by Johanna

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When it comes to grabbing desperately at every conceivable modicum of power, religion can get pretty creative. Most religions have methods of control and manipulation that have been passed down and improved upon for centuries. Using little more than a precise mixture of threats and promises administered early and often, they can convince people to sign their entire lives away. They have the use of fear down to an art form. What’s more, it’s all done under the guise of altruism.

One particularly effective method is that of uniting people against a common enemy. It’s a simple concept. Give people an enemy to fight, and they’ll band together. This phenomenon has all kinds of benefits to those in power. The more afraid people are, the stronger their sense of unity. The more they’re looking to an external enemy, the less they look within the group. The more dire the potential consequences, the more willing people are to listen to authority. All of these are survival traits that have arisen through hundreds of thousands of years of tribal living, twisted to fit the needs of those who wish to remain in power.

Christians are lucky enough to have permanent enemy: Satan. Unfortunately for the church, Satan is a little difficult to pin down. I suspect this has something to do with his imaginary nature. At any rate, the fact that Satan isn’t an entity that can be directly battled makes him an inconvenient villain. To get people to really come together to rally against a common enemy, it has to be someone or something that they can see. It has to be something that poses an immediate threat, and it helps if it’s something that people can envision themselves defeating. Seeing as how the Devil is apparently going to be bound to a lake of fire by Christ or God at some indeterminate future time, it’s hard to use him as the unifying force that the church so desperately needs.

Which leaves… well, everyone else. “They”, unlike Satan, make for the perfect enemy of all god-fearing people everywhere. “They” are everywhere! “They” are your neighbors, your coworkers, that nephew that the family doesn’t talk about anymore. Satan’s still in the picture, of course: he influences “them” in some vague, indefinable way. Nevertheless, “they” are a group of people that pose a tangible and immediate threat to all good Christians everywhere. And, of course, the more nebulously defined your categories of “us” and “them”, the more effective these categories are. After all, if the line between “us” and “them” is a fuzzy one, then people will have to steer well clear of it to avoid being mistaken for the other side. The church takes full advantage of this fact, and they do it well. After all, they’ve had several millennia worth of practice.

“Us vs. Them” permeates every facet of religious life. It’s the wrong time of year to go off on the “War on Christmas”, but it’s a perfect example. Late December is a time when the world is, according to some, divided into those who celebrate Christmas and love Jesus and those who want to abolish Christianity and all that it stands for. It often seems like a mere lack of Christmas spirit is enough to get people up in arms.

Another thing that comes to mind is the movie “The Book of Eli”. Spoiler alert to those of you who’ve missed out on this  little gem: Denzel Washington is protecting the last King James Bible in the world. Apparently, there was an apocalyptic religious war, during which most of civilization was destroyed. People died, other people went blind, and America was laid to waste. Society collapsed. Yet, somehow, the few struggling survivors managed to find the time and energy to go about the country destroying every copy of the Bible except for one. Their drive to destroy Christianity was so great that they were able to visit every home, bookstore, library, and hotel room in the entire country, just to stomp out a religion that they blamed for the apocalypse. Now, I’m not saying people wouldn’t blame religion- I certainly would, if it played a significant part in the war. Blame is one thing. Systematically eradicating millions of copies of a book in preference of finding a dependable source of food, water, and shelter and rebuilding society, on the other hand… That’s crazy talk. The ragged remnants of humanity have better things to do than waste their time breaking the Guinness World Record for burning books. The fact that this idea seemed plausible not only to the people making the movie but a large portion of the audience is just further evidence of how successful the “us vs. them” strategy can be.

There is no singular, unified force acting to destroy or overthrow Christianity. It’s a myth. It’s nothing more than a very successful scare tactic to keep people in line. There are people who don’t like Christianity specifically, and there are people who don’t like religion in general. There are many people, myself included, who try to take steps to keep other people’s religious views from dictating how I live my own life. There are also a lot of people who don’t care. Christians who believe that all non-Christians are out to get them are seriously underestimating the power of apathy. None of this stops the church from crying persecution at every turn, but to my ears, it sounds an awful lot like crying wolf.

