“How can you have a community and a movement for something you don’t believe in?”

Is there something inherent about atheism that makes it difficult, or impossible, to have a cohesive community and a powerful movement?

This isn’t just a question that gets douchily asked of atheists by religious believers. It’s an idea that gets floated by some atheists. In the conversation here on this very blog just yesterday, the conversation about policing our own and speaking out when atheists do screwed-up shit and why this sort of “divisiveness” is more important than unity that comes at the cost of silencing dissent, there were the following comments:

I think it ought to be pointed out repeatedly that simply lacking belief in gods is not necessarily a great unifying force. It does not imply that any two atheists necessarily have anything in common more than that.

I understand a certain amount of resource and leverage pooling when it comes to defending our basic rights in a system that had some messed up built in biases before we got here.

Beyond that, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to define ourselves according to some particular variety of nonsense that we don’t subscribe to. If we were joiners, we probably wouldn’t be atheists.

You just stated exactly why the modern atheist movement needs to be dismantled….and replaced with something that will promote human dignity instead. If the only thing you are about is disbelieving in God, you literally have nothing. We need positive values.

In reply to that last one, this:

That’s true, and probably why atheism has discovered that its tent is filled with hell of a lot of people who want to strangle each other

There does seem to be an idea, common among a fair number of atheists, that there is something inherent in atheism that makes cohesive community building and effective political organizing difficult or impossible.

And it’s bunk.

The reality is that a tremendous amount of organizing and community building is already happening around atheism. Even with all these disputes we’re having, atheism is taking off like a rocket. To give just one example: Look at the incredible growth of the Secular Student Alliance. In fact, I would argue that the disputes we’re having are probably because atheism is taking off like a rocket, since there’s this huge, diverse influx of new people who want a voice and don’t just want to do things the way the old guard has always done them. Atheism does, in fact, seem to be an idea around which people can organize, and organize effectively.

It makes no sense to say, “The only thing the atheist movement has in common in the fact that they don’t believe in God.” Yes — and the only thing that the environmental movement has in common is concern for the environment. The only thing that the LGBT movement has in common is concern for the LGBT rights. Heck — the only thing that gardening clubs have in common is an interest in gardening. Apply to other communities and social change movements; lather; rinse; repeat. These movements and communities have nevertheless had significant success.

And in fact, the debates and divisions within atheism are not unique to atheism. The fights about sexism, for instance, are raging in the tech world, the gaming world, the science fiction fandom world, the comics fandom world. Lots of communities that have traditionally been male-dominated and have recently had a large influx of women are having this exact same ugly pushback against women and feminism, and these exact same fights.

If the presence of division and discord were an indication that a community or a movement didn’t have a clear unifying force, then most large communities and movements organized around a clear unifying force would be relatively peaceful and conflict-free. Anyone who’s done any community organizing or political activism will hear that assertion, and collapse on the floor choking with hysterical laughter until the paramedics have to be called in.

What’s more, the reality is that atheist communities aren’t just taking off like a rocket: they’re very important for a lot of atheists, especially the ones who lose their friends and family when they leave religion. To just shrug and say, “Yeah, this organizing business is being hard and we’re having a lot of divisive debates, therefore it’s a waste of time and we’re never going to be able to do this” is not an acceptable answer.

I have argued before, and will no doubt argue again: As upsetting as these fights are, we need to have them. If we don’t have debates about sexism and racism and so on, we won’t move forward on sexism and racism and so on. The fights are actually a good sign: I’d rather we have them now, than ten or twenty or fifty years from now, when bad habits have had more time to set in, and bad feelings have had more time to fester. And again: Every social change movement I know of has had these fights, or has had fights similar to these. It is not a sign that atheism is an inherently difficult or impossible idea to organize around. It is a sign that human beings are contentious primates. Deal with it.

UPDATE: Here is a link to Jamy Ian Swiss’s talk, the one this piece was catalyzed by/ written partly in response to.

I am stealing this idea wholesale from Keith Lowell Jensen. Content note: harassment, threats of rape and other violence.

We want religious believers to police their own.

