ELLEN JOHNSON ON HARRIS, “ATHEIST CLEANSING,”MORE THIS WEEK ON ANSWERS-IN-ATHEISM INTERNET RADIOThursday, October 11, 2007 ~ 7:00 PM ET ELLEN JOHNSON, President of American Atheists, will be the guest on this week’s live call-in broadcast from the new answersinatheism.net radio program. Hosted by attorney, Freethought activist and writer Edwin Kagin, answersinatheism.net is a new outreach to counter religious obfuscation, distortion and obscurantism. The show is archived and can be accessed at http://www.answersinatheism.net . Ms. Johnson will be talking about efforts to “cleanse” Atheists and Atheism from public discourse, and a recent proposal by Mr. Sam Harris that we avoid the use of the “A-word” (Atheism), and even terms like Humanist, Freethinker or Rationalist. Harris made this suggestion at a recent Atheist gathering. Check out the exchange of views between Sam Harris and Ellen Johnson at http://humaniststudies.org/enews/ . So, be sure to tune-in this Thursday, October 11, 7:00 PM ET You can call in with your questions and opinions at 859-384-7000. There may be a toll-free number installed by air time, so visit http://www.answersinatheism.net . WHO & WHAT: Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists discussing “Atheist Cleansing,” the “A-word” and Atheist Activism. WHERE: Answers-in-Atheism internet radio at http://www.answersinatheism.net . WHEN: This Thursday, October 11, 7:00 PM — check your time zone. MORE INFO: http://www.answersinatheism.net American Atheists is a nationwide movement which defends the civil rights of nonbelievers, works for the separation of church and state, and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.
I know I’m late (perhaps too late) to the party but I gotta.
tolerance,
1.
Don’t know if you’ll see this but please explain how I referred to “humility” in any of my posts. I wrote in regard to this:
and somehow you manage to twist it into humility? Thus the comment about needing help.(reading?)
For that matter, please show me where even YOU referred to “humility” previously.
2.
Explain how calling anyone flawed (defective – look it up)is not degrading. Please.
3. What you wrote here
(bold emphasis mine) denotes that you are, in fact, not agnostic since it indicates you believe in a spirit.
See ya in the funny papers!
As you might imagine, this issue of tolerance is one that resonates with me. Regardless of religious belief, I think it’s safe to say that we are all flawed. At times, I lack confidence, I drink too much, I curse too much, I make mistakes, I say the wrong thing. This can be said of all of us in one regard or another. None of us are perfect. We have flaws.
666, if you read Spong, he is essentially an atheist who finds spirituality in community. His definition varies from yours, but spirituality has been expressed by those who do not believe there is a god.
Alex
The reason illegal immigrants are in this country has more to do with market forces than a tolerant boogie man. If the market did not demand cheap labor, the supply would not be here. Your discussions with KA about Israel illustrates that two atheists who are fed up with religious dogma can believe that reason is on their side and be convicted that their position is the most reasonable. I would be careful about declaring that you have ownership over truth, as should I. That recognition leads me to be tolerant to listening to ideas that are different than mine.
Tarma
I read this as a you’re either with us or against us type of statement… love it or leave it. There’s no middle ground. Can a person not question? Is there no supporting someone who is trying to work out difficult ideas? It concerns me that the diatribes I hear on talk shows is people shouting you must agree with me! There is no in between! This is not healthy. I’ve read a few books from cognitive scientists, which fascinates me no end. The conclusion I’m drawing is that the way people think is not logical, but able to hold conflicting ideas without complete resolution. It’s part of what makes us human regardless of religious belief or lack thereof.
AthLibrarian
You are making a strawman out of tolerance. Tolerance certainly does not mean staying silent. Tolerance (and the end result of acceptance) of homosexuals is what leads many people (including straight religious people) to fight for the right of gay marriage. Tolerance of religious ideas and atheists is what allows this nation to enjoy a plethura of different ideas without exploding into violence. We only need look at militant religious regimes or even periods in history, including the French revolution (check out “The Great Upheaval”) to understand that intolerance from any facet is unhealthy to say the least.
Karen
If you were to show him this thread, do you think it would reinforce militancy or would it convince him that he should feel free to discuss it with you without fear of judgement. I deeply enjoy and appreciate you. I don’t want to sound harsh, but honestly, have him read this thread if you think it’s not a militant thread.