Johanna is a member of Connecticut Valley Atheists. The views expressed in this posting are her own and do not necessarily represent those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by Dennis Paul Himes

Earlier this month I attended the annual American Atheists National Convention. This year’s convention was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, across the river from New York City.  As a result, we had a bigger representation from Connecticut than any of the others I’ve attended.  I know of at least seven other Connecticut people besides myself who were there.

I arrived a day early, to attend the state directors’ meeting.  I drove this year, because it was so close, but unfortunately arrived about an hour later than I would have if I hadn’t gotten lost in New Jersey.

One difference between this year’s convention and previous ones was that a number of speakers were in split sessions.  In other words, two different speakers would speak at the same time in different rooms and you had to choose which one you wanted to hear.  At first I wasn’t sure I liked that, but I realize it’s a good thing, because the alternative wouldn’t be hearing all of those speakers at different times, it would be hearing the same number of speakers without any choice as to whom.

The first speaker on Friday, before the split sessions, was Paul Kurtz.  Kurtz is a longtime activist long associated with the Humanist movement.  In fact, increased cooperation between various freethought groups was kind of a theme of this conference.  There were several people there long associated with other organizations.  I have to confess, however, that I don’t remember much of Kurtz’s talk.

The second speaker, also in a unified session, was the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci.  He was probably my favorite speaker of the convention.  He disputed Richard Dawkins’ assertion that the God Hypothesis is a scientific question. Pigliucci insisted that it is a philosophical question and not a scientific one (even though he completely agrees with Dawkins’ conclusion that it’s false).  As someone who had been impressed by Dawkins’ argument and influenced by its implications I found Pigliucci’s counterargument fascinating.  It is an indication of how interesting the talk was that I am still undecided as to how much I still disagree with him.

The next speaker, also in a unified session, ws Cecil Bothwell, who was elected to the Asheville North Carolina City Council in spite of being openly Atheist. Before running for office he had been an investigative reporter, and his stories which led to a corrupt sherrif going to jail impressed enough people to vote for him even though they might not agree with his views on religion.  He also has written a book about Billy Graham, which uncovered that the “spiritual advice” which Graham gave to presidents was often explicit political advice on matters such as which country to bomb.

After that were some split sessions.  First I heard Tom Flynn, who was the editor of Free Inquiry magazine when it became the first publication in the US to print the Danish cartoons of Mohammed (scooping American Atheist Magazine by a month or so).  He talked about the reaction and the sometimes inconsistent response by booksellers in the US and Canada.  The next speaker I heard was Keith Proteus Wood, who was an Englishman dealing with some of the same issues involving the Catholic Church and child abuse in the UK as we are dealing with here.  Next I heard Edwin Kagin, the National Legal Director of American Atheists (and Ky. State Director), who talked about blasphemy, a subject which gave him an opportunity to display his inimitable sense of humor.  This included a surprise visit by the Burka Babes singing “back in the burka again”.  After this we had a debaptism, which is becoming an annual event, presided over by Kagin.

That night at the dinner we had the awards ceremony.  Blair Scott, Affiliate Director and Alabama State Director, won the Atheist of the Year award.

I’m not sure if it was that night or some other time, but there was a slide show in rememberance of Helen Kagin, cofounder of Camp Quest (along with her husband Edwin) and longtime activist, who died earlier this year.

On Saturday for the first split session I saw Sean Faircloth, who is a former Maine state legislator who is now the lobbyist in Washington for the Secular Coalition for America, the umbrella organization for freethought organizations in America which American Atheists joined last year.  Next I listened to Indra Zuno, a Mexican interpreter who talked about Our Lady of Guadalupe, a supposed miracle in 16th Century Mexico.  She pointed out many problems with this myth, such as the fact that the bishop who supposedly witnessed the miracle left behind extensive writings, but never mentioned it.  For the final split session I heard Todd Stiefel, a man who made a ton of money when he was fairly young and is using it to advance the freethought movement.

As some point (I think Saturday) I, and several other members of Connecticut Valley Atheists, attended the affiliates’ meeting.  It was well attended and lively.  It included members of some very active affiliates.

After that we returned to unified sessions for the rest of the day.  First we heard psychologist Andy Thomson.  He had spoken last year in Atlanta, but I thought he was much better this year.  He talked about the effect of ritual, dance, and singing on practitioners, and how all (or most) religions use these to their advantage.  As an experiment, he had us all linking arms, swaying, and singing Amazing Grace, and observing the effect it had on us.

