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Commentary Too - May 28, 2006 - Printable Version
- The Land of the Free
by S.K.Eleton
“We are allowed to … express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom.” Col. Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
What would you think if you received an e-mail requesting your support for a cause you believed in, and most of all, requesting your monetary support…and began by insulting you? Would you immediately rush off to get your checkbook or credit card, and send off a big donation? Would you rush to forward it to all your friends in hope that they would donate, too? Nearly every day, something similar happens to me. In fact, for a number of years, I have grown accustomed to overlooking little slurs, little pokes, little jibes from those who are my “friends” and my “colleagues”, and have gone on marching beside them, working along with them on valued causes, keeping my mouth shut because I have believed it was important to keep working for what I believed in, even though it meant sacrificing something else that I believe in – my right to disagree with what someone else is saying or thinking. Well, not any more.
This afternoon, I opened an e-mail from an organization fighting in the interest of freedom of choice. The question of the day was whether a good, spiritual person, a person with morals, could possibly be working in support of reproductive choice. The answer? “Most Americans are spiritual people who care a LOT about living a meaningful, good life.” The implication? That those Americans who are not spiritual people do NOT care about living meaningful, good life (or maybe we do care, but just not a LOT – maybe just a LITTLE). For years, I have sat back and kept my mouth shut while my “friends” have suggested, subtly and not-so subtly, that I must not be a GOOD person, that my life lacks MEANING, simply because I do not believe in a deity. Many of my friends, being “liberal” in thought, don’t care what deity I believe in. If I were a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Wiccan, or a Christian, it would be irrelevant to them; but, because I am an atheist, I must be preached to, proselytized, prayed for, pitied, and pompously pontificated at for hours on end. I am referred to as “arrogant” for implying that I don’t know the answers, by people who are self-righteously telling me what the answers are (they DO know the answers, and they are to be found in faith). I am considered immoral, even evil by the religious right; the left simply seems to assume that I am an atheist because I don’t want to follow the rigid rules of their religion. In the unlikely event I should interrupt this flood of salvation they are attempting to drown me in to explain that I have no need of either the prayers or the pity, to explain that I am indeed satisfied, content and fulfilled, I am accused of “hostility” or of “mocking” their beliefs. Keep in mind, these are never conversations I have initiated – I do not spend any time discussing religion of my own volition, and the subject does not usually arise unless other people bring it up. People demand to know my religious views – they then castigate me for hours – and follow up by accusing ME of “mocking” THEM. Then, they usually finish up by pointing out to me how tolerant they are of dissenting views, and how lucky I should consider myself to live in America, where people like me can walk around in broad daylight. Oh, yeah? So, what does it mean to be an atheist in modern-day America, anyway?
I will admit that we have come a long way from the time where non-believers were burned, hung or beheaded for heresy or apostasy. I will admit that many non-believers feel free to publish books and appear on talk shows. I will admit that we are allowed to vote, to own property, and to run for office (though we are not allowed to win, of course). In return for being “allowed” these freedoms, we are expected to refrain from “ridiculing” religion (which tends to be broadly defined as making any comment that isn’t fully reverential, or that disagrees with any sacred text full of divine revelation of some chosen deity). We are expected to nod, smile and agree anytime someone tells us that religion is, of course, good for society, even if it isn’t totally true – an assumption that dates back at least to the time of Plato, who was not asked to demonstrate that with any empirical evidence, and which has yet to be demonstrated with any empirical evidence – it’s simply assumed to be true. It may be true, but how do we know if we aren’t allowed to ask or investigate? We are expected to sit still for proselytizing and preaching, and preferably to accept the prayers and preaching without protest or rebuttal. We suffer vandalism, assault and battery, death threats, and occasionally even fatal attacks on our persons. Our children are taunted and teased, and not infrequently beaten. Yes, we indeed consider ourselves truly lucky to live in such a tolerant nation!
In the face of all this, it might seem a silly thing for me to take offense at an e-mail implying that spiritual people are good and their lives have meaning. It’s just a little thing, after all, and of course, a group fighting for a controversial cause must bow down to the dominant paradigm in society. I should just keep my mouth shut, because I believe in the cause, and I might harm it if I associate openly with the group. So, I send in my check, and shut up. I show up for marches minus my horns and my pitchfork. Once we’re done fighting this fight, winning this battle, then maybe there will be a more appropriate time for you to come forward, and for us to embrace you as openly as we’d like to, but for now, we really must just be moral little Pollyannas until the time comes. For a long time, I’ve believed this line of reasoning. I’ve bought into this myth, and lied to myself. My friends and I must wait our turn if we are to preserve freedom. In order to preserve freedom for the majority of humanity, a despised minority must be willing to put their own freedom on hold, and bite the bullet. Because I do care a LOT about living a good and meaningful life, I have done my part. I have not opened my mouth. I have kept my word, written my check, marched alongside my brothers and sisters in the noble causes, even though I never felt quite welcome. Warm bodies were needed – if those warm bodies happened to belong to atheists, well, that’s all right – so long as nobody knows.