RNA
Has my time here not convinced any of you that this is simply not true? I have heard the argument that liberal christians are simply candy coated versions of the other christians who are militant and intolerant. This is not true. Would you argue I am a candy coated version of phreedm?
I suspect I will get quite a bit of backlash from this, but I will not back down from thinking that tolerance is a good thing. I have come to appreciate and enjoy discussions with all of you, which is why the backlash will be disconcerting to me. I have tried to let myself be more open here than I am typically in real life and that opens me up to wounding more easily. I could be called a pusssy for caring, but I think being honest about something I believe in, honest about how I feel about taking chances and people’s reactions doesn’t necessarily make me a bleeding heart. It makes me honest. I can live with that. I can’t live with being silent about tolerance.
Eleanor Holmes Norton
In rereading this, I think the first question that may be asked is should we be tolerant of the nazis, religious fundamentalists and so on. First, we are to be tolerant of people, not actions. I believe that we need to tolerate free speech no matter how much we disagree. We need not tolerate murder, theft, injustice. We are to tolerate inquiries, questions and different ideas. Tolerance does not equal inaction, it does not equal complacency and it does not equal backing down.
Have you ever thought that posting here makes you think more about what you believe? In rereading this
I think I misspoke. Tolerance can lead to acceptance, but not always. In this example, I use leading to acceptance as a way to show that tolerance can lead to good things. It can also be a slippery sloap, which I think is the point many of you are making. I do not think that tolerance should be dismissed because of this slippery sloap potential. Tolerance is very important and therefore merits a great degree of thought, but not dismissal.
sloap = slope
Spanders
How much ignorance should be tolerated and what should we do when it is worn like a badge?
A badge of honor.
spanders,
I have no problem with someone questioning or working out ideas; indeed, I would strongly encourage it. However, to me there are only two positions available to an self-styled agnostic questioning the god idea: either you believe and are questioning your belief, or you don’t believe and are questioning your lack of belief. Being stuck in agnostic limbo for decades because you “can’t know” makes no sense to me and doesn’t really have anything to do with questioning or working out ideas.
I’m just going mostly by my personal experience here. My spouse decided he was agnostic decades ago after studying philosophy and comparative religions. It’s not like he’s been agonizing over the decision all this time. I just don’t understand the agnostic mentality at all, and he’s never been able to convince me that it has any merit – and believe me, he’s tried!
What, I’d like you to help me think this out. What should we do if we don’t tolerate ignorance? What is the course of action for intolerance?
Tarma
There are other positions as well. I for instance take the position that the question “Are there gawds?” to be invalid. One need not take a position on an invalid question. I consider myself closer to the atheist perspective than any other label in use but I would and do entertain other such labels.
Spanders
There are many things to do in response. They range from reasoned communication to ridicule. All of these have their place and can be effective.
Tarma, my apologies. I don’t want you to think I’m judging your relationship with your husband. What I’m questioning is the tolerance to allow someone not to come to a resolution. I don’t understand the conservative christian mentality, but remain christian. I don’t think issues of identity are black and white. If he is agnostic, I suspect it has to do with personal history and personal need and shallow and deep frames of understanding (this is a Lakoff discussion of cognitive science), much like myself. I want to believe in god and I do. I pick and choose what I believe. Some christians would argue I’m not authentic. I don’t subscribe to an all or nothing point of view. Some of what I believe is in conflict with itself. In that, I do not believe I am alone by any means. Do you have any beliefs that are in conflict?
what, my fear is intolerance can be as much of a slippery slope as tolerance. Just as tolerance can lead to acceptance of ignorance, intolerance can lead from ridicule, to dehumizing to violence. I like to try to put the guard rails up on reasoned communication. My experience is that ridicule leads to a shut down in communication. That and I suck at ridicule, but that’s probably because of the way I am. My brother, who is much better at rhetoric than I, is better at using ridicule. However, I have found that a man convinced against his will is not a man convinced.
Spanders
Nobody here is asking you to slide down the slope and off a cliff!
Ridicule, when used as an opinion-shaping tool, does not have as its target the one being ridiculed.
I have to run – literally. Will be back later.
I just took a quick look at another thread and witnessed some back and forth with phreedm. I’ve seen ridicule used on him extensively, but I think that only makes him grind his heals in. I think you use reasoned discussion with me, which I appreciate. To make this more concrete, imagine you, me and phreedm were having a beer. You use ridicule with him, reasoned discussion with me. If there were deep disagreement with all of us, do you think it would be easier to be violent with me or phreedm?
what, once again, I appreciate the discussion. Perhaps someday we’ll have that beer. I’d enjoy that. We could talk about jazz, religion and politics.
spanders
I can’t show my husband the thread, as he moved out over a year ago. He filed suit for divorce about a month ago. But to answer your question, he would think it was militant of me to even want him to look at the thread. He seemed to think that just bringing up the subject of atheism was militant.
