The "Why" in Political Atheism

This is why. This is a surprisingly even handed and moving piece about a former evangelical preacher man from Louisiana who took one stop past liberalizing his faith.

I know people who went to a more liberal kind of Christianity and were happy with that. The problem is, for me, there was a process involved in moving from Pentecostalism to a more liberal theology, like Grace Church. What makes me different is that process didn’t stop, and it took me all the way. In the end, I couldn’t help feeling that all religion, even the most loving kind, is just a speed bump in the progress of the human race. (emphasis mine).

Many modern, liberal americans detach gradually from their beliefs until they hit a sort of ritualistic deism, but they recoil at the logical conclusion. For the modern mind deism is a feat of self deception, creating an answer where no question exists, a solution with no problem, a god with no creation. The worst part of this ritualistic deism is that these liberal Christians still take pride in faith over reason, at least in certain instances, and they excuse the "faithful" of their transgressions against civilization.

Which brings me to one of my favorite people, Neil Degrasse Tyson. I love him to death and I'm really excited about his upcoming Cosmos series, but he is idealistically scientific. One area he tries to stay clear of is politics, outside of his pro science and education work, and in that fails to fulfill Sagan's legacy. He says here that he dislikes the label atheist due to its political nature, but in this he is very naive. He pretends there is some way out. While true that atheism literally is just a conclusion, joking about how non golf players have no political name, he ignores the trouble caused by religion. If golf oppressed or actively worked against the science and education he pushes then it would be important to be known as agolfist.

Part of Sagan's legacy is his willingness to face politics head on. While Tyson is close, in that he has to some extent spoken against warmongering and anti-science in broad terms, we need the politics of the outspoken atheists and humanists. Tyson has the potential to jump in, to really speak for science and education by tackling the specific barriers in the way, rather than generalized pro education and science activism. He is a brilliant speaker and scientist, and will be great in the new Cosmos, but he is ignoring the reasons atheists are political. The former preacher above is part of that. Someone who lost his job, wife and friends because he came to the logical conclusion modern people should. Obviously Neil Degrasse Tyson is an atheist by definition, but he should grasp the label willingly. Instead of begin afraid to be labeled, to which he has valid criticisms, he should create a definition of the label.

All the world is politics, whether we want it to be or not. In a perfect world science and education should be obvious investments, faith would be an obvious weakness of character and war would exist only in history books, but we don't live there. Politics is a struggle, and part of that struggle is dealing with labels, with self defining those labels. If people listened to arguments well, we would not need politics, but people are weighed down by millions of years of evolutionary baggage making reason hard to achieve. Atheism is political because it has to be. Atheism is more than a rejection of god, it is a rejection of religion and the politics of faith based reasoning. Atheism is political because it helps those who stop believing in a world where logic is a sin. Political atheism is growing as a backlash to out of control religion and faith. Atheism isn't just a rejection of god and faith, it is a rejection of authoritarian ways of thinking, of clinging to the old ways. Atheism is political because every struggle is political, and there is no way out of it.

Atheism

This will pretty much be the only, or one of very few posts on why I am an atheist. It is deeply personal and probably the first time I spelled it out clearly.

There was a point in my life where I was trapped somewhere, physically. Details aren't terribly important, the point was it involved the government and contracts signed thereof. At they time I was physically very ill, having pneumonia that went untreated until it went away on its own. I was also, at the time, undiagnosed with my bipolar disorder. I had no contact with the outside world aside from the incredibly slow postal service and had made a very sudden, impulsive life change. Now at first I did not regret the change, but due to my illness I would up isolated from my one friend who was with me and stuck in a 16 hour a day rut.

And each night, I prayed. For six weeks I prayed to personal and impersonal deities for comfort, for an end, for any grasp of reality. The whole time I was having vivid dreams that I was home, and when I woke up each morning it was to abject misery. I didn't necessarily want to go home, at least not all the time, but I certainly didn't want to be stuck where I was. I wanted some sort of action, but waiting on the government is like waiting on the continents to move. Some time in it wasn't just at night I became unhinged from reality. I would start to think my days were dreams and the other world, the one where I was home, was real. I even started having layered dreams, dreaming within my dream that I was one place or the other. During the days I barely interacted with the world aside from the required movements to and from place to place, to the restroom, through the cold showers and the rough, dry shaves.

I prayed each night, saying my good little Anglican Lord's Prayer, the English Pater Nostre, desperately searching for some clue, some sign of reality. At this point, during the day, I read the entire KJV bible and searched for something that made sense within it. I was very disappointed in the whole affair, feeling no relief, no connection to any higher power, and upon reading the bible I felt no connection to brutal gods and rapist heroes, to evil men glorified and vague myths. The notion of some benevolent being appealed to me, someone to "rescue" me, but I grew increasingly detached from such rescue.

There was nothing to do but wait. Prayer was useless, any action I took was useless. I had never before or ever since felt so powerless, but even powerless I had no god to turn to, no comfort from something that did not exist. As I grew increasingly detached from reality, less and less sure of which world was real, I began to despair. At the same time a sort of grim determination took hold of me. There was no god, no one but humans around me, and no action I could take to end my misery. There was nothing anyone or anything could do to anchor me to reality, or to end my situation. One day I hid in the showers and sliced open an arm, not to hurt or kill myself but just to feel the pain. I needed some sensation to try to show me what was real, but my senses were to dulled, to detached for it to help. I was sent to a mental health professional but too many years of passing meant that I hid any issues, ensuring them that I was merely upset or stressed, calling for some attention.

