Atheists and Anger

I want to talk about atheists and anger.

This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.

But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.

So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.

*****

I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.

I'm angry that atheist conventions have to have extra security, including hand-held metal detectors and bag searches, because of fatwas and death threats.

I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases -- again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers -- yet again, in the U.S. armed forces. And I'm angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, "there are no atheists in foxholes." You know why you're not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.

I'm angry that the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, said of atheists, in my lifetime, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." My President. No, I didn't vote for him, but he was still my President, and he still said that my lack of religious belief meant that I shouldn't be regarded as a citizen.

I'm angry that it took until 1961 for atheists to be guaranteed the right to serve on juries, testify in court, or hold public office in every state in the country.

I'm angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism. And not a broad, "God had a hand in evolution" creationism, but a strict, young-earth, "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" creationism.

And on that topic: I'm angry that school boards all across this country are still -- 82 years after the Scopes trial -- having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools. School boards are not exactly loaded with time and money and resources, and any of the time/ money/ resources that they're spending fighting this stupid fight is time/ money/ resources that they're not spending, you know, teaching.

I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.

I'm angry that women are having septic abortions -- or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat -- because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.

I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.

I get angry when advice columnists tell their troubled letter-writers to talk to their priest or minister or rabbi... when there is absolutely no legal requirement that a religious leader have any sort of training in counseling or therapy.

And I get angry when religious leaders offer counseling and advice to troubled people -- sex advice, relationship advice, advice on depression and stress, etc. -- not based on any evidence about what actually does and does not work in people's brains and lives, but on the basis of what their religious doctrine tells them God wants for us.

I'm angry at preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.

I'm angry that so many believers treat prayer as a sort of cosmic shopping list for God. I'm angry that believers pray to win sporting events, poker hands, beauty pageants, and more. As if they were the center of the universe, as if God gives a shit about who wins the NCAA Final Four -- and as if the other teams/ players/ contestants weren't praying just as hard.

I'm especially angry that so many believers treat prayer as a cosmic shopping list when it comes to health and illness. I'm angry that this belief leads to the revolting conclusion that God deliberately makes people sick so they’ll pray to him to get better. And I'm angry that they foist this belief on sick and dying children -- in essence teaching them that, if they don't get better, it's their fault. That they didn't pray hard enough, or they didn't pray right, or God just doesn't love them enough.

And I get angry when other believers insist that the cosmic shopping list isn't what religion and prayer are really about; that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God. I get angry when believers insist that the shopping list is a straw man, an outmoded form of religion and prayer that nobody takes seriously, and it's absurd for atheists to criticize it.

I get angry when believers use terrible, grief-soaked tragedies as either opportunities to toot their own horns and talk about how wonderful their God and their religion are... or as opportunities to attack and demonize atheists and secularism.

I'm angry at the Sunday school teacher who told comic artist Craig Thompson that he couldn't draw in heaven. And I'm angry that she said it with the complete conviction of authority... when in fact she had no basis whatsoever for that assertion. How the hell did she know what Heaven was like? How could she possibly know that you could sing in heaven but not draw? And why the hell would you say something that squelching and dismissive to a talented child?

I'm angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I'm angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices, in essence taking her personal crisis of faith out on millions of desperately poor and helpless people.

I'm angry at the trustee of the local Presbyterian church who told his teenage daughter that he didn't actually believe in God or religion, but that it was important to keep up his work because without religion there would be no morality in the world.

I'm angry that so many parents and religious leaders terrorize children -- who (a) have brains that are hard-wired to trust adults and believe what they're told, and (b) are very literal-minded -- with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion.

I'm angrier when religious leaders explicitly tell children – and adults, for that matter -- that the very questioning of religion and the existence of hell is a dreadful sin, one that will guarantee them that hell is where they'll end up.

I'm angry that children get taught by religion to hate and fear their bodies and their sexuality. And I'm especially angry that female children get taught by religion to hate and fear their femaleness, and that queer children get taught by religion to hate and fear their queerness.

I'm angry about the Muslim girl in the public school who was told -- by her public-school, taxpayer-paid teacher -- that the red stripes on Christmas candy canes represented Christ's blood, that she had to believe in and be saved by Jesus Christ or she'd be condemned to hell, and that if she didn't, there was no place for her in his classroom. And I'm angry that he told her not to come back to his class when she didn't convert.

I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.

I'm angry about 9/11.

And I'm angry that Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and the People For the American Way. I'm angry that the theology of a wrathful God exacting revenge against pagans and abortionists by sending radical Muslims to blow up a building full of secretaries and investment bankers... this was a theology held by a powerful, widely-respected religious leader with millions of followers.

