posted 2007/03/13 at 17:26
It's seventy degrees and sunny out right now, so you'll pardon me if for today's post I cut-and-paste a post I made on a messageboard earlier today instead of creating something original. We'll be dipping back below freezing again in just a couple of days, so I want to take advantage of this good weather while it lasts.
Anyway, this is the tail-end of someone else's post that I was replying to:
But seriously, what I've seen on these boards recently, and talking to other people I know, atheists are kind of assholes. I guess it's kind of shock value from being awakened from the naive assumption that being atheist equated somewhat with being more open minded about accepting other peoples faith. That's what I get for believing that one group of people is less intolerant than another group of people I suppose.
This is how I responded:
I don't think it's a function of atheism/faith so much as it is a certainty of belief that pervades one's character making him/her intolerable. I've known plenty of atheists and religious people of different stripes who are nice to be around, and I've known plenty who I didn't want to be within 500 feet of just because their religious faith/atheism was so strong that they believed that they had the answers to EVERYTHING, and based on one of two little acts of mental gymnastics that somehow "proved" their religion/atheism was right, believed that they were automatically smarter and more knowledgeable than everyone else around them, and had to drive that point home at EVERY POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY.
Unfortunately we live in a media-driven culture where those of us who are more meek and humble, who have strong beliefs but don't try to push them down everyone's throats all the time, don't get much press or publicity because we're "boring." Our culture thrives on conflict (thanks in large part to hypercapitalism), so it's the people who set out to start conflict by being intolerable, obnoxious jerks who get on television and set the tone that other people mimic in an attempt to increase their own social, political, and cultural capital. Most people aren't like that, or at least they wouldn't be if we, as a culture, stopped placing such esteem on being confrontational and obnoxious, and started rewarding reason and compassion. Even if those qualities don't necessarily make for "good TV," they certainly would make for a better world.
I guess this does kind of tie in, in a loose way, to a California representative becoming the first ever to openly declare his atheism yesterday. (AP via Yahoo! News)
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon