I guess I can be full of myself sometimes, at least in my own head, and I’ll happily get into a no-holds-barred religious debate online, but generally I don’t think people find me arrogant, about atheism or anything else.
My best friend is pretty socially liberal, but also so Christian she takes pains to attend a church that disallows women from speaking in services (because that’s what the Bible says). She accepts me and I accept her. I find her beliefs totally without foundation, but I also understand pretty well how she came by them and why she keeps them. She’s not a dick about believing, and I try not to be a dick about not believing, and it seems to work pretty well.
At large, I just want my atheism treated the same as Americans will generally treat a Jewish or Hindu person. “Where do you go to church?” “Oh, I don’t attend church, I’m an atheist” shouldn’t be received as any more arrogant, rude, or scandalous than, “Oh, I’m Jewish, so I go to Temple.” Likewise with the grace thing. If I’m a guest in someone’s house and they want to grumble over their vittles before starting, no big deal. I’ll politely and quietly wait. They shouldn’t expect me to participate or take it as an insult if I don’t, any more than if they had a guest of another religion at the table.
And don’t you get just a bit upset that you have to say that at all?
I’m going to guess that a lot of arrogant atheists have been provoked some some well meaning, passive aggressive believer questioning their beliefs.
Both on and off the internet run into far many more Christians who feel they need to discuss Jesus/God/church, promote Jesus/God/church and continue to press the issue of Jesus/God/church.
Atheists might react to prodding by believers, but they don’t feel any compulsion to “save souls.” One does not see pairs of atheists in their best clothes going from door to door saying, “Hello, I’d like to talk to you about , well, Nothing. . .”
Atheists are arrogant? When’s the last time you saw atheists standing around holding signs telling passers-by they were going to burn for all eternity? Atheists taking money from the confused, the lonely, the elderly, in exchange for magic prayer shawls or oil from the holy land? Atheists harrassing grieving widows and families during funerals? Atheists visiting college campuses to scream at passing students about their supposed immoral lifestyles? Atheists driving luxury cars, living in giant mansions, and earning million-dollar, tax-free incomes via preying on the fears and insecurities of the faithful? When’s the last time atheists built an atheist museum or an atheist theme park? Are there atheist community halls on every street corner, holding Wednesday night Atheist Dinners and Thursday Atheist Study Nights and sending the Atheist Youth Group around the neighborhood to sing Atheist Carols every Atheist Day Eve? Organized Atheist institutions using their power and influence to protect criminal atheists from justice?
Because I’m not seeing any of that stuff. Atheists need to get to work to catch up with the religions, they are WAY behind.
I’d be really pissed about that. My response would vary though, based on whether I needed to catch the bus or not. If I had the time, I’d be inclined to engage in a discussion, but mostly I’d just be really curt and not at all concerned about hiding how offensive the whole thing was. I might also, depending on the circumstances, be inclined to mention it to his supervisors, but I do tend not to take problems in that direction generally.
However much I’d think it would be fun to debate the guy, though, my past experience suggests that these folks are so glazed over that it ends up being pretty unrewarding. In the past, I’ve invited further discussion with people who come to the door or with a LDS dude who cornered me on the subway. They tend not to really take in anything that you say that would seriously challenge their positions, making it more frustrating that interesting.
Am I an arrogant atheist? Only when people tell me they “know” their religion is true, they “know” how we got here, they “know” I’m going to burn in hell, they “know” gay marriage is wrong and gay adoption is abusive, etc. etc. etc.
You can have your own opinions and a right to “believe” all of the above. But to claim you “know” should things is utterly ridiculous and arrogance in the extreme.
So, what exactly is this arrogant behavior? Stating our beliefs? Rejecting yours? Trying to prevent theists from making laws based on their religions that all must follow? Trying to prevent theists from teaching their creation myths as science in public schools?
Why do I get the feeling that “arrogant” is to “atheist” as “uppity” is to “negro”?
Well first of all, I would have just said “No” not “I don’t think so.” If I said “I don’t think so,” that would give the impression that I *was *Christian and just wasn’t sure if I could make it/wanted to go.
If he pressed the issue, I’d say “I’m Jewish.” (One can be a Jewish atheist after all.)
So is Bijou Drains ever going to come back to this thread to give some example of the “arrogant” atheists he’s met in real life? Or is this some kind of parody thread?
Douglas Adams said it well when saying of religion…
And that is perhaps where this perceived “arrogance” has it’s genesis (ha!). Criticism = arrogance. I don’t subscribe to that point of view myself.
I won’t comment on religion out of the blue and if a religious person’s beliefs or actions don’t impact me or society negatively then I don’t care. I’ll quietly think they are wrong (to the exact same degree that they think that of me) but I won’t comment unless asked.
However if, as a religious person, you think you have the right to never be challenged, questioned or criticised about your beliefs then that is arrogant in the extreme and I suspect that is far more common than (still undefined) atheist arrogance.
I had a quite lengthy discussion about this with one of my atheist friends over the weekend. I am amongst the most liberal christian you will find. I don’t believe in the literal bible (since it makes no sense and constantly contradicts itself). I don’t believe in legislating based on my faith (I will do what I believe and others should be allowed to do as they believe).
So, after about an hour when I had convinced him that not all christians are bible-thumping sheep just trying to ‘save’ him, I thought I had made some progress to my ‘can’t we all just get along’ religious philosophy.
Yeah, seems like not so much. He then proceeded to remind me that he couldn’t just stand by and ‘allow’ us to ‘spout inaccurate information’ and that he would continue to correct anyone who claimed a belief in God because they were illogical and stupid.
After I did a facepalm, I calmly explained that he just told one of the most logical and intelligent people he knows that she is illogical and stupid and walked away.
To be perfectly fair, I’m an atheist, and I agree that many people characterize “not being ashamed and closeted” as being arrogant about it, but I have seen my share of arrogant atheists. Mostly on the internet, where I see plenty of atheists equating religious belief with stupidity, and a kind of background assumption that we atheists deserve to feel superior because we’re rational and religious people aren’t. (Which is false, of course. All humans are irrational to some degree, though I do admire at least an effort to guard against the well-known perceptual foibles.)
Outside online environments, I’ll say American Atheists rubs me the wrong way a lot. Despite Silverman’s explanations that their more offensive billboards such as “You know it’s a myth” are just aimed at atheists who stay in the churches, I find them to be douchey and condescending. I also think their decision to publish the identity and phone number of everyone who called to aggressively say “Merry Christmas” was jerkish, immature, and childish.
I’m not going to lie to him. I’m not going to hide behind one religion to avoid talking about another.
“I’d rather not talk about it” is a great response.
Years ago, my ex, who is a college professor and nominal Christian, was repeatedly approached by one of her students who wanted to sell her on his fundy views. She finally had to say “Look, you have beliefs that work for you, right? Well I have me own beliefs too. Let’s just leave it at that.” That actually got him to stop.