You said to Tarma that the believe or don’t believe was an *us or them* issue. I don’t see it that way. How can you partly believe in a god? I just don’t see how one can be on the fence for so long, unless the issue is so unimportant that the person simply never thinks about it from day to day. If so, those are people we need to wake up, and get off their apathetic asses. Because we need the voices of those who are going to come down on the side of atheism. And we need the moderate believers like you, who are not interested in a theocracy.
As for tolerance, I’m all for it. I’ll tolerate anyone believing whatever they want to believe as long as they do it privately and don’t push it on me, in person or through legislation, or through the schools, etc.
spanders
First of all, if we were having a beer with phreedm, he wouldn’t be able to exploit his ellipses in the conversation…
Second of all, we have at times tried being reasonable with him and he always resorts to his games.
If we came to deep disagreement it would be way easier to get violent with him over you. We too often allow ourselves to sink to his snide and snarky adolescent level when dealing with him.
spanders,
No apologies necessary. Hey, we’ve been married over 36 years, and I’ve been tolerant of his agnosticism, while he’s been tolerant of my atheism. We’ve pretty much had to agree to disagree, but I’m still no closer to understanding the agnostic mentality. I just find it frustrating at times.
I’m afraid I cannot comprehend that at all. I never “chose” to not believe in god. It was just always self-evident to me that the entire concept was nonsense. I don’t see how you can pick and choose what you believe. I can understand being duped into believing in Santa as a child, but then either being told it was not true, or else figuring it out by yourself. Are you saying that I could now “choose” to believe in Santa, and my inner thought processes will somehow warp to make that belief real to me? Now that’s scary!
Nope.
Spanders
Ridicule, when used as an opinion-shaping tool, does not have as its target the one being ridiculed. I know I just wrote this but it appears that you may not have understood it fully. The one being ridiculed is not the target. The targets are those observing the ridicule. It is a very effective tool in shaping opinion and is used extensively in politics and the opinion making media.
I enjoy the discussion as well.
Tarma
I understand Spanders admission that he picks and chooses his beliefs. It is one of the few religious perspectives that I can appreciate. As for me, I simply do not believe. Belief is unnecessary whether in gawds or a flat-earth. Either the models we make of the universe are useful, and can be proven to be so, or they are not. If Spanders wants wants to believe that flying monkeys rule Mars that’s fine with me. If he makes major life decisions based on this belief he’ll have some problems. If he makes decisions based on such beliefs that effect me significantly I would must certainly resist and fight.
What,
Hee hee. Well, that would be fine with me, too, but one does not just “choose” to believe something like that. At least, that’s not how my brain works!
I guess I could chant “flying monkeys rule Mars” all day long, but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t actually “believe” it.
spanders honestly wrote:
NO! Absolutely not.
I can only hope the blockqoutes work the way I would like them to
.
Spanders, I think most everyone here has express appreciation for you and your ideas, as you present them here. However, not long ago I viewed a website that you developed, you stated that (I should go back and find an exact quote but my point is in the next sentence anyway) the ideas expressed there were…(well, hopefully you remember the exact wording better than I). My point here is that I didn’t see anything on the website that was encouraging to me as an Atheist. However, I realize that was not your purpose for developing that particular website. I also realize that posting the address to the site, on this blog was an act of honesty but, the text there is, it seems to me, different than the text you present when posting to this blog. (Well sure, probably because your goals are different.) My point is I didn’t see anything on that website that suggested that christians need to be tolerant toward Atheists.
You, spanders, are the only christian that I have seen post here that I believe is tolerant enough to be willing to find a way for the United States as a society, to work for everyone (as the United States is rather accurately described as a melting pot, that would include everyone, right?)
How far do you think the United States is from:
* Removing “In God(an idea) we Trust” from our money?
* Treating Atheists as equals?
* Accepting that Atheists in general have a better sense of ethics and morality than Christians generally do?
* That it is only fair to remove religious practices from the public square because, practicing Christianity there is to exclude anyone who is not a Christian?
* Accepting Christianity as a personal choice only, instead of, trying to force it on others and the rest of the world?