Of course, it wasn’t just one e-mail. It’s the accumulation of years of slurs and slights. Many little things, things that would go unnoticed by anyone not a member of the slighted group, have grown over the years, snowballing downhill, collecting other little things on the way, until they have reached critical mass. There is the evolution battle. This is a battle where people often get accused of being “godless atheists” by their opponents. Nearly every article I read about the topic addresses that concern of Middle America. Nearly every article I read deals with it the same way, not by acknowledging that there are atheists out there that accept the fact of evolution, and that in this great country of ours even schoolteachers have a right to their own personal views, but by pointing out that “many” scientists are, indeed, believers. The scientists quoted on the subject of evolution in these articles nearly always begin by pointing out that they are a practicing Methodist, or a devout Catholic, and not an atheist at all. I find this particularly galling, since only about 10% of practicing scientists profess to be believers. Suddenly, 10% translates into the designation of “many”. When articles address the fact that 10% of the American public are non-believers, this is widely believed to be a “few”. The semantics of journalism never cease to amaze me! And I always find myself wondering how they manage to find only believers to interview when only 10% of scientists profess to be believers. Then, one day, I noticed that I was seeing the same names over and over again. The same people were being called every time someone wanted to write an article! For the most part, these were not the most eminent scientists. Whenever someone wants to interview someone truly eminent, they always call Kenneth Miller, who is identified as a devout Catholic, and then interviewed to support evolutionary theory. Instead, why don’t we have an open and honest discussion about non-belief? Why don’t we acknowledge the First Amendment? Why don’t we have some teach-ins about atheism, so people can come to understand that morality and honor, honesty and integrity do not require a belief in God? It seems to be of the utmost urgency to reassure readers that the science teachers in their high school are not atheists, that they don’t know any atheists, that they don’t like atheists, and that they would shoot any atheist on sight that attempted to get within a thousand miles of their classroom! This is a tolerant nation?
I submit to you the following proposition – the true freedom of a representative democracy is not to be judged by the way the majority is treated, but instead by the way the minorities are treated. It is easy, in a well run democracy, to treat the majority well, because the majority is making the rules, and will naturally and logically make those rules that are in their best interests. It is not always as easy to safeguard the rights and freedoms of a minority, especially when that minority is despised by the members of the majority group, but a democracy that fails to safeguard the rights of the minorities gives up any claim to legitimacy. Many in America now are concerned about the erosion of freedoms and the decaying of democracy. This should have been easy to predict. The minorities in this country were the canaries in the coal mine. For all the gains that were made in minority status in the last century, many minorities are still marginalized, still stigmatized, and still condemned to a life on the fringes of society. As the majority groups in America begin to feel their rights and their freedoms slipping away, they respond by becoming even more hostile, even more paranoid about the despised minorities. They blame these small, despised groups for every evil they can think of, and attempt to marginalize them further. They resort back to the violence that characterized our early history, taking us backward in time to a period they aren’t old enough to remember, but which they view through the distant haze of whitewashed history, hoping that they will once again seize what they believe is rightfully theirs, wresting control away from the few “elites” and “aliens” they believe hold the reins (in spite of the fact that not a single non-believer is holding elected office). Feeding misplaced fear and reactionary anger against a perceived threat from secularism, a radical group of true believers have been elevated to power in Washington DC, and in statehouses throughout the country. Systematically, they are removing the safeguards that allow all of us to live, breathe, work, play and die in an atmosphere of relative freedom. In spite of all this, and in spite of the constant barrage of Christianity that emanates from our airwaves, from our newspapers and magazines, and that oozes from every pore of every mover and shaker in politics, entertainment and business, there still remains a perception that the real threat to our nation lies in the handful of non-believers that move quietly through their daily routines.
Still further erosions of liberty and freedom can be expected. No one is going to be truly free as long as there are groups of people afraid to openly express their dissent with the dominant paradigm. We must open up the debate, and allow all parties to speak their piece. We don’t have to agree – the world won’t come to an end if we argue amongst ourselves. The house won’t burn down if we bicker over the details. It is time to recognize that a person who disagrees with you isn’t necessarily mocking you. A person who doesn’t share the same priorities with you is not necessarily misdirecting or diverting – they merely have a different idea about what is most important. A person who thinks you are mistaken, or even one who thinks you foolish, is not necessarily evil. A person who does not believe in God is not necessarily immoral and unhappy.
For years, I’ve listened to you. I’ve heard every one of my friends share their witness with me. I’ve had every one of them offer to pray for me (and many more that do so on their own recognizance). I’ve been given Bibles and tracts. I’ve been threatened with hell, and bribed with heaven. I don’t want to sing hymns; I don’t want to hold hands. I don’t really care if you understand me, because I am more fulfilled within myself than I ever was as a Christian. All I ask is that you not set out to insult me when you’re asking for my money or my support, because, from now on, you won’t find me compliant. Yes, I believe in your cause. Yes, I think it’s important. But there is something I believe in far more than choice. I believe in the First Amendment. If we sacrifice that to win our other battles, we won’t win a single one.
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