I spent the remaining weeks in near total silence. No more prayers, no turning to the various religious texts I had scrounged, just silence. Inaction was my only course of action, but still I dreamed. I dreamed I was in many places, no longer just home or trapped, but all over my life, in alternate lives, and I lost touch with which was real. I made sure I took no action in any reality that could upset the others, hedging my bets on faking sanity. Eventually I really did go home, my bodily illness proving too much for the ones holding me to handle. I spent days on buses, waiting for hours at stations with no phone, no money and one boxed lunch. I slept when I could, but then I would dream again.

In none of my dreams, now, did a deity exist. I had, in the period many turn to some god or another, rejected such imaginary comforts. Thought was all I had to myself at that time, and the thoughts of someone out of touch with reality rejected something above reality. I had determined to find out what was real and no omnipotent yet impotent deity, no beneficial or malevolent supernatural force would stop me. Before I had casually ignored god and religion, now I actively hated it. I did not hate god, but the mere notion that something like him could be worshipped. Every aspect of it disgusted me. Helpless prayer, beseeching for hope when there was none to be had. Rejection of reality by those who could see what was real. In my quest, my mission to determine reality I came down only to logic and evidence. If that was all that really was, why should I look "beyond" for vague and nebulous answers.

In time, months after returning home and trying to reestablish a life, I settled on reality. Months of nightmares made me doubt I was home, but no longer did I seek answers without evidence. No more prayers, no stories, only fact. Only evidence. I rejected the imaginary because I could not tell what was real otherwise. The bigger the fictional scaffolding I built up the worse my delusions became. Ever since that day, no matter what happens or has happened, I refuse to do anything but calmly asses a situation. I have not been stressed enough to go that manic since, but in part because I anchor myself to reality. We cannot know everything, but there is too much danger in declaring a reality that is out of step with our own. You do not need to be bipolar or schizophrenic to lose touch, to make bad decisions when you convince yourself of something dangerous.

I saw religion for what it was, a mass delusion. Not in a merely philosophical sense, but in a genuinely dangerous sense. The more who share the delusion the worse it is. Humanity needs to separate itself from delusions, especially since most do not have any excuse, any reason to fall for such falsities. I hate religion because it causes pain, suffering and the wrong actions in place of the obvious right actions. It is not harmless. It is not a right. Religion is a collective sickness of the mind, stretching across the centuries and among billions of people. It is not personal because our decisions, our actions affect others and when we base those actions on delusions, on the rejection of reality we are a danger to each other and humanity itself. For six weeks of my life I turned to delusion, and for several months I lived delusions. But only in those six weeks was I a danger. Only when I chose delusion over reality did I hurt myself. After I rejected an artificial delusion I was left to rediscover reality, and that is why I am an atheist. That is why I reject religion in others. That is why it hurts me so much to watch religious family and friends act on imaginary commands and stories.

Logic Priest

A Step in the Right Direction

Jen's followup to the other post I linked to. Not a bad idea, although for me overly centered on the atheism. But rebranding to cause a nice self selected schism from the misogynists and assholes in the greater whole of atheism and skepticism is definitely the right beginning. Branding, however, is an easy change. The main purpose is to separate, to get away from the supposed allies with only one, tangential relation to those of us who wish to apply skeptical thought to ourselves as much as to deities and psychic healers.

For my part I think next wave atheism shouldn't just include feminism et al, but should rebrand to something where even the name is non negative in its definition. Atheism is literally just not-theism. A+ is better, but for me still not proactive enough. A new identity centered on reason, skeptical thought and science applied to all aspects of life, with a purpose of helping humanity as a whole would be fantastic, but everything takes steps in between.

Logic Priest

New Wave Atheism

Jen at Freethoughtblogs spells it out wonderfully:

I don’t want good causes like secularism and skepticism to die because they’re infested with people who see issues of equality as mission drift. I want Deep Rifts. I want to be able to truthfully say that I feel safe in this movement. I want the misogynists, racists, homophobes, transphobes, and downright trolls out of the movement for the same reason I wouldn’t invite them over for dinner or to play Mario Kart: because they’re not good people. We throw up billboards claiming we’re Good Without God, but how are we proving that as a movement? Litter clean-ups and blood drives can only say so much when you’re simultaneously threatening your fellow activists with rape and death.

 I arrived at this conclusion, and so have many over at FTB, many among the atheistic feminists, many among atheists who happen to not be white males. It is inevitible, really. We started with philosophers, then strong but reactionary public faces like Dawkins and Hitchens, now we need to define a movement not as what it differs from, theism, but what it is. We need a movement that is defined by what it stands for, what it hopes to gain. Holding one correct belief, there is no god, is not enough to move us into the future. We need not just correct beliefs, but justifiable ones. We need a construction, similar to science, to correct and form beliefs and causes.

Logic Priest