Thursday, October 20, 2011

I Am Atheist

Over the years, I've written a few essays entitled "Why I am an Atheist"  or something along the same lines,  but after making numerous attempts to start the one to answer PZ Myers' challenge,  I realized that I am no longer comfortable with that phrasing to describe myself.  Not because it is not useful and not because I do not like it (I do -  and I think those essays are enormously helpful and inspiring),  but because my own earlier efforts under that very title were so embarrassingly accommodationist,  so desperate to be accepted (and therefore so dishonestly flattering to theists),  that I simply must do something a little different now. 

The road from shrinking, fearful accommodationism to bold, brave honesty has been rocky, lonely and often frightening.  I am still standing in the shadows at the last turn in the path,  uncertain if I am ready to step out into the light.  But,  I am certain that my days of explaining myself and begging the community to understand and accept me are over.  I may quietly reveal my true thoughts to a few trusted friends and family members or I may choose to remain silent for a few more years,  even with them.  Whatever I do say, however, will be stated with simple positivity. 

I am atheist. 

I am female, I am someone's mother, wife, sister, friend.  I think, I write, I breathe.  I am atheist.

Being atheist is just one part of who I am,  and it is only significant because of the culture in which we live.  Humanity's obsession with deities makes an outlier of one who does not share the obsession.  And outliers make the majority feel uneasy.  Atheism is far more significant and noteworthy to theists than to atheists,  I think,  and the constant cultural pressure to justify our apostasy - our freedom from god-obsession - mostly explains our need for some sort of community with other atheists.  We are not really "like-minded";  we are as individual and varied in our interests and our philosophies as theists are.  What we share is that we are not theists.  But,  in this religion-cursed world that is a huge thing.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

PZ Myers Issues a Challenge!

PZ Myers has thrown down the challenge and I am going to take it up!

One of the first posts I copied into this blog was a long essay from a much older blog called, "Why I am a Humanist".  In fact,  the original title was "Why I am an Atheist Agnostic",  but 5-10 years ago (long before I discovered Pharyngula and Friendly Atheist and the whole amazing blogosphere of freethought), I was still very intimidated by the possible fallout I (and worse, my family) might experience if I expressed my position on religion in unambiguous terms.  So, I changed the title to "Why I am a Humanist".  Less offensive to theists,  you understand.

In the essay,  I alluded to the unhappy confrontations that I had experienced simply by expressing the mildest of agnostic views.  In a discussion that had been billed as a respectful (there were TOS!  ha) discussion of world religions and philosophy - including atheism and agnosticism -  the reality was that I found myself attacked, demonized and finally ostracized by a shocking number of people,  a few of whom I had previously considered friends.

I have lived thousands of miles from my birthplace and extended family for many years, and had recently moved to a community which is saturated with religiosity and it is not overstating the case to say that,  after that discussion (my "coming out" as atheist),  I suddenly became aware of my vulnerability and alienation. With no support network around me or my family,  I began to understand for the first time the very real concerns of unpopular minorities.  The real and constant cost of being "other".  It was bad enough that I might risk ostracism myself,  but - in a culture which demands conformity to a theistic worldview - it suddenly dawned upon me that expressing my opinions openly could bring unpleasant consequences upon my partner and children.

Moderates scoff at the notion that there is very real and very intimidating pressure to conform to a Christian worldview in this culture,  but the rash of visits from proselytizers who singled out our house from all others in the neighborhood following that miserable exchange convinces me otherwise.  That would be in addition to the egging of our house and the discovery of religious junk (plastic jesuses, prayer bracelets, etc)  pushed into the dirt in the front garden.  The evidence may be circumstantial, but coupled with the pervasive, overwhelming religiosity all over town ("Salvation" music in the grocery store;  Xian "rock" blasting from outdoor speakers at the gas station, religious colouring books at the family dentist's),  I am inclined to think it was not all coincidental.  If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc. 