I'm angry that, when my dad had a stroke and went into a nursing home, the staff asked my brother, "Is he a Baptist or a Catholic?" And I'm not just angry on behalf of my atheist dad. I'm angry on behalf of all the Jews, all the Buddhists, all the Muslims, all the neo-Pagans, whose families almost certainly got asked that same question. That question is enormously disrespectful, not just of my dad's atheism, but of everyone at that nursing home who wasn't a Baptist or a Catholic.

I'm angry about Ingrid's grandparents. I'm angry that their fundamentalism was such a huge source of strife and unhappiness in her family, that it alienated them so drastically from their children and grandchildren. I'm angry that they tried to cram it down Ingrid's throat, to the point that she's still traumatized by it. And I'm angry that their religion, which if nothing else should have been a comfort to them in their old age, was instead a source of anguish and despair -- because they knew their children and grandchildren were all going to be burned and tortured forever in Hell, and how could Heaven be Heaven if their children and grandchildren were being eternally burned and tortured in Hell?

I'm angry that Ingrid and I can't get legally married in this country -- or get legally married in another country and have it recognized by this one -- largely because religious leaders oppose it. And I'm angry that both religious and political leaders have discovered that they can score big points exploiting people's fears about sexuality in a changing world, fanning the flames of those fears... and giving people a religious excuse for why their fears are justified.

I'm angry that huge swaths of public policy in this country -- not just on same-sex marriage, but on abortion and stem-cell research and sex education in schools -- are being based, not on evidence of which policies do and don't work and what is and isn't true about the world, but on religious texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago, and on their own personal feelings about how those texts should be interpreted, with no supporting evidence whatsoever -- and no apparent concept of why any evidence should be needed.

I get angry when believers trumpet every good thing that's ever been done in the name of religion as a reason why religion is a force for good... and then, when confronted with the horrible evils done in religion's name, say that those evils weren't done because of religion, were done because of politics of greed or fear or whatever, would have been done anyway even without religion, and shouldn't be counted as religion's fault. (Of course, to be fair, I also get angry when atheists do the opposite: chalk up every evil thing done in the name of religion as a black mark on religion's record, but then insist that the good things were done for other reasons and would have been done anyway, etc. Neither side gets to have it both ways.)

I'm angry at the believers who put decals on their cars with a Faith fish eating a Darwin fish... and who think that's clever, who think that religious faith really should triumph over science and evidence. I'm angry at believers who have so little respect for the physical world their God supposedly created that they feel perfectly content to ignore the mountains of physical evidence piling up around them about that real world; perfectly content to see that world as somehow less real and true than their personal opinions about God.

(Note: The litany of specific grievances is now more than halfway over. Analysis of why anger is necessary and valuable is coming up soon. Promise.)

I get angry when religious leaders opportunistically use religion, and people's trust and faith in religion, to steal, cheat, lie, manipulate the political process, take sexual advantage of their followers, and generally behave like the scum of the earth. I get angry when it happens over and over and over again. And I get angry when people see this happening and still say that atheism is bad because, without religion, people would have no basis for morality or ethics, and no reason not to just do whatever they wanted.

I get angry when religious believers make arguments against atheism -- and make accusations against atheists -- without having bothered to talk to any atheists or read any atheist writing. I get angry when they trot out the same old "Atheism is a nihilistic philosophy, with no joy or meaning to life and no basis for morality or ethics"... when if they spent ten minutes in the atheist blogosphere, they would discover countless atheists who experience great joy and meaning in their lives, and are intensely concerned about right and wrong.

I get angry when believers use the phrase "atheist fundamentalist" without apparently knowing what the word "fundamentalist" means. Call people pig-headed, call them stubborn, call them snarky, call them intolerant even. But unless you can point to the text to which these "fundamentalist" atheists literally and strictly adhere without question, then please shut the hell up about us being fundamentalist.

I get angry when religious believers base their entire philosophy of life on what is, at best, a hunch; when they ignore or reject or rationalize any evidence that contradicts that hunch or calls it into question... and then accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.

And I get angry when believers glorify religious faith without evidence as a positive virtue, a character trait that makes people good and noble... and then continue to accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.

I get angry when believers say that they can know the truth -- the greatest truth of all about the nature of the universe, namely the source of all existence -- simply by sitting quietly and listening to their heart... and then accuse atheists of being arrogant. (This isn't just arrogant towards atheists and naturalists, either. It's arrogant towards people of other religions who have sat just as quietly, listened to their hearts with just as much sincerity, and come to completely opposite conclusions about God and the soul and the universe.)

