July 31, 2007
The Out Campaign
Richard Dawkins at his website:
In the dark days of 1940, the pre-Vichy French government was warned by its generals "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." After the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill growled his response: "Some chicken; some neck!" Today, the bestselling books of 'The New Atheism' are disparaged, by those who desperately wish to downplay their impact, as "Only preaching to the choir."
Some choir! Only?!
As far as subjective impressions allow and in the admitted absence of rigorous data, I am persuaded that the religiosity of America is greatly exaggerated. Our choir is a lot larger than many people realise. Religious people still outnumber atheists, but not by the margin they hoped and we feared. I base this not only on conversations during my book tour and the book tours of my colleagues Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, but on widespread informal surveys of the World Wide Web. Not our own site, whose contributors are obviously biased, but, for example, Amazon, and YouTube whose denizens are reassuringly young. Moreover, even if the religious have the numbers, we have the arguments, we have history on our side, and we are walking with a new spring in our step – you can hear the gentle patter of our feet on every side.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 01:23 AM | Permalink
Comments
I like the link to the merchandise.
This "out" seems to be profitable for someone.
What? I'm not insinuating anything!
Posted by: beajerry | Jul 31, 2007 10:52:31 AM
It's reassuring that The Church has never stooped to profiting off its members.
Oh, wait.
Thank goodness for Dawkins - as an atheist in America, I know exactly what it's like to be called "crazy" for not believing in an imaginary sky god.
Now to go get my hands on that shirt...
Posted by: Amanda | Jul 31, 2007 8:39:36 PM
This would NOT be working so well if Richard Dawkins looked like Madeline Murray O'Hare. For those who don't remember Mrs. O'Hare, she was a particularly ill-favored free thinker of the 1960s who made valiant efforts to flog atheism -- as a movement, not an idea -- to life. It is interesting indeed that 40 years later, three exceptionally cute men between 45 and 66 are laying on what one charmless middle-aged woman tried and failed risibly to effect.
People thinking about religion and gender (as opposed to irreligion and good looks) should probably pay some attention to atheism and gender -- at least to whether the gender of leading atheists is a co-factor in determining the reach of that creed. If Hillary Clinton, Camille Paglia and Martha Nussbaum were cranking out the T-shirt with the scarlet letter, and the mind-set it refers to, just how big would the club now be? If the answer is "smaller, much smaller," then perhaps it's the creed that needs reconsidering, not its flacks.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jul 31, 2007 9:30:11 PM
I realize that things are (somewhat) different in "the sticks" and what we may soon stop calling the Red States, but I've never gotten this Atheism scarlet letter thing. In intelligent urban circles, it's far more of a scandal to be a Christian than just about anything. If someone mentions Jesus, you can feel the awkwardness fill the room like a shadow.
For a prominent academic to "proudly" wear an atheist T-shirt hardly seems like an act of courage, though that may be less true for kindred souls in Macon or Whitefish. "Coming out" as an atheist feels as much an exercise in vanity as anything. How many atheists have been tied to a barbed wire fence to die, or dragged behind a car? (Or, in Dawkins' weird analogy, been assaulted by Nazi Messerschmidts and V2 rockets?)
I'm all for people expressing thier beliefs without shame, but for privileged, educated elites to adopt the discourse of truly oppressed peoples is a little aquirrely.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Jul 31, 2007 10:52:34 PM
Chris, for some reason your comment is calling to mind a particularly fabulous remark of James Merrill's. Someone asked him about what it was like to come out of the closet -- meaning, was it not harder for a gay man of Merrill's vintage than for anyone today? (I'm about to paraphrase a great poet, but that's the way it is sometimes...) Merrill replied that he had actually not come out of the closet; rather, the closet had simply fallen apart around him where he stood, leaving nothing for him to exit. If widely famous and mouthily irreligious academics who risk nothing draw spurious parallels to the persecution, suffering and very real suppression of people who have lost everything there is to lose for their beliefs, they are -- just perhaps? -- disengenuously glamorizing their stance to make it seem like a brave endeavor requiring courage, when probably all most leading atheists really feel is relief.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Aug 1, 2007 12:21:29 AM
Elatia,
In the case of Hitchens, it wouldn't be the first time. I still vividly remember him bragging about how he and his wife defiantly walked the public thoroughfares of Washington D.C. after the 9/11 attacks. Some people need more glamour than others.
ps thanks for referencing a great and often overlooked poet. (I hesitate to think what Dawkins would make of Sandover.)
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Aug 1, 2007 12:56:42 AM
Chris, it's not on his night table. And I don't just believe this, I know it. That is, I believe in its not being on his night table.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Aug 1, 2007 2:26:46 AM
Keep repeating this to yourselves:
"There are only two sides to this issue. There never were more than two sides to this issue. There never will be more than two sides to this issue. And we are on the winning side."
Eventually after enough repetitions, you'll be right!
Or you won't be here anymore and it won't matter.
The idea that some other form of belief/faith/knowing is being ground between these two moronic glaciers is heresy. And it's heresy to both sides. So no way they're gonna win.
Posted by: roy belmont | Aug 1, 2007 2:35:14 AM
Elatia, maybe you should stop peeking into Dawkins' bedroom to see what books he keeps there. Even if he is "exceptionally cute".
Posted by: aguy109 | Aug 2, 2007 10:06:24 AM
You gringos...always the same, you have a good idea but end up in a shirt.$$$$$$$$$$$ someone will tell me that dawkins is britain, well it´s almost the same...
Posted by: Emiliano | Aug 28, 2007 9:02:56 PM
I have gone through ridiculous amounts of psychological and emotional torture because of my disbelief. I may not have paid physically, but I have paid a hefty price indeed and it is both ignorant and self-righteous to assume that atheists "have it easy".
My goals, my security, my well-being, my family's well-being are all threatened by my disbelief.
I die a thousand deaths everyday because I can't stomach doing the religious things I have to do, given my current circumstances.
I was just replying to someone who insinuated that atheists shouldn't emulate other "Out" movements because they haven't been discriminated against.
Posted by: Shakirra | Feb 26, 2008 6:06:05 PM
My best friend is ostracized daily at work for being an atheist, to the point where he asked me whether or not he should notify his employers on the grounds of discrimination. Our situation is amplified by the fact that we recently graduated from a Catholic high school. We both used to be devout Catholics, and have both recently become atheists (and in Hitchens' sense of the word, "anti-theists"). All of our classmates are Catholics, as are the vast majority of the local population (largely Portuguese and Italian descendants, and all very religious). We now feel like outsiders, for although the people we associate with on a daily basis (all Christian) are very tolerant of all races and religions, they seem to possess a lapse in Christian charity when it comes to atheism. We often receive what I would call "polite" bigoted remarks, and quite frankly, I'm getting sick of it.
Posted by: Rob | Jul 27, 2008 3:39:52 AM
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