Frivology

I’ve been a little quiet lately because I’ve had a lot of work to do, but I’ve been writing in my journal.  Everything that goes in there is incredibly raw, and often filled with grammatical errors and weird sentences that I certainly wouldn’t type out, but it’s a bit of a free-writing experience that lets me hammer out what I’m thinking about before I flesh it out somewhere else – like here.  The problem is that sometimes I get it out on paper and never get to the point where I’m fleshing it out.  I’ve got two pieces in there that I really need to somehow get here.  One is for Darwin Day, the other is good enough for now.

Friday, I stumbled upon a couple of posts that made the not-so-subtle jab that calling oneself an atheist is a rather negative means of introducing yourself.  The first is from Radosh.net:

The other day, Andrew Sullivan ran an idiotic letter asserting that atheists identify themselves by what they don’t believe in because "it’s a really cool way to get into the conversation in such a way that everyone has to defend their positions except you — you get to attack." It concluded, "Atheists should be forced to articulate their positive position (say, secular humanism) as price of admission to the conversation."

Now, I don’t know how this guy proposes to force anyone to articulate anything. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!) But the truth is he’s just wrong. Most atheists are delighted for the opportunity to let people know that they have positive positions on Life, the Universe and Everything. Many of us refuse to call ourselves atheists for precisely that reason.

To me, he seems to defend the act of calling oneself an atheist, then goes on to say that most atheists like to tell people about the good parts of their “beliefs”, which is why they don’t introduce themselves as atheists.  Kind of strange to me, but more than strange, it’s a little unsettling.  Mind you, I understand why one would take on this point, it just bugs me a bit.  By openly saying that someone doesn’t introduce themselves as an atheist to push the good parts of their beliefs, they are also saying that atheism, alone, isn’t a positive thing.

I guess, technically, this is true.  Atheism is the lack of belief in supernatural entities.  It isn’t someone’s view on the meaning of life, and it’s certainly not why someone might be so amazed at looking up at a sky filled with endless stars.  However, the sentiment that someone should refrain from calling themselves something that they are because it isn’t “positive” rings of so much self-censorship that it frankly scares me.  Like feminists who won’t call themselves feminists because they don’t want to be associated with “those people” or social progressives who insist on still calling themselves Republicans because they don’t want to be associated with “those people”.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with owning up to what you are, and we – of all people – shouldn’t be perpetuating a stereotype that atheism, in and of itself, is somehow negative.  It isn’t.  It isn’t positive, either.  It’s a statement.  Like, “I’m a woman”, or “I like tomatoes”.

My fear is that if we keep censoring ourselves and putting fancy words up for what we are, we will dilute the reality that what we are should not only be tolerated, but should be just as celebrated as any religion.   I say, if you’re going to put yourself forward, put that big ‘A’ on your chest and make people accept it.  Don’t water it down.  My morals fall in line with that of a humanist’s, but when it comes to whether or not I believe in god?  I’m an atheist, and always will be.

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