Or, I could be paranoid.  Quite possible.  The reaction I got when I came out among "friends" in a safe forum was so shockingly negative,  the rejection so complete,  that I was quite disturbed about it for several months.  Could be that something became unhinged in me.  Around that same time, my (then) 12 year old was grilled by the father of a neighborhood friend about his beliefs (!) and then lectured on the "lie" of evolution and the "truth" of biblical creationism.  Perhaps the chill I felt over a 40 year old man coming outside to harrass a 12 year old child about religion was simply my own paranoia.  Perhaps that religious zealot was behaving perfectly normally and I was overreacting.

Nah.  Not bloody likely.  Worried about the impact on my family? Yes indeed.  And in that respect,  I believe that my concerns were (and still are) well-founded.  You see,  it really is true sometimes that just because you feel paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you!  ;-)

So,  after the stunning attack that I experienced (and in response to the astonishment expressed by those friends who did not attack me but were nevertheless surprised and disturbed to learn of my atheism),  I wrote a blog post (reposted here as "Why I am a Humanist") in which I attempted to honestly explain my thoughts on religion and philosophy of life,  but without "offending" any theist friends or acquaintances.  The result was predictably accommodationist and, even more miserably, almost apologetic.

I would like to think that it was not strictly dishonest,  because in that post I described many of the things I truthfully felt in the (oblivious!) younger decades of my life,  but the tone and the tortuous elaboration betrays my inner battle between the (suddenly crystal clear!) truth and the patchwork of intellectual accommodations I had used during my life in order to allow myself to continue to "belong" to the church tradition into which I was born.  In the editing process,  fearing that my use of "they" to denote theists might anger those who read it,  I went back and rewrote everything to include myself,  writing "we".  That was not honest,  because while I did participate in the religious culture for many years,  I was never a believer in the same sense that I now understand theists to mean by "believer".

I spoke about the dark side of religion,  but I was ever so careful to balance those remarks with glowing praise for the "wonderful creativity" of human tribes in developing this psychological tool for increasing their own security and comfort (while avoiding explicitly mentioning the obvious continuation of that thought:  "at the expense of the security and comfort of other tribes and outliers").  I waxed poetic over the "fascinating" "resourcefulness" of human beings.  I expressed delighted, apparently uncritical, interest in every religious text known to man and allowed that any new such texts that came to light would also enjoy my enthusiastic endorsement as testaments to human imaginative power.

Yes!  I was an atheist agnostic.  But I was an atheist agnostic who respected my religious friends and their religious traditions.  Nothing to fear here!  Nothing to hate or demonize.  I had "come out" as atheist,  but I was begging my theist friends to please not hate me.  It didn't work, of course.  I learned who my real friends were (depressingly few),  lost my reputation in a community in which I had been active for ten years, was sidelined as a moderator and soon pushed out (after 8 years of faithful service) and generally made to understand that who I am and what I offer this world is nothing to most people if I disbelieve in their gods.

Well, that's enough of that.  It was a good learning experience, though.  I learned very well how utterly ineffective accommodationism is.  I have lain low for a couple of years,  trying to weigh up the risk (to my self-respect and happiness) of continued silence and conformity against the risk of danger and discrimination to my children and partner if I am open about my anti-theism.

Oh right.  I forgot to mention that mere atheism has evolved into anti-theism over the past decade for what I consider obvious reasons.

Anyway,  I am ashamed of the earlier essay now.  It doesn't exactly lie,  but it shamefully avoids the whole truth of what I really believe.  Oh yes, I do think ancient tribes were damn resourceful inventing a sky fairy to use as an ultimate authority to back their own claims to land, mates and resources.  I should have continued to elaborate on how that sky monster and the convenient biblical canon built around it was (and still is) resourcefully used to justify genocide, infanticide and misogyny among other innumerable horrors,  but I stopped short of doing so.  In short, I was afraid to offend.