After that we heard Dan Barker, one of the leaders of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  Barker is a former fundamentalist minister who finally couldn’t keep the cognitive dissonance at bay.  He talked about what you could say to fundamentalists to plant the seed of doubt.  Not that you’ll convince them on the spot, but for some of them (like the one Barker used to be) you can make them start to think.

Finally we heard Wendy Kaminer.  Kaminer has been active in the ACLU, and talked about situations where the rights of believers and nonbelivers come into conflict, especially cases where she thought that the positions we usually take are wrong.  I didn’t agree with her on much of what she said, but she did make intelligent arguments and I have to give credit to both her and the audience members for being able to disagree on so much without rancor.

That night while bar hopping in Greenwich Village I found myself as part of a group which included Margaret Downey, of Atheist Alliance fame, who, as it turns out, is an expert on Thomas Paine.  We ended up finding the site where Paine died, which is now a piano bar in the Village (although Downey thinks he really died across the street).  (That I even went bar hopping might surprise those of you who know me personally, but with the right company you don’t need to drink to enjoy being in a bar.)

There’s no word yet on where next year’s convention is going to be, although it will almost certainly be west of the Mississippi.

As always in these conventions, the biggest value of attending is the networking, information exchange, and friendships between activist all over the country, and beyond.  I was happy to see several members from Connecticut attend and glad to be able to introduce them to their fellow activists.  I hope some of you can make it to future conventions.

-

Dennis Paul Himes
Connecticut State Director, American Atheists
President, Connecticut Valley Atheists

Nisus ait, “Dine hunc ardorem mentibus addunt,
Euryale, an sua cuique deus fit dira cupido?”
- P. Vergilius Maro

by mr dan

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Most atheists live a significant and lonely part of our early lives thinking we are the only ones who believe that there is no God. So when we do finally meet some other proud heathens, it can sometimes be a bit disarming that they, on certain issues, unknowingly embrace some small morsels of superstition.   Most atheists I know are completely dogma-free, but there are a sporadic few who liberated themselves from the major lies they were told as children, but simply never bothered to question some of the others.  Perhaps it’s a small thing like knocking on wood, or something larger, like a belief in astrology.  To them I say, “You can’t have no cake and eat it too.”

That there are no gods is not necessarily proof that astrology is wrong, so hypothetically you could come to one conclusion but not the other.  But everything about  astrology, every theory of the afterlife, every reincarnation fable, every foolish superstition is so flimsy and irrational that you should be effortlessly able to explain it away using the same logic that originally broke you from the bonds of theism.

Let’s go over a few of these notions.

the Soul: I know we’ve covered this one a few times, but just to recap, the soul is at odds with science in almost every way.  If you consider the soul merely to be a person’s essence, sense of identity or some other lame and shadowy new age notion, then all I can do is take issue with your choice of vocabulary.  But the moment you grant a supernatural element to this entity, such as immortality, the ability to survive the death of the body, or a one-way ticket on the interdimensional superhighway, you leave the realm of science and give in to the magical and the ridiculous.

While we like to say that the mind is very distinct from the body, it’s clear that minor changes in the condition of the body can lead to drastic changes in the mind.  Consider the effects that drugs and alcohol, a lack of sleep or certain vitamins, the menstrual cycle, head trauma, even changes in temperature can have on someone’s personality and it will be easy to see a link between the two.  How can one believe that the mind, which is so demonstrably intertwined with the state of the body, survives once the connection has been entirely severed?

Reincarnation: Reincarnation in any of its many forms is inherently dependent on the soul; without it, there is nothing to be transfered from one life to the next.  If you think you were a pirate or an armadillo or a dragon slayer in a past life, then you have to believe that there’s a part of you that is definably you and yet not dependent on any physical part of you, and that somehow that part is able to be transfered from one being to the next, and that it works no matter what species of brain the new body has.  This just doesn’t make any sense.

Karma:  This trendy hippie belief is rife with unspoken religiosity.  It suggests that the sum of your actions, intentions and even your thoughts add up to something, and that the universe will distribute to you a proper punishment or reward.  The tacit element in this equation is a god or a sentient cosmos.

