Okay, a new thread from the ‘Just how religious is America’ one.
I often hear people complain about militant atheists, and I have especially heard that many people dislike Richard Dawkins for his stance on religion.
So what do you think? Do we need militant atheists (I will define that term later)?
My definition of militant atheist: Someone who is happy to tell strangers they are an atheist. Someone who will almost always challenge someone when they mention they are religious. Someone who will fight for the non-religious against any perceived religious bigotry. This of course encompasses a large range of people, from nice to incredibly rude, but that’s how it is in every group of people. If anyone has a better definition feel free to provide it.
As I said before I think we do need them, society needs reminding that there are people who don’t believe in one or more gods, and that believing in a god is not necessarily a rational thing. It also needs reminding (at the moment at least) that homophobia through religion should not be tolerated, and that science via the bible is not valid.
Well, hold on a minute. Lots of religious believers will fight for the non-religious against any perceived religious bigotry. Are they “militant atheists”? And being happy to tell strangers about yourself may be a bit disturbing at times, but it’s hardly “militant”.
I think the closest you come to a useful definition of “militant atheist” here is “someone that will almost always challenge someone when they mention that they are religious”. Do we need more of such people? No, they are a pain - not because they are atheists, but because they are constantly trying to divert every discourse into a discussion of their own particular obsession. This does not generally make for useful or proactive discourse.
I accept, of course, that there are plenty of “militant theists”, in that sense, out there. They are a pain too. But having more militant atheists would add to that problem, not solve it.
I wouldn’t disagree, but there’s a time and a place. The time to challenge homophobia through religion is not whenever you encounter religion; it’s whenever you encounter homophobia through religion. Same goes for science via the bible.
Disclaimer; I don’t live in the US. In the countries I have lived in (Ireland, Australia) science through the bible has never been a big enough problem to worry about combating. Homophobia through religion certainly has, though, at times. But on the evidenced of the other thread those times might be more frequent in the US, and there may be a greater need to confront the phenomenon.
I wouldn’t call confronting homophobia “militant atheism”, though. I know a few theists who would, but do you really want to buy into that characterisation?
Well I did mean all three together to qualify as a militant. And yes I’m happy to characterize any atheist activity as militant if that’s what people want to call it, sometimes there’s nothing wrong with militancy.
The problem I see is that without militants there is no discourse, just people saying ‘Oh just leave then alone, they can do whatever they want’ until it’s too late and gay marriage is banned, and kids are learning that intelligent design is a fact.
And this may be what separates the rest of us from the US, we haven’t quite reached that point yet, but I suspect it’s slowly inching it’s way to a confrontation here in the UK.
We need more people in America who are willing to admit to being atheist when such an admission is relevant to the conversation. And we need people who are willing to challenge those who wish to impose religious views and practices on those of other faiths and of no faith. That’s just standing up for oneself and others who may not hold mainstream views.
But looking for an excuse to jump down someone’s throat about it at the drop of a hat, or just going around insisting that all religious people everywhere are deluded idiots - that’s being a dick. We need fewer of those, frankly.
You keep alluding to this, but do you have any evidence for it? I live in the UK too and don’t recognise the creeping religionisation of the country that you refer to.
Indeed, in several recent legal cases where the defendants have tried to use faith as a defence they have lost each time (e.g. the bed and breakfast owners who denied a gay couple a room, the registrar who didn’t want to have to carry out civil partnerships even though it was part of her job). Yes faith groups are doing what they can to stay relevant and jazz themselves up, but I see the grip of religion on public discourse declining and in fact it’s far more acceptable to kick religion now due to its odious moral double standards than it has been in the past.
I don’t have any proper evidence, and it may just be that it’s something I’ve been thinking about recently and therefore I notice things that fit my preconceptions. And it’s true that the legal system and to a large extent the Government are still fighting the spread of faith based laws, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing. Here are some of the things that make me feel like there is an expansion of religion in the UK at the moment:
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The near split of the Church of England over women bishops and gay priests had a fair amount to do with the views of imported Christians making it a new(ish) issue
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The reports on how well the Alpha Group is doing in the UK
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The number of politicians who have turned out to be pretty religious
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Now all these may have existed forever and I may have only just noticed them, but I’m not sure that is true, and I suspect there is a growth going on here, partly due to immigration from more religious countries, and partly from a need for people to belong to a community.
I may just be scare-mongering, but can someone give me any evidence that the UK isn’t becoming more religious or that the religions here in the UK aren’t becoming more fundamental?
Possibly, as you say it could just be selection bias.
A lot of this is an internal doctrinal issue within the church, and there is a big influence from the African churches who of course have a stake in the Anglican organisation. Given that we have women priests in this country and most of the rest of Europe doesn’t, I’d say we’re doing pretty well on that score.
I don’t know too much about this group, and this fact alone leads me to think it’s not a huge player in the UK’s social scene. Unless it’s hoovering up masses of new converts completely under the radar I can’t say I’m too concerned.
That’s their prerogative, but at least here they don’t seem to bring it into politics too much. When there are social issue debates it always seems to be along ideological lines rather than religious ones. Do you have any cases where religion has influenced a political issue within parliament?
I doubt the objectivity of the source of that article, sorry.