Not any more.  PZ Myers,  Christopher Hitchens,  Jen McCreight among many writers,  and especially the amazing commentariat on PZ's blog (those commenters literally thrilled me when I first discovered Pharyngula.  No guff!  No suffering fools gladly!) have inspired me.  Daily doses of their no-nonsense, unapologetic atheism (and especially the bracing feminism of the Pharyngula commentariat) has fortified me and stiffened my spine. 

I am a fifty-year old mother of five nearly grown children,  a homemaker and a thinker.  I am an atheist and a humanist.  I hope to write regularly on the topic of life as an ordinary atheist in an overwhelmingly theistic country,  general thoughts on religion in western society,  and on the danger of rising religiosity all over the world.  And I intend to write a new essay "Why I am an Atheist" to send to PZ Myers.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Republican War on Women




The news this week from Washington is as chilling as ever.  Forced last week to back away from (though not give up) their incredible and cruel attempt to redefine rape in such a way that women and girls (and even men and young boys) could be victimized, raped and abused in countless ways without legal protections or human rights,  the Republicans in Congress decided to attack the safety, health and autonomy of millions of women this week by voting to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

Please read this short list of the recent attacks by religious conservatives,  through their political arm the Republican party, on the dignity, humanity, rights and freedoms of women and girls in the USA

The monstrous hypocrisy of the Republicans (not to mention the religious right) is truly frightening.

What I cannot understand is why the attack on women which is spreading over this country isn't getting front page attention on all of the news sources! In just the last month alone, Republicans (bowing to pressure from the religious right which seems to own their souls) have made attempts to redefine rape (!!), take away reproductive rights and to greatly reduce access to what reproductive options women still can legally choose - if they can find them at all.   Reproductive choice for women has become more and more difficult in the last two decades as Republican-led efforts to undermine reproductive rights has succeeded in making not just abortion, but also female-controlled contraception less and less available to millions of women.

I cannot believe the hatred and contempt in which the religious right - and now the Republican party -apparently hold women. The language is always fetus-focused while implacably unmoved by the plight  of the women whose lives are impacted by unplanned pregnancy, let alone respectful of their civil rights. Every argument for rights for the women is met with vague deflections (except by the most blatantly misogynistic) but the bottom line is this: the religious right seems to be driving toward a point where no woman can be allowed to have full human rights in this country.

It appears more and more likely that if conservatives get what they want,  then it is actually possible that in the near future no woman in the USA will be free to have sexual relationships of her own choosing, nor be able to time pregnancies as she wishes. 

The goal seems to be to strip women of their sexual freedom totally, leaving them at the mercy of the whims of the men they encounter.  Some of those men will be honorable and decent human beings who will not abuse women (though every sexual encounter will mean a possible pregnancy unless he doesn't want one and takes male-controlled steps to avoid it), but too many others will do what some men have done since the beginning of time: opportunistically prey on women who have been stripped of power, coerce or force sex on them and inevitably (in a world where reproductive rights and freedoms of women have been restricted to the point of a privilege for the wealthy) cause an unwanted pregnancy - the consequences of which the women will then face alone.

I cannot understand why women are not protesting in the streets.  Why are there not thousands protesting in front of the Capitol?  And yet,  I do sort of see what happened.

First, this has not been widely covered in the media so many women do not realise that their very status as fully human beings in this society is in peril - and that is a shameful dereliction of journalistic duty.

Second, I think too many women assume that since Roe vs Wade has survived numerous attacks in the courts and legislatures (even though nearly every attack has weakened it and chipped away at it) that the 1973 law can "never" be overturned and women's reproductive freedom will always be protected, even as we lose more power over our own bodies and destinies through creeping state and federal laws every year.

Third, the religious right has been allowed to control the message, the language and the power around reproductive rights for so long that women are intimidated (I won't say terrorized, but it may come to that) and afraid to speak up or protest because they feel so outnumbered and certainly far weaker than the huge, wealthy anti-choice machine.

Women - and men who respect and love women - need to stand up and speak out!   We need to launch a protest in Washington and not be silent any longer!  We have given too much control over this debate to the religious right and it is time that moral, upstanding, loving men and women stand up and speak out for protection of our civil rights!