If I punch a girl scout in the face, and the next day I have a heart attack, it may be poetic justice, but the latter had no connection to the former–it’s just an odd coincidence.  Unless of course the heart attack was induced by my guilt over punching a girl scout, in which case there is a rational, scientific explanation and there is no need to drag cosmic superstitions into it.  The same rings true for fate or destiny.

Soulmates: It’s a very romantic notion to think that the one person you love more than anything else was created for you, sculpted from the finest corporeal clay and dropped into that bus station, coffee shop or Craigslist ad just for you.  Did you ever stop to wonder who the sculptor was?

My ex-girlfriend used to think me horribly unromantic because I didn’t think we were made for each other.  She found my explanation of the evolutionary necessity of love–that a strong emotional attachment was cricial for early families to survive and take an interest in the raising of young–less than charming.  But my philosophy for love is better explained by a line from the wedding vows of my dear Aunt Kat, which she wrote herself to her new husband: “I don’t need you, I choose you.”  That struck me as such a beautiful thought, in such contrast to every notion I had ever heard about love in my young life.  They divorced a few years later, but still.  Way more romantic than cosmic meddling.

Curses: The notion that people or objects can be cursed is again entirely dependent on a supreme being, or some kind of universal or perhaps localized sentient force.  Occum’s Razor: it’s much more likely that your favorite sports team just sucks.

Astrology: Horoscopes are admittedly bogus, and yet many people still believe that the position of the sun, planets and stars relative to the earth at the moment you were born can have an effect on your personality and the events of your entire lifetime. When people ask me what my Zodiac sign is, I’ll tell them.  They’re always surprised, they say, because I don’t act like other members of my sign.  I wonder if this is because no one ever told me how people born the same month as me are supposed to act, so I never adopted those traits.  Because there’s no further evidence that the Zodiac has any influence on you.  It’s just as sound as those little paper flippy things that are supposed to predict your future, and just as much fun…by which I mean it gets boring once you turn 8.

Jinxing:  If you’ve ever planned a picnic or a hike, you’ve probably uttered the words “I hope it doesn’t rain on Saturday” only to have some imbecile reply, “Don’t say that! You’ll jinx it!”  Words are powerful, but they can’t rewrite meteorology.  It’s going to rain on Saturday, or it isn’t, and that fact is dependent on many variables, but what you or I say is not a factor.

Lady Gaga is a genius:  I’ll believe it when I see the evidence.

The Notion of Racial Supremacy:  I include this here because it really is a myth, and quite a silly one, that any one race could be superior to another, or more entitled to happiness or prosperity, or more deserving of equal treatment.  Biologically there is no such thing as race; the differences are quite literally skin-deep.  If we accept the surveys and polls as completely unbiased, we may find that certain ethnic groups score higher on tests or have slightly larger genitalia, but are these really the criteria by which we should judge a person’s worth or right to equal treatment?  And things like test scores and crime rates are really more dependent on socioeconomic factors and unequal access to education than which continent your ancestors came from.

Is it really a huge leap from saying “People who look like me are better than people who look like you” to “We are the chosen ones”?  Where could such a staggering difference in the worth and validity of entire biogeographical divisions of human life come from if not from up above?  Who but a supreme being would have the power to color-code people? And who has been more at the forefront of every effort to suppress one race in favor of another than religion? All these arguments, by the way, apply in exactly the same way to sexism, ethnic chauvinism, or really any kind of bigotry.

The Meaning of Life.  What is the meaning of life?  There simply isn’t one. I don’t see how you can think that we evolved from nothingness without cosmic interference and still think we’re here for a reason.  Our lives have only the purpose that we give them.  If you think a vast, cold universe full of nothing renders us a bit meaningless, then give your life some meaning.  You can do something, solve some problem, cure some disease, be somebody special to somebody.  Why does there need to be a supernatural element? And if there were, wouldn’t that cheapen your so-called purpose?  I think Martin Luther King was a great man who did wonderful things for this world.  Isn’t it a little degrading to him to suggest that he was merely a plaything of the cosmic puppeteer, that his ideas and strengths were not his own?

Fairies:  Seriously, I’m not going to sit here and explain to you why there are no fairies.