This keeps being referenced and this is an area I know a lot about given that I work in the UK Department for Education. Some points for clarity - a faith school is a school with a religious character and it can be an independent school that is run on a faith basis, or it can be a maintained school that is voluntarily aided or controlled. There has been a growth of independent faith schools but I see this not as a rise of the number of religious people, but more of a polarising of society. The biggest rise is within the Islamic faith where they want to keep separate sex teaching and follow a curriculum that doesn’t bother with things like facts and logic. I can’t deny that this is an issue, but we have a tradition in this country that if people want to set up their own schools and someone is willing to pay for them (either the parents or someone else) then that’s their choice.
With regard to schools with a religious character in the state system, these have been here since the school system began. A large number of them are voluntary aided and it is these you’re probably thinking of as state faith schools in that they can select up to 100% of their children according to faith and can also discriminate in employment on the basis of faith in certain positions (like teaching roles). Again, these schools continue because they’re popular, and I can tell you it’s not because they’re religious. The byproduct of their status is that they can select, which means they’re able to maintain a very high educational standard and exclude people they don’t like on grounds that can’t be challenged, namely faith. There are parents who will join churches purely for the purposes of getting their children into a faith school and for no other reason, and once the child has finished at that school they stop going. It’s not a faith issue, it’s simply parents trying to get a good bit of the precious education pie. Sure, you can argue that this shouldn’t be the case, but as long as these schools are popular, and the church owns so much of the land they occupy, there’s not a great deal that can be done about it.
There are also academies and free schools which can and sometimes do have a faith element, but they can never take on more than 50% of their pupils according to faith so they’re not quite faith schools. Furthermore traditional sponsored academies that have a faith element don’t even necessarily exercise that right to select by faith.
Cite? I used to be the official who dealt with the issue of anti-evolution and intelligent design in schools when I worked on the school curriculum. You hear about anti evolution teaching in state schools far more than it happens, and our guidance on the matter is absolutely categorical. The case law on the issue of intelligent design rejected firmly that it could be taught in schools anywhere other than in RE.
In the independent system people can teach that the world is flat and the moon is made of cheese, of course, and one of the reasons some people send their children to independent faith schools is that they don’t want their incorrect notions of how the universe works challenged by reality.
I’ll have to check these more thoroughly later as it’s nearly lunchtime, sorry!
You can’t prove a negative, so I can’t say here is proof that something isn’t happening. What I can say is that the government, even a conservative one, is still committed to the equality agenda and has recently passed the new Equality Act, has an openly gay Minister in the Home Office and, as far as I can tell (in education anyway) doesn’t seem to be pursuing a particularly relgious agenda, certainly no more than Labour did.
There is the issue of religion growing as a result of immigration, but for me this is part of the wider problem of lack of cultural assimilation that people are feeling the need to clump together in religious groups rather than simply be part of the British population. I don’t think the population as a whole is growing particularly more religious and the biggest influence of that when it comes seems to be from outside the country. Again, I don’t see any particularly strong message from either the media or any of the political parties that more religion would be a good thing, if anything quite the opposite.
To be very general, (and perhaps to echo UDS), I’m not sure that militant atheists are the best people to do the “reminding.” I wonder if admonishments to things like religious bigotry might not be more effective if they came from people who share the same basic religion (but without the bigotry).
But with that doubt expressed, my opinion as a Christian is that “militant atheists” can be a good thing. By making religious people think (and perhaps by giving them an opportunity to practice patience and charity), they can raise the level of the conversation. If my beliefs can’t stand being challenged, they’re not worth much.
Of course, militant atheists have the potential to do a great deal of harm, or just to be annoying counterproductive jerks, in much the way that militant religious people or militant just-about-anybody-else have.
I absolutely agree that it doesn’t appear as if the UK government is currently following a religious agenda, although a cursory search of the internet seems to indicate that the Conservative party in general is slowly pandering more and more to the ‘Christian Right’. I don’t see this as a huge infiltration yet, and as you say I can’t point to any policies that have been enacted that have come from religious extremists, however I still feel there has been a change in the field recently. It may only be the start of a change, but the reason why I feel more militant, but not dickish, atheists are needed is that it needs to be nipped in the bud before it get too strong a hold.
As for anti-evolution teaching in faith schools in the UK, I can’t give you a cite, but I listened to a few documentaries on BBC Radio 4, there has been stuff on Channel 4 (I think), and the Guardian has articles now and then. While I am sure only a small percentage of students are being taught these things, at what point does it become an issue?
This may be interesting (sorry I’m at work and can’t read things thoroughly :))
I think anyone being militant on the subject of religion is a bad thing. I’m atheist but have no problems with anyone being religious and worshiping the god of their choice. What I do have problems with is anyone trying to inflict their religious (or non-religious) way of life on me or on others.
What I want to know is why it that an atheist challenging someone who says they are religious is being militant, where a religious person challenging someone who says they are an atheist is standard operating procedure.
Overall they are a force for good. Despite their obnoxiousness, such people take a firm stand against creeping religiosity in the public sector; something that less ferverant people would not be inclined to do. They may be annoying, but most don’t cry wolf often, so it’s worth listening to them.
You’re right of course, people would be more likely to listen to those similar to themselves, but I’m not sure how often the mildly religious do challenge the the more bigoted religious.
I guess from my point of view at least the dickish militant atheists are right in their opinions, so thta makes them more tolerable than the dickish militant religious people. But I guess believers wouldn’t agree with that
