Religion
In reply to the discussion: "Persecuted" Atheists in America Need a New Perspective [View all]LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)Last edited Tue Feb 14, 2012, 08:09 AM - Edit history (2)
Hitchens did not 'whine or pout' about the hostility that he attracted from some quarters; he gave it back with interest, and rather relished a good fight.
But atheists in general are not Hitchens (whom I respected for his courage in the face of illness, but disliked for his views on Iraq). Why should atheists be ostracized because SOME atheists are aggressive polemicists? You would, I hope, oppose ostracizing all Protestants because of Palin, or all Catholics because of Santorum, or all Muslims because of Al Quaeda, or all Jews because of the Kahanists? And Dawkins and Hitchens don't even equate with these examples: they might be rude to their opponents, but they aren't seeking to kill them, or even to make laws against people praying and going to church the way Santorum does against reproductive rights.
And there have been anti-atheist political and social vendettas in America (and to a much lesser extent Britain) since long before the writings of Hitchens and Dawkins. It was one of the features of McCarthyism and led to the 'under God' phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pat Robertson has been active at least since the 1970s, and was a candidate in the Republican primaries of 1988. Bush, the more moderate individual who defeated him, said in the early 90s that atheists are not full citizens of America. No openly atheist candidates were elected to Congress in the entire 20th century (one later admitted atheism in 2007). In the UK, blasphemy laws were not abolished till, wait for it, 2008!
Dawkins, though he'd been writing about evolution for a long time, did not publish 'The God Delusion' and other atheist material till the 2000s; Hitchens wrote against Mother Teresa in 1995, but most of his atheist writings were in the 2000s.
It is simply not possible to blame the longstanding social and political ostracism of atheists in at least some parts of America on some rude remarks by a few atheist writers in the last 10 years!