04:35 Humanism Is Great — But It’s Not Atheism Plus, Greta Christina

2012-08-23 12:54 Responding to common misconceptions about Atheism+, Blag Hag (Jennifer McCreight)

2012-08-23 18:40 My take on Atheism +, Dear Ania

2012-08-24 20:08 No Hate., Camels With Hammers (Daniel Fincke)

2012-08-26 12:29 A+ haters, what have you got besides reactionary emotionalism?, Martin Wagner of The Atheist Experience

2012-08-27 14:04 Go check out the Atheism+ website & forum!, Blag Hag (Jennifer McCreight)

2012-08-28 12:00 About Atheism+…, The Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta)

2012-08-28 14:00 Atheism+ (in Some Circles), The Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta)
2012-08-28 19:48 Atheism Plus Website/ Library/ Resource Guide – Crowdsourcing!, Greta Christina
2012-08-30 03:50 Atheism Plus, and Some Thoughts on Divisiveness, Greta Christina