We want religious believers to stop being silent about atrocities committed in the name of religion. We want them to stop rationalizing, stop trivializing, stop making excuses: for the families who kick their gay kids out of their homes; for the theocrats who force their religion on others with law or violence or both; for the abusive husbands who justify their abuse with God; for the priests who rape children and the church that covers it up. We want religious believers to stop treating tribal loyalty as the single highest moral value they can imagine. We want them to speak out about these things. We want them to police their own.

And when they don’t, we call them hypocrites.

So why is it that when atheists speak out against screwed-up shit that other atheists are doing, it gets called “divisive”?

I have been hearing a lot of calls for unity in the atheist community. I have been hearing a lot of calls for an end to the debates, an end to the infighting. I have been hearing a lot of calls for atheists to stop focusing on our differences, and look at our common ground. I have been hearing a lot of cries about how the constant fighting among atheists makes us enemies of each other, drains our energy, weakens our movement. And I get it. I’m tired of the arguments, too.

But all too often, calling for unity equals silencing dissent. All too often, calling for unity equals a de facto defense of the status quo. All too often, calling for unity equals telling people who are speaking up for themselves to shut up.

I do not want to be in unity with atheists who tell me to fuck myself with a knife. I do not want to be in unity with atheists who say they hope I get raped, who tell me to choke on a dick and die. I do not want to be in unity with atheists who say that I’m a whore and therefore nobody should take me seriously. I do not want to be in unity with atheists who say that I’m an ugly dyke and therefore nobody should take me seriously. I do not want to be in unity with atheists who post their opponents’ home addresses on the Internet; who hack into their opponents’ private email lists and make content from those emails public. I do not want to be in unity with atheists who alert the Westboro Baptist Church to atheist events, and ask if they plan to attend. I do not want to be in unity with atheists who bombard other people with a constant barrage of hate and threats of rape, violence, and death. I do not want to be in unity with atheists who call me a cunt, who call other women cunts, again and again and again and again and again. And I do not want to be in unity with atheists who consistently rationalize this behavior, who trivialize it, who make excuses for it.

And I don’t think I should be expected to. I don’t think anyone in this movement should be asking that of me. I don’t think anyone in this movement should be asking that of anyone.

I don’t give a shit about the common ground I share with these people. The common ground of “we both don’t believe in God” is a whole lot less important to me than our differences: the difference that they think it’s okay to call women cunts and I do not, the difference that they think I should be ignored because I’m ugly or a whore and I do not; the difference that they think it’s okay to persistently harass and threaten people and I do not; the difference that they think it’s okay to hack into my private email lists and I do not; the difference that they hope I get raped and I do not; the difference that they want me to fuck myself with a knife and I do not. And I have serious problems with the expectation that I should set aside these differences, and focus on our common ground of having concluded that God doesn’t exist… and that I’m not being a good team player if I don’t.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: There is literally no way that the atheist movement can be inclusive of everybody. We can’t be inclusive of atheist women… and also be inclusive of atheists who publicly call women ugly, fat, sluts, whores, cunts, and worse. We can’t be inclusive of atheists of color… and also be inclusive of atheists who think people of color stay in religion because they’re just not good at critical thinking, or who tell people of color, “You’re pretty smart for a…” We can’t be inclusive of trans atheists… and also be inclusive of atheists who think trans people are mentally ill or freaks of nature. We can’t be inclusive of atheists who are mentally ill… and also be inclusive of atheists who think mental illness is just a failure of willpower. Etc.

And when people, however well-meaning, make generic calls for unity — when they tell all of us to stop fighting and just get along — they’re basically telling those of us on the short ends of those sticks to shut up.

The cost of unity is the silence of people who are being screwed over.

We want religious believers to police their own.

So we need to stop trying to shut up atheists who are doing the same thing.

Note: Since I’m starting to have issues with writings about controversies and debates within the movement that don’t say who and what exactly they’re responding to: This piece was written in response to Jamy Ian Swiss’s talk at the Orange County Freethought Alliance conference. However, it’s a idea I’ve been thinking about for some time (specifically since I talked about it with Keith): this talk was simply the catalyst.