From Don’t Let Sleeping Metaphors Lie:

Language describes reality. That is its primary, most self-evident function. We use words to define for ourselves, and communicate to others, what’s going on out there. Less evident, but almost as potent, is language’s role in shaping reality. The meaning of what is out there changes with the words we choose to describe it…
Language frames politics, of course. In the struggle to win over the public and brand their positions, those seeking to outlaw abortion became “pro-life” and those seeking to keep it legal became “pro-choice.” Using these terms in any other context will seem weird. (“I’m very pro-choice; I love the combination menu at Burger King;” “I’m pro-life, that’s why I don’t wear fur.”)

I’ve long thought that allowing and accepting the anti-abortion block to adopt the term “pro-life” has been detrimental to the struggle to keep abortion legal. I mean, if you look only at the words themselves, which is more important, “choice” or “life?” As anyone who has read the stories of women who have needed abortions should see, those terms do not even come close to describing the reality of the situation.

Atheism has had some of the same framing issues as the fight to keep abortion legal. Commonly heard phrases containing the word atheist, which I thought up off the top of my head, include:
“angry atheist”
“atheistic communism”
“avowed atheist”
“strident atheist
“arrogant atheist”
“New Atheists”
“Militant Atheists”

It’s no wonder so many atheists are timid about coming out! Speaking from my own experience, it took me a long time to dissociate atheism from anti-Americanism. I grew up not only seeing Christianity wrapped in the American flag, but whenever threats to our country were discussed I’d hear about the “atheistic” or “godless” communists. Besides that, I never heard of atheism at all when I was a child except in a pejorative sense.

Now, one item in the list above, “New Atheists,” can be taken positively or negatively depending on your point of view. But it seems to me that most of the time I hear it, it seems to be accompanied by a disparaging tone.

We have our positive phrases too.

The Happy Heretic (Thanks to Judith Hayes)
“Happy Humanist”
“Positive Atheism”
“Reality-based Community”
“New Atheists” (Included here because it is also used in a positive sense sometimes )
“avowed atheist” (Also included here for the same reason as the item above.)
“It’s OK to be an atheist”
“Atheists are beyond belief”

I’m having a bit more trouble thinking up the positive memes without relying on Google, which is just a sign that we have let our opponents frame the issue for far too long. If we atheists ever want to be accepted as a legitimate part of society, if we ever want to get rid of the stigma associated with atheism, we need to be out there spreading our memes to the public and defining ourselves in our own terms. And the concern trolls who are worried about us offending religious sensibilities by merely advertising that we exist can go away, because I’m not listening.

Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.

Predictably, we have also gotten a number of emails from Christians who apparently think they are “lead by God” to show us the error of our ways. A couple of days ago someone sent me this though the “Contact Us” link at LouisvilleAtheists.com:

Hell is not half full and your doctrine will take you there. The path to being saved is Romans 10:9. Denying Christ is a path to damnation.

I have decided that it is too ethically ambiguous to post someone’s name and email along with their messages on my blog without their express permission, so I will refrain from doing so. However, not all think so. My husband was engaged in a bit of an email debate with a local pastor over the past few days…and this pastor has had no qualms at all about posting Ed’s name, email address, and bio from Facebook on his blog right along with their email exchange. Without saying he was going to do so in advance, I might add, or giving Ed a link to the blog when it was published. Nor did he send the last message posted to the blog. We found out about this though a sympathetic friend.

Civil discourse between theist and atheist

I read though the blog, and could not help myself from responding to a few of the things this preacher had to say. He brings up many of the old canards against atheists, such as saying that no one can really be an atheist since the Bible says all know God exists, and he questions how atheists could possibly be moral. Both of these assertions are, when you just scratch below the surface just a bit, little more than displays of bias against atheists. Being moral is a natural part of being human. One does not need to understand the sources of morality to be moral any more than the beaver needs to understand millions of years of natural selection to build his dam. To suggest that any group in society does not know how to be moral is to deny a basic part of their humanity. I’m sure that he knows it’s rather pointless to quote the Bible as an authority to an atheist, so I tend to think that the whole point of this exchange was to try to make an example for his “flock” who reads his blog rather than to have a real open conversation.

I would post comments there, but unfortunately my WordPress login doesn’t work on that site and I didn’t see a place to register. So, if you like, go and read the post, and then add your comments here.

UPDATE: Apparently this pastor had thought he sent the last email, but it was still sitting in his drafts folder. So, I’ll remove that count against him. The other stuff, such as publishing Ed’s email address as well as believing and spreading the ideas that atheists are just being dishonest and wicked (’cause the Bible tells me so!) still stand. How does one have a civil and open discussion with someone who believes such things about you? Will they not just ignore and discount everything you have to say?