These are just a few of the many silly ideas that some people cling to even after releasing themselves from religion.  If you’re not sure whether something is true, consider whether it can be tested, or whether you can explain it.  Try it out now: if you believe that the soul can be transfered from one body to another, or from your body on this earth into another dimension, then explain to me how.  Bonus points if you can do it without using the word “magic.”

I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m telling you what you can or can’t believe, I’m just asking: does it make sense to conclude that the universe wasn’t created by a deity and to still believe that something hidden and mysterious controls everything from your love life to this week’s lottery?  It’s nice to have your cake and eat it too.  But here you have no cake; you’ve thrown it away.  And if you’re still trying to eat cake that you’ve already thrown out, aren’t you really just eating out of the garbage?

Sort of an apt metaphor for superstition and religion, when you think about it.

mr dan is the vice president of Connecticut Valley Atheists.  The views expressed in this posting are his own and do not necessarily represent those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by Johanna

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There’s little that bothers me more than an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. It bugs me when people feel they deserve or are owed more than what they’ve earned. For some, it’s a way of justifying having more than others. The wealthy want to believe that they’ve earned every penny of what they have because it means they don’t have to feel guilty for living in luxury when so many others struggle to survive. Those in power want to feel that they are in some way better-suited to leading in order to justify making decisions that impact the lives of people they’ve never even met. For others, their sense of entitlement is a way of convincing themselves they have a right to the things they want that are beyond their current means. There’s always a desire for more money or a better job or a bigger house. Entitlement kicks in when people start taking it as some kind of personal affront that they don’t have what they want, despite the fact that they’ve done nothing to earn it. Sitting around bitching that you don’t have any money when you aren’t even applying for jobs? That’s entitlement. So is complaining about your lack of a significant other when you’ve treated all of your exes terribly, or resorting to dishonest or illegal means to acquire what you want, simply because you feel you deserve it.

The reasons for this feeling can be traced back to different things for different people; it’s often cultural. In America, we’re assaulted by a culture of entitlement at every turn. Movies, TV, music, and, above all, advertising; it’s constantly reinforced. Right now, I want to talk about the role that faith plays in all of this. For many people, entitlement is introduced and reinforced by religion.

It starts with the idea that God loves us and wants us to be happy. It’s something many children are taught at a very early age. This clearly doesn’t line up very well with reality; if God exits and wants everyone to be happy, why is there so much suffering in the world? There are vague explanations for this involving free will and Satan; ultimately the explanation is that God wants everyone to be happy, but everyone can’t always be happy. Still, if you don’t like the way things are, you can always pray about it. If you’re very lucky or pious or worthy (I’m not entirely clear on the criteria here, but I don’t think anyone is), God will answer your prayer. This fosters a general belief that bad things happen because they have to, but good things happen to people who deserve them. Again, this doesn’t stand up very well in the face of reality, but that general belief is still there.

As far as “bad things happening to good people” is concerned, I’ve often been told by believers that God doesn’t give anyone more than they can handle. A person who’s life is inundated with pain and suffering must be a strong individual indeed. Furthermore, pain and suffering are meant to teach important lessons. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and whatever does kill you gets you to Heaven that much faster. Personally, I think using childhood leukemia as a teacher’s aid is kind of a dick move, but what do I know?

The idea that God grants good things to those who deserve it seems innocent enough when we’re talking about kids making the soccer team or hard-working people getting raises or families being lucky enough to never have to go through a major illness. When it’s applied inversely or on a grander scale, however, it becomes problematic. It gets to the point where it starts affecting innocent bystanders, and that’s where I really take issue.

Divine right: the ultimate justification for being a self-entitled, self-important jackass.

You might remember something about the divine right of kings from history class. The idea was that God directly bestowed the right to rule on a king, thus making the king’s power absolute and unquestionable, even in cases of utter tyranny. Or how about a little something called “Manifest Destiny”? The expansion of America from coast to coast was believed to be the will of God, come hell, high water, or Native Americans. Even now, you can find examples all over the world of people claiming divine justification for everything from greed to outright war.

Using wealth and power as evidence of God’s favor is a trick people have been using for ages. The Bible is full of it; just read the story of Joseph. Historically speaking, it goes back much further than that. Wealth and power have been attributed to divine intervention for thousands of years.  In Ancient Egypt, Pharaohs were deities; the correlation doesn’t get much more direct than that. The idea that God places power and wealth in the hands of those most deserving is one that appeals strongly to the wealthy and powerful. It strengthens their position, justifies their privilege, and removes any pesky negative emotions, like guilt.

