When it comes right down to it, I don’t respect the opposition or defense of a group, generally speaking, whose billboards breed the same kind of hate, ignorance, and fear in equal (in fact, greater) measure. And per a comment like astorian: “If you want the religious majority of Americans to like you, to accept that you’re generally decent people and not all THAT different from your neighbors, then putting up a billboard like the one described is OBVIOUSLY self-destructive and stupid”. Agreed–but it’s similarly stupid for me to think that the billboards I’ve linked to necessarily represent you as a Catholic, just like it’s stupid for you to think that billboard represents me as a non-believer. That’s the problem with this conversation.
But I also want to reject this very conversation on a few grounds. A.C Grayling refuses the term atheist and likes to call himself a naturalist because he thinks the universe is a well-described realm of natural law according to sciences. Atheist already positions someone in the wrong conversation, like calling oneself an “afaeriest” acknowledges the potential for the existence of faeries. To suggest that one is an atheist means that there is a legitimate conversation to be had about the legitimate existence of a being like God. That may seem like a minor point, and it’s arguable in a few ways, but it makes a very good point nonetheless. To argue with someone who believes in God already puts yourself in an arena where that God is a real thing, like arguing with someone against the existence of Santa Claus for lack of any evidence to the contrary. People made fun of it a little while ago with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
That is important, I think, because the very conversation creates the borders and groups that define the conversation. That’s where my second objection comes in.
When I read this atheist sign, it makes me think that there is some kind of atheist “group”–like there are denominations of religious groups, cults, and so on. But that isn’t really case. There are varying degrees of belief among non-believers–from the kind of “atheism” that Dawkins is famous for, to those people who fear the unknown but reject the certainty of a god-figure and so say “maybe” through agnosticism (which itself structures a “group” of people)–but there is no coherent group to be found. What I mean is that atheists/agnostics/etc don’t organize the way this particular sign suggests. There is no coherent head, system of beliefs or practices, leader or leaders (regardless of what the media and some thinkers would have people think), or ceremony, and so on. Ergo while there may be a group of people attempting to “convert” people to non-believer status, there is no group for those people, should they be converted, to convert to.
That’s important for both groups because I think it puts the conversation back in the right realm. I don’t know what the correct protocol is for a mass debate, or if there ever even should be one. I recognize the dynamic nature of people’s individual beliefs separate from the churches they belong to, just like I recognize the wealth of belief systems for those who do not believe or participate in religious, cult, or spiritual organizations or practices or ceremonies. Conversations need to happen, I guess, on individual grounds if there is even any conversation to be had in the first place. The problem with billboards like in the first post are that they speak to very many people in too general terms while representing a group of people that don’t exist. So the conversation to be had afterwards, which is generally name-calling and the misinterpretation, is completely wrong from the outset.
When it comes to how religious beliefs influence political, educational, or social realms, that’s a much tougher issue that is best dealt with through secular structures for the state, cities, etc. That’s a kind of debate that refuses the idea of conversion. Anyway, I don’t think any conversion debate would ever work, especially because atheists are arguing from the wrong position altogether–not to mention that I’m making it sound like there is such a group to begin with. Of course statistically such a group exists, but not really in any other ways.
At the end of the day, I’m not really willing to ever get into a conversation with someone who believes in the legitimacy of the divine. That’s just not a conversation I think is worth spending my time on. Having said that, the atheist sign is really silly and stupid and the people who made it are falling into the same silly and stupid trap that tends to dictate the nature of these kinds of conversations.
