Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater

Religion is back in the news in its all-too-familiar forms of expression: inflammatory rhetoric followed by violence. Enter Mitt Romney from the safety of the campaign trail, eager to score some political points, when events were still playing out in Benghazi and in Cairo. The fires were, quite literally, still burning when he released this statement:

I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

There's a slight problem with his analysis. The people carrying guns weren't the ones our Embassy in Cairo was reaching out to.

Diplomats don't plead with extremists, they work with moderates to try to keep them from gaining power. Make no mistake about it, these women are risking their lives to hold this vigil. Being reasonable is dangerous when armed extremists rise up in anger. 

While there has been plenty of bipartisan head-shaking surrounding Romney's decision to criticize the use of nuance in a climate where cartoons whipped up violent rage seven years ago, there has also been a strange reluctance to address the most glaring mistake he made in his assessment. In one sense, he was absolutely right; our deepest values affirm our freedom to ridicule religion in all public spaces. This is a fundamental principle of free speech in a secular society.  Where he went wrong (in the most diplomatically inept example of irony I've seen in a long time) is in his failure to recognize one simple truth; even in the land of the free and the home of the brave, freedom of speech is not without its limits.

You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, and you can't attack a religion safely in a land where armed and intolerant radicals who follow that religion hold political power. There is something awfully surreal about Romney's defense of the virtues of secular society while he simultaneously caters to the religious right's attempts to tear down the wall between church and state. We need that wall, and we need it to remain high, rigid, and impenetrable so we all can remain free to say what we want without the risk of violence.

Do I think Islam is a peaceful religion? No. September 11th is a day when the entire world is acutely aware of that fact. Do I think Christianity is a peaceful religion? No. The guy who put this video out was a member of a homegrown Christian sleeper cell of people who are paranoid in the extreme about a "New World [read: Secular] Order". They have guns at the ready to defend themselves against it. They want everyone who is frightened by Islamic extremism to rally behind the banner of Christian extremism. That sort of enemy of my enemy thinking can transform American society, and they know it.

What I sincerely hope people in this country who "don't follow politics" might take away from the events of the past week is that religious moderates, agnostics, and atheists absolutely must pay very close attention to what is happening in our own backyards. The roots of violent hatred for "the other" that developed into what happened in Benghazi find their expression at home, too. If you have never talked with someone who defends a warped utilitarian position for bombing abortion clinics, you might dismiss it. That would be a mistake. Remember Aikan? The guy who thinks that abortion should be illegal in the case of rape and incest because he simply cannot imagine that God would allow a baby to be conceived if it was a "real rape"? He's back to a dead heat in the Missouri senate race.

It might be difficult to imagine violent mobs of religious believers in our streets, especially if you lose sight of the fact that less than a century ago, "communist atheists" and their "sympathizers" had their lives destroyed over differences in religious and political philosophy. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of those "enemies", because he expressed sentiments like this.

If you can name a more lyrical and effective champion of the American Dream, I'm listening. The fact remains, the religious right didn't care for him. In white middle class America, it was largely the communists, the Jews, and the atheists who were rallying loudly behind him, and many of them suffered for it. Some lost their lives.

We must never lose sight of our past. The America that exists on the horizon if politicians who maintain the absurd notion that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim out to persecute Christians gain the House, the Senate, and the White House (and, in so doing, change the makeup of the Supreme Court in the hopes that they will construct an explicitly pro-Christian interpretation of the First Amendment) is a frightening one. When I vote this November, I'll be voting like my freedom of religion and yours depends on it. I hope you'll join me.

What's with the A+ Thing?

There's a new brand of atheist activism being kicked around the blogosphere these days, and some really great discussions have popped up as a result. I want to start by stating clearly here that I am drawing a line in the sand between atheism and the atheist community as a whole. Atheism in and of itself is just a simple statement that says you don't believe in a god(s)/ess(es). Some atheists watch football on Sundays, check none on the religious affiliation surveys, and that's about the limit of how deeply they connect with religion or debates about religion. Some live in countries where religious beliefs are the exception, not the rule, and the idea of seeking out an atheist community is somewhat bizarre to them.

When I talk about the atheist community, though, I'm specifically referring to the people who *do* want to connect with each other to raise awareness for social issues we care about. It's not okay when we're told we need to leave our distaste for the good old boy's club at the door. We want a way to say upfront that we demand to be treated with basic human dignity, and resent being told to be quiet when we speak up about that. Some of the responses I've seen are cautiously critical (see also: Emily Dietle's assessment), and raise concerns about creating an elitist club in response to white male privilege. Irony. It's a lovely thing.

If you want a social justice movement that focuses on embracing diversity without centering on a specific set of religious beliefs, it's called humanism. If that appeals to you, and you also don't believe in supernatural forces, then you have secular humanism. Humanism is a broad and well organized movement with a global presence that we can be a part of without having to come up with new labels.

The problem, of course, is that humanists in general are at best a bit embarrassed by the very vocal atheist contingent within its midst, and at worst outright hostile to us. (To be fair, this may be a reaction to being called delusional idiots because they aren't naturalists. More on that in a bit.) Also, humanism alone does little to address the problem laid out by Sam Harris:

"While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence." 

So, yes, the labels we use do matter. If we don't offer up that bulwark effectively by challenging directly the notion that any person can claim to know for certain that God exists, much less what he wants us to do in our bedrooms or what rewards await us after martyrdom, who will? Humanists? Possibly. But any population that includes believers in its midst is going to have to tread very lightly around these topics if they don't want their membership to turn elsewhere.

Which brings me directly to the other, much more glaring problem that I haven't seen addressed yet. The Atheist Movement struggles when it comes to following the "Don't Be a Dick" rule. (To be equally fair, this may be a direct result of being called immoral and dangerous to society by the same people who threaten our livelihoods and even our safety in certain parts of this country.) I'm not just referring to misogyny within the movement or racially insensitive billboards at this point, although these things are certainly the impetus for the new direction. I'm referring to the general tendency to focus so strongly on calling religion an irrational hangover from a past drenched in superstition that we aim far, far too wide. People who might otherwise be drawn to what we have to offer as a community or even as decent human beings who don't automatically assume that religious = not worth listening to are instantly struck by a sudden urge to wash their hair or watch Doctor Who instead.

Which leaves us exactly where when it comes to leading the fight against religious extremism and religious violence? Ah, yes, an echo chamber of maybe, at best 10% of the American population. Not all of whom vote. Lovely. That'll help. What good does it do to hold the intellectual high ground if we shut out the people who could be standing there with us on issues we care about? I remember seeing a lot of my religious friends reposting this sign back in April:

And you know what? It doesn't bother me in the slightest that they're religious. They get it. They've seen Fred Phelps and his gang, and they're pissed off, too. They understand that people can be good without god (progress!), and we should be working together to simply be kind, regardless of our religious beliefs or lack thereof. Atheism, plus the support of people who are fed up with messages of hatred and intolerance. Humanists, cafeteria Catholics, Buddhists, Pagans, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews. Hell, even the occasional Young Earth Creationist can agree on that message. It doesn't mean we have to agree on anything having to do with religious doctrines, or argue about which invisible robes fit best on an unseen creator, or count the angels dancing on a pinhead. Those are debates that they can have within their own communities.

But these causes that we have in common? We are stronger united than we are divided.