There’s also the problem of applying this belief inversely. God rewards worthiness, so if one is worthy, one deserves reward. No one can agree on what yardstick God might be using to measure worthiness, but faith is generally assumed to be a large component. Unfortunately, for some people this seems to translate into the idea that faith alone is enough to change one’s circumstances for the better, despite the fact that (again) this bears no resemblance to reality. Missionaries in particular take advantage of the appeal of this interpretation. It’s also preached in churches in various guises. Some parishioners at churches around the country were encouraged to spend beyond their means to get the house or car they wanted, because as long as their faith was strong enough, God would provide the means for them to pay off their loans. People taking this advice were financially ruined by the housing crash.

Everyone wants to believe that people get what they deserve. If life were fair, we’d all get exactly what we earn. If life were perfect, we’d all get everything we ever needed and more. Life is neither of those things. Some people work their whole lives just to keep their heads above water while others are born into wealthy families and will never want for material things. Some people will have power over others. We can’t change this. We can, however, change what we’re willing to put up with from others, no matter what their belief system. My advice? When someone tells you they deserve something, ask them why, and don’t take “God” for an answer. Make them give you an answer with some kind of evidence to back it up. Help them to see that wanting something isn’t the same thing as deserving it, and that having something doesn’t mean they earned it. Challenge entitlement at every opportunity. Challenge your own sense of entitlement. There’s nothing wrong with wanting life to be fair, but there is something wrong with using religion to justify laziness, greed, or the luck of the draw.

Johanna is a member of CVA.  The views expressed in this posting are her own and do not necessarily represent those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by mr dan

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It is with a suitcase full of stories and adventures that I returned to my home in Connecticut yesterday from the 2010 American Atheists National Convention in Elizabeth, New Jersey.  So much happened that I couldn’t possibly tell you everything.  I met some wonderful people from across the country, and saw some fantastic speakers with riveting stories to tell, particularly Darrel Ray, Sean Faircloth, Wendy Kaminer, Todd Stiefel and Dan Barker.  We paid tribute to the memory of Helen Kagin, who founded Camp Quest with her husband, the great Edwin Kagin.  Edwin gave a wonderful talk and a reading from his book, Baubles of Blasphemy, and performed a de-baptism ceremony, using a hairdryer to undo what the Methodists had done to my unwilling infant head.  A few years back I had the honor of being a guest by telephone on Edwin and Helen’s internet radio show, and it was good to finally meet one of the Kagins in person.

Another notable guest was Andy Thomson, whose talk, “In Nomine Patris: The Neurobiology of Religious Ritual,” examined the power that closeness, touching, synchronized motions and music could have one’s intellect and emotions, and the way in which religion uses these elements to get people addicted to faith.  To demonstrate his point, Dr. Thomson had us all participate in an exercise that later caused some degree of controversy.

To prepare for the exercise, he asked us to breathe deeply, with introspection, and observe someone near us, thinking about how we felt about them.  Finally, we were asked to pinch ourselves until we found our pain threshold.  Then he had us stand up, put our arms around one another, sway gently side to side, and sing four verses of “Amazing Grace.”  When we’d finished, we repeated the first three steps; introspection, observation, and a test of the pain threshold.  Most found that their threshold was higher than before and that they felt better about the people around them and themselves.

This doesn’t mean that anyone there had a religious experience; in fact, it suggests that the very concept of a religious experience is a fraud. It can easily be faked among people who have no need of or interest in being “saved,” and even though the proper stimuli may simulate or, arguably, even create a sense of community, that doesn’t mean there is anything spiritual behind it.  The song didn’t even necessarily need to be “Amazing Grace”; it could have been “Row, Row Your Boat” or “Happy Birthday to You” or “Baby Got Back.” The elation would have been demonstrated just as well.

After the talk concluded, some members of the audience experienced apprehension over the fact that cameras had captured them singing a Christian hymn, but the whole experience was so goofy that I couldn’t understand anyone getting really upset about it.  I suppose this is because I’d temporarily forgotten the old adage about atheists and cat herding.