Did you know the bicycle is closely associated with women’s rights? It gave her the ability to move around easily, and was featured in the push to allow women to wear comfortable clothes. It’s much more difficult to ride a bike in a corset after all, since it holds your back straight and inhibits easy breathing. Nor is riding a bike optimal in an ankle length skirt. (see Fashion for the active woman, 1894 style)

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.” -Susan B. Anthony (quote borrowed from http://bicycling.about.com/)

And this is not to mention the benefits of the exercise, lessening one’s one dependence on oil for transportation, and chance to spend some quality time outdoors before sitting at a desk in an office all day.

In short:
To live like there is no god means to live like most normal, reasonable people do, even many of those who do believe in gods.

*Reference to the old philosophical question of whether you should lie to a Nazi that comes to your door when you are hiding Jews in your house. That anyone could see a dilemma in this is beyond me. If you want to read more on this madness brought on by notions of absolute morality and obedience to God, check this article on the Answers in Genesis website. Unfortunately, this is not parody.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. -Thomas Jefferson

However, our fellow travelers in non-belief will not be the only ones to see what we are wearing. Many of the things one may wear to advertise one’s atheism will be totally mystifying to those who do not run in atheist circles. For some, this is a good thing because it lessens the likelihood of being harassed by some crazy, even it well-meaning, fundengelical. But what will you say if some curious observer of unknown religious conviction notes that you are wearing a symbol for something and asks you what it means?

I was first exposed to the idea of the “elevator speech” during my brief stint at the Unitarian Universalist Church. Many people, if you tell them you are an Unitarian Universalist, are likely to look at you with this glazed over, confused look like you just said a phrase that is totally incomprehensible to them. Thus the UU elevator speech. It is a tool for explaining to the uninitiated just what an Unitarian Universalist is, and why it’s a positive thing. It’s a way of dealing with the questions without the “deer in the headlights” look because you haven’t really boiled down your thoughts on the subject before. It’s a sort of sales pitch. There is a good explanation of the concept at Reason and Reverence.

I think this is a great tool for atheists to use when we are out-and-about wearing our atheist swag. Unlike the term “Unitarian Universalist,” people are more likely to have been exposed to the word “atheist” though their perception is likely to be tainted with misconceptions from their religious culture. I see the atheist elevator speech as being more about explaining, in a positive way, why I’m an atheist and why atheism is a good thing. I’m working on coming up with mine, and will post it when I have a bit more time. In the meantime, do you have any ideas for the speech you would like to share?

Update:
Here is a quick draft for my elevator speech. Since there are so many little topics that could come up in a conversation, I think it’s a good idea to have a few little speeches on hand to cover them. The major topics that come up seem to have to do with where atheists get their morality and why I don’t believe in God.

Here is my draft for why I don’t believe in God. I think it still needs work, but it’s a start.

I believe that the rational and scientific view of the world is the best, because it best conforms to reality. I’ve found no real evidence in the world, in scriptures, or in philosophy that tells me there is a real god anywhere. For that reason, I do not believe in any.

Today I went to a memorial service for one great atheist role model we lost earlier this year. I’d never known Helen Kagin closely, but our paths did intersect. She played a key role in organizing the Rally for Reason protest at the opening of the “Creation Museum.” This was a big deal to me because, as you know if you read my blog often, evolution education is one of my big issues. I can’t help seeing the subversion of children’s education (which is what this sham of a museum does) as any less than a great travesty that must be addressed and exposed to ridicule.

(As a side note, my participation at the rally also landed me a picture on the cover of American Atheist Journal a few months later. I was not featured, but I was sitting right next to Nicole Smalkowski, who was facing discrimination in her school in Oklahoma for not reciting the “Lord’s Prayer” with her basketball team before games.)

My going to this event had the side effect of getting me back into regular involvement with the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers Meetup. (I had gone a bit “apatheist” and had stopped going for a while.) I met a few atheists from Louisville at the group and found out that they had coordinated to come to the rally. Getting back into active involvement with other local atheists has had a wonderful effect on my life, including giving me the unforeseen opportunity to help organize group activities. Meeting with other atheists has been life-changing. If you grew up with a very narrow and biased view of atheists, that bias can still affect you and can affect your view of yourself even after you’ve been one yourself for several years. Interaction with other atheists has taught me a lot about how to live well as one.

I found the memorial to be very touching and inspiring. It was interesting that one of the major voices at the memorial was a close friend of Edwin and Helen Kagan, and also a Christian minister. I see in this a good deal of hope for how atheists (even activist atheists) and Christians can be friendly without glossing over our disagreements. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this minister belongs to a rather liberal denomination. I do think I’ve mentioned that liberal Christians can be really cool sometimes.

A brief interaction with Helen Kagin affected my life in ways that she will never know. She is gone, but her legacy will live on for a long, long time. My story doesn’t even scratch the surface…To learn more about Helen Kagin, go to http://www.edwinkagin.com/Helen.htm.

