I'm Not An Anti-Theist Anymore. Here's Why.

[rug]

December 26, 2016
by Martin Hughes

This blog post has been a few months in the making. You might have noticed, if you’ve been following me, that recently I’ve been a lot less harsh regarding religion and much more focused on social justice issues and politics. This is no accident. It is the result of the fact that several occurrences I’ve experienced have revealed tendencies in the tenor of anti-theist conversation that have given me pause.

To be sure, I am still an atheist. That hasn’t changed. I see no strong evidence for God, and I make my decisions without thinking that an all-powerful being is concerned about me. I see no logical way to argue any of the manifestations of God, and I think that concepts of God too often get in the way of our organization of society. Most people who believe in God seem to think that God has some authority over morality or over the way we should understand other people, and I think that does more harm than good. All that hasn’t changed.

What has changed is my realization that there are two aspects to God that often get confused. This is told well in the old rebuttal to the statement that there are no atheists in foxholes — the person jokingly admits, “I agree; last time I was in a foxhole I was terrified, and I promptly believed that Gay Marriage was a sin.” The funny aspect here is that the statement that there are no atheists in foxholes is made because the speaker thinks, however erroneously, that the atheist in the foxhole needs someone to hold onto in times of great stress. The stuff God says about Gay Marriage doesn’t really seem to occur to most Christians (yes, I’m using Christianity as an example of theism) because that’s in a separate realm.

Having been more-or-less on the front lines of anti-theism for a couple years, I can tell that most anti-theists take pride in a stoic view of a desolate existence. We are on this spinning ball of dust, alone in a vast universe. And this gives us a kind of Nietzschean strength and courage that makes us more powerful human beings than religious people.

One of the many reasons I stopped being an anti-theist is that I became uncomfortable with this pride. I couldn’t ever really embrace it. I mean, I’m a relatively comfortable individual who is privileged in a wide variety of ways. I’m not in a position to make fun of someone else’s weakness, their difficulty in facing the outside world. If you’re alone, and you’re destitute, and you’re struggling to make it through each day, and you don’t have a friend — maybe sometimes you have to make someone up. Who am I, in my position, to be proud that I’m not doing that?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/barrierbreaker/im-not-anti-theist-anymore-heres/

[whathehell]

1. Good move..

The rudeness and self-superority of many anti-theists is insufferable, even to agnostics like myself.

[J_William_Ryan]

2. Those who are

"anti-theist" constitute a tiny minority, in no way representative of those free from faith.

Indeed, to oppose efforts by religious extremists to violate the First Amendment and the religious liberties of others is not to be "anti-theist."

[guillaumeb]

3. A very nice distinction.

And many theists are equally opposed to efforts to turn the US into a Christian theocracy.

Prominent in the Abolitionist Movement were Ministers, Priests and people of faith.
Prominent in the Civil Rights Movement were Ministers, Priests and people of faith.
Prominent in the anti-war movement were Ministers, Priests and people of faith.