* And I could go on but, you spanders I am sure, get the idea of were I am heading.
Now, you are correct in suggesting that not all Christians are wanting to (will you allow me to write) cause problems. However, the Christians that are tolerant in general, also seem to be tolerant of the Christians who are intolerant. And the intolerant Christians seem to have created the illusion that all Christians are in favor of the intolerance and discrimination.
Also, it wasn’t long ago that you asked us not to (was it?) use your name all the time. So do you see the problem? Christians (to some degree) as a result of trying to mold fact from something that is far less than fact, have a tendency to twist reality in order to give credit to the ‘god-idea done it’. If we can’t write “Christians with the exception of spander” and can only write “some christian” it has no effect. Because, most Christians will exclude themselves from the category of “some Christians” (it is the same as the my child wouldn’t/didn’t do it state of denial).
Spanders, with some exceptions I believe that religion is bad. I believe religion is especially bad for children because they are not allowed to learn to think critically and I believe that the brain has a need particularly when young, to be able to find as much honesty as possible. When children are taught that the teachings of Christianity are infallible, I think it causes problems in their ability to sort fact from, may I write, less than fact. This effects their ability to reason and achieve the correct solutions to problems that occur in life.
Spanders, I don’t think it is fair for you to ask Atheists to be more tolerant. I feel certain that you are aware that a vocal and well supported minority in the United States has designs of making the United States, in effect, a theocracy. Now that just plain is not a good idea spanders and where are all the christians (that you want me and others here to recognize) spanders, where are their voices?
Spanders, you know there have always been a significant number of Atheists in the United States. You know that Atheists in the past have been tolerant when Christians have offended us. The portion of Christians that are influencing policy in the United States apparently think tolerance is a sign of weakness and/or acceptance.
Sorry, spanders, I can’t just sit back and let the Christians drive us back two thousand years. I don’t think the planet can take it, with our current state of technology along with the current usage of finite energy sources and the obvious over abundance of the human population.
Now, having said all that, I agree with you in much the same way that I agree with Sam Harris *if* the playing field were level. We don’t have any ground left to give, the Christians that you don’t want to be lumped in with have taken too much already. We *cannot* start right now and say OK this is the baseline, from here we should all play nice and let things be as they are.
One last thing, what assurance can you give me if I act tolerantly, it will change the things that I mentioned above? What assurance can you give me that the Christians won’t see it as a sign of weakness as they have done in the past? How do you expect me to separate you as you express yourself here from the Christians that lack the ability to believe that, when they work for the destruction as requested in the Bible, it isn’t their God-idea that done it?
rna2dna
Go along to get along?
Actually, I’m really glad Phreedum is here on this blog. I don’t think I would post ever if he(or she?) wasn’t. It would be no fun at all.
spanders,
I’ll agree to your definition of flawed in regards to adult human behavior. Humans can be self-destructive and degrading both to themselves and to others. It accomplishes nothing of a positive nature.
However, my objection was to the proposition that we are flawed (defective) from the get go. Aside from the caveats I mentioned before, I do NOT agree that humans are defective when they are born, as opposed to religion stating that we are indeed born flawed (the concept of original sin).
And by the crap that s/he was spouting, I’m pretty sure that was indeed the assertion “tolerance” was making.
Spanders
So what do you think? What are the criteria for establishing the validity of a question?
What
Do the criteria apply all the time? What if a chhild were to ask you “Are there gods? Would you reply to the child that he has asked an invalid question?
Karen
Presently I am only asking what the criteria might be. But in response to your question, all children’s education should include critical thinking and this should include a critical evaluation of the questions we ask.
Listened to the show last night. In spite of techical glitches it was a great show.
I think it might be too late to mention this, but I can probably help with any technical glitches you guys are having. I do a ton of audio engineering and music production work (at work and in my spare time).
I have no idea what program you guys are using to record with, but I answer technical questions on the Audacity forum on a mostly daily basis. We have a forum for asking questions about general recording techniques and recording equipment in addition to answering questions specific to the Audacity software (which I can obviously recommend).
Even if you don’t use Audacity you can still ask general questions and not get “this is spam” warnings.
The forum:
http://audacityteam.org/forum/
I have the same username there.
As soon as I’d read Harris’talk about the term Atheist, I knew he was wrong!
Damned if I ain’t proud to be one! So I was ELATED by Ms Johnson’s reply. Know I’m in the right organization.
quickk