Two atheists in particular were livid about it.  Let’s call them, oh, say, Esmeralda and Tim.  Now, Ezmeralda’s boss was elected to his or her position in one of those states in the middle of the country, and she insisted she’d be fired if her colleagues discovered she was at such a convention or held the beliefs she holds.  When they realized I’d taken video of the event, they ordered me to destroy the footage.

And it wasn’t just that they were afraid their faces might be shown in it.  The very existence of the footage was incriminating to our whole movement.  “You can’t let it get out,” they insisted.  “No good can come of it.”

“But the harmony was so good,” I argued. They weren’t impressed.

“What if Bill O’Reilly gets ahold of that tape?” Tim asked.

I couldn’t really see how that would be a problem.  Even though O’Rielly is a master of spin, I really don’t understand how our reputation could be damaged by people seeing us singing a song that really has no meaning anyway.  Note that “Amazing Grace” is little more than an amateurish poem written by a slave trader.  It’s not as if we were praying, praising God or Jesus, asking for forgiveness or even admitting the existence of any higher power or deity.

Even out of the context of the experiment, what would he do, try to convince people that a bunch of atheists had converted?  That we’re closet Christians who behind closed doors praise the Lord?  That we’d been hypnotized or drugged into acting like Jesus lovers?

Everybody has to make their own decisions.  But one of my biggest frustrations with the atheist movement is that we all tend to agree that the cause of atheism and even freedom itself would be greatly advanced if every doubter, skeptic, freethinker, nonbeliever, anti-theist, non-theist, post-theist and atheist would just stand up and say who we are.  Show the people that your neighbors and doctors and auto mechanics and teachers and waitpersons and bus drivers and forklift operators don’t believe in silly superstition, and that it’s okay for them to follow us.  The problem is that everyone wants to be the last one out.

If Esmeralda comes out of the closet, she may lose her job.  She may retain her position and be discriminated against or harassed.  If either of those things happen, she could sue.  And she could win. Or she could lose.  Either way, there’s a whole lot of unpleasantness and struggle in her future if someone finds out she doesn’t believe in crazy things.

Now, I want to scream to Esmeralda, “Come out of the closet!  This is 2010, you should be free to say what you want and think what you think, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.  Don’t hide who you are!  We need you to be vocal and proud.  Who cares if you lose your job? This is more important!”

Because the truth is that someone like her would be a perfect martyr to the atheists in her community, and if she’d only have her life turned upside down then we’d all be a lot better off.  There’s no doubt she could find a new job somewhere else, and indeed, if she has to remain in the closet then she probably isn’t in the best working environment anyway.  She was obviously bright and articulate, personable, and presumably with some sense of the law; maybe American Atheists could use her.

But of course I don’t have the right to ask anyone to martyr themselves.  Maybe our movement is more important than her job, but how can I ask one person to make that choice for all of us?  A large national movement that tells its members how to live their lives is exactly what atheists have campaigned their whole lives to extract themselves from.

Many people compare the struggle for atheist equality to the ongoing struggle for homosexual rights and acceptance, and the worst thing you can do to a member of that community is out them before they are ready to leave the closet on their own.  Atheists deserve the same privacy, but as a whole we also deserve the public recognition.  About ten percent of the population is estimated to be homosexual; depending on which polls you believe, atheists and other freethinkers may be sixteen percent or more.  Almost everyone knows a homosexual or five–perhaps a friend of yours or your cousin or your mother or your boss or perhaps even you–but a great majority of people still seem to think that they don’t know any atheists.  Well, we’re sitting right next to you on the bus; you just don’t know who we are. The more gays come out of the closet, the closer that movement gets to widespread acceptance, and this should serve as a model to the godless community.

If you’ve stumbled upon this, Esmeralda, I respect your privacy, your reluctance, your fear.  I agree with your reasons for staying in the closet, but I’m encouraging you to come out, and when you make that decision which no one else can make for you, there is a whole community here to support you.  You don’t deserve to be in that stifling closet, that shameful locker that says atheism is disgraceful and something to be hidden.  The closet itself is disgraceful, and the disgrace is simply amazing.

mr dan is the vice president of Connecticut Valley Atheists.  The views expressed in this posting are his own and do not necessarily represent those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.