Don’t get me wrong–I think it’s a wonderful thing if Christians are friendly and non-judgemental. But as long as that is used as a lure to get people to convert, I can never trust it because I grew up as a very active and enthusiastic member of an evangelical church. Every sort of outreach they do is part of an attempt to convert others and get them coming to church. I remember a sermon where the preacher was talking about our new gymnasium and how the ultimate goal in having it was to draw some of the people who come to play basketball into the church services. I don’t think it was ever about getting their money (I don’t think that was ever a focus) but more about getting them to believe the right thing (what we believed, of course) and be saved (from hell….sin….God’s wrath…? It never really made a lot of sense to me. I just had a vague feeling that I’d better believe it or I was in trouble).

At any rate, I found the people at my church to be generally very kind. It was not the people or the traditions I had problems with–I had problems with the doctrines and the disconnect between what I thought I was supposed to believe and my observations of reality. I was taught at church youth summer camps, which I went to each summer, that I must not compartmentalized between “worldly” things and “godly” things. As the cliché goes “Jesus is Lord of all or not Lord at all.” I took that very seriously, so when I starting seeing and experiencing things that didn’t make sense with church doctrine, dividing my beliefs from my knowledge was not an option. It seemed more and more to me that if Christianity were true, getting an education put one’s soul at risk because education brings on thought, and thought brings doubt. But I’ll not go into detail about that here, since I’ve already discussed here: New Chapters in Life.

So, what is this about nontraditional Christianity? I think evangelical Christians who use that label have a lack of imagination. I grew up in a pretty cool, current church, but untraditional? Maybe only in very superficial aspects–music, building style, causal clothes, and the like. Maybe it’s in not pushing away poor people, but that’s not “non-traditional,” it’s just decent behavior.

This is what I would think of as non-traditional Christianity (at least in the U.S.):

• Belief that God entered Jesus at his baptism, but left him before he died.
• Belief that Jesus was not actually God, but a man chosen by God.
• Belief that Jesus was the son of a god, but not of the god of Hebrew scriptures.
• Other such beliefs that mark the believer as very liberal.

Basically, the sort of belief that would be strongly scented of heresy, at least in the minds of today very orthodox evangelicals. Non-traditional belief is heresy. What’s ironic in calling these beliefs non-traditional is that they ALL actually have tradition behind them. They are all very early Christian beliefs that most American Christians never get to hear about.

For this reason, any time a conservative, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christian refers to him or herself as “non-traditional” I laugh a little inside even if I try not to show it.

At the American Atheists convention I wrote about in my previous post, I got a hear a few very good and thought-provoking speakers. One was Massimo Pigliucci, a scientist and professor who has advanced degrees in both biology and philosophy. There was something he said in his talk that was not shocking at all to me, but does disagree with the statements of some other big atheist names. That is, that atheism is a philosophical conclusion, not a scientific one. You can not infer that there is no god by looking only at the natural world. Which is not to say that he disagrees with the atheist position. He is one himself, and calls atheism a “imminently reasonable” conclusion, but a philosophical rather than scientific one.

I have put some thought into working out how evolution and religion have been set up against each other, and can offer some insight from my experience. My first exposure to the words “Theory of Evolution” was in a book called It Couldn’t Just Happen. I found it on a table at a convention for the Church of the Nazarene that I went to with my parents. I loved science, and this book had pictures of planets and animals and had beautiful glossy pictures like the science books I used at school. So I got my parents to buy it for me, and proceeded to practically memorize the entire text. I remember major points out of it even today, though I’ve not cracked the book open in about twenty years.

Here is the gist of the book: Life on the earth is far to special and complex to have just happened by chance. The theory of evolution is therefore impossible and is nothing more than a rebellion against God. Either the Earth and universe evolved (which we have demonstrated is absurd) or God created it. The God of the Bible, of course.

It was not until years later, in my college years, when I learned about the big bang and then read about evolution on my own that I discovered how totally wrong this book was. One of the multiple huge disillusionments I had about Christianity is that I realized I had been lied to and mislead about the scientific facts of the matter by a Christian author, for Christian purposes. And is was to me a huge betrayal of my trust.

My point here is that it was not authors like Richard Dawkins that linked science and evolution with atheism in my mind. It was authors like Lawrence O. Richards, who very early in my life linked evolution with rebellion against God. Richard Dawkins just confirmed what I had already been taught. And I think it bears some mentioning here that for fundamentalist believers, religion is a matter of scientific fact. If you take the biblical stories literally and seriously, it has to be. It’s not like it is that way for everyone, but the point needs to be made.

Now, if you are a non-fundamentalist Christian believer don’t get it into your head that since I accept that a religious believer can also be scientific that I’m going to convert back. There are lots and lots of other issues that would have to be addressed before I would give any religion even a sideways glance. Atheism may be a philosophical conclusion after all, but it is still one that is well informed by and consistent with scientific fact. In a way that religious belief is not.