I don’t suppose I’ve ever been a ‘dictionary atheist’; I’ve always thought that atheism had to be either an expression of something (scepticism, humanism, disaffection etc.) or a wake-up call and path to something. A lot of people disagree though. I’m not sure why they disagree, but they do, they’ve attacked what they see as ‘mission drift’ which as far as I can see consists of atheists talking about anything other than religion or other superstitions. Misogyny should only be discussed when the Catholic Church is doing it, bad science is something creationists do not us, feminism is a dirty word, as is patriarchy. Because apparently positing a conspiracy where men deliberately plot to oppress women (even though that’s not what the patriarchy is) is insane, but claiming that evil priests are lying to children (even though many of them sincerely believe they are acting for the best) is perfectly self-evident.
As I said I don’t know why people disagree, I could hazard a few guesses but this isn’t the place. I will say though that I think we started to believe our own rhetoric. Think back to the good/bad (delete as appropriate) days when atheism was basically the ‘four horsemen’ writing books and debating, it was often said in these debates that atheism just means ‘lack of belief in god’ and that the speaker couldn’t represent all atheists. All of which was true, but for a lot of people we started applying this to capital-A-Atheism, or movement atheism if you prefer.
How did that work? What was the ‘movement’ about? Separation of church and state? Just saying “we exist!”? All worthy causes I’m sure, but this can’t work as a movement, people who agree on one thing can’t work together if that’s all they agree on. Yes we got Surly Amy and Greta Christina and Matt Dillahunty and JT Eberhard and we had Hitchens. But we also got The Amazing Atheist and Thunderf00t and Elevator-guys and people who take up-skirt photos and DJ Grothe (on a bad day). These people aren’t working for the same thing.
So I’m glad for what Jen McCreight, Rebecca Watson, Ophelia Benson, Surly Amy, Greta Christina have done (and the rest of the FTBorg I don’t have time to mention). I’m glad they stated the obvious about harassment and found a way to make the dipshits among us nail their colours to the mast. I’m constantly astounded at the level of abuse they get, and amazed by the bile they can weather. They’re doing so much more than I can, or probably ever will, and I’m so sorry for that.
But I can say this; thank you. Thank you for taking so much flak, thank you for doing what we all should have done so long ago. Thank you especially for Atheism+, somewhere where we can have the discussion we always should have been having; how we can make this world better. Because it’s the only one we’ve got.
Thank you for reminding me what atheism means.