And I get angry when believers say that the entire unimaginable enormity of the universe was made solely and specifically for the human race -- when atheists, by contrast, say that humanity is a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, an infinitesimal eyeblink in the vastness of time and space -- and yet again, believers accuse atheists of being arrogant.

I get angry when believers say things like, "Yes, of course, the human mind isn't perfect, we see what we expect to see, we see faces and patterns and intention when they aren't necessarily there... but that couldn't be happening with me. The patterns I see in my life... they couldn't possibly be coincidence or confirmation bias. I'm definitely seeing the hand of God." (And then, once again, those same believers accuse atheists of being close-minded and only seeing what we want to see.)

I get angry when believers treat the gaps in science and scientific knowledge as somehow proof of the existence of God. I get angry when, despite a thousands-of-years-old pattern of supernatural explanations being consistently and repeatedly replaced with natural ones, they still think every single unexplained phenomenon can be best explained by God. And I'm angry that, whenever a gap in our knowledge does get filled in, believers either try to suppress it (see above re: evolution in the schools), or else say, "Okay, that part of the world isn't supernatural... but what about this gap over here? Can you explain that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Scientist? You can't! It must be God!"

I get angry when believers say at the beginning of an argument that their belief is based on reason and evidence, and at the end of the argument say things like, "It just seems that way to me," or, "I feel it in my heart"... as if that were a clincher. I mean, couldn't they have said that at the beginning of the argument, and not wasted my fucking time? My time is valuable and increasingly limited, and I have better things to do with it than debating with people who pretend to care about evidence and reason but ultimately don't.

I'm angry that I have to know more about their fucking religion than the believers do. I get angry when believers say things about the tenets and texts of their religion that are flatly untrue, and I have to correct them on it.

I get angry when believers treat any criticism of their religion -- i.e., pointing out that their religion is a hypothesis about the world and a philosophy of it, and asking it to stand up on its own in the marketplace of ideas -- as insulting and intolerant. I get angry when believers accuse atheists of being intolerant for saying things like, "I don't agree with you," "I think you're mistaken about that," "That doesn't make any sense," "I think that position is morally indefensible," and "What evidence do you have to support that?"

And on that point: I get angry when Christians in the United States -- members of the single most powerful and influential religious group in the country, in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world -- act like beleaguered victims, martyrs being thrown to the lions all over again, whenever anyone criticizes them or they don't get their way.

I get angry when believers respond to some or all of these offenses by saying, "Well, that's not the true faith. Hating queers/ rejecting science/ stifling questions and dissent... that's not the true faith. People who do that aren't real (Christians/ Jews/ Muslims/ Hindus/ etc.)." As if they had a fucking pipeline to God. As if they had any reason at all to think that they know for sure what God wants, and that the billions of others who disagree with them just obviously have it wrong. (Besides -- I'm an atheist. The "They just aren't doing religion right" argument is not going to cut it with me. I don't think any of you have it right. To me, it all looks like something that people just made up.)

On that topic: I get angry when religious believers insist that their interpretation of their religion and religious text is the right one, and that fellow believers with an opposite interpretation clearly have it wrong. I get angry when believers insist that the parts about Jesus's prompt return and all prayers being answered are obviously not meant literally... but the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination, that's real. And I get angry when believers insist that the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination aren't meant literally, but the parts about caring for the poor are really what God meant. How the hell do they know which parts of the Bible/ Torah/ Koran/ Bhagavad-Gita/ whatever God really meant, and which parts he didn't? And if they don't know, if they're just basing it on their own moral instincts and their own perceptions of the world, then on what basis are they thinking that God and their sacred texts have anything to do with it at all? What right do they have to act as if their opinion is the same as God's and he's totally backing them up on it?

And I get angry when believers act as if these offenses aren't important, because "Not all believers act like that. I don't act like that." As if that fucking matters. This stuff is a major way that religion plays out in our world, and it makes me furious to hear religious believers try to minimize it because it's not how it happens to play out for them. It's like a white person responding to an African-American describing their experience of racism by saying, "But I'm not a racist." If you're not a racist, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and listen to the black people talk? And if you’re not bigoted against atheists and are sympathetic to us, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and let us tell you about what the world is like for us, without getting all defensive about how it's not your fault? When did this international conversation about atheism and religious oppression become all about you and your hurt feelings?

But perhaps most of all, I get angry -- sputteringly, inarticulately, pulse-racingly angry -- when believers chide atheists for being so angry. "Why do you have to be so angry all the time?" "All that anger is so off-putting." "If atheism is so great, then why are so many of you so angry?"

Which brings me to the other part of this little rant: Why atheist anger is not only valid, but valuable and necessary.

*****

There's actually a simple, straightforward answer to this question:

Because anger is always necessary.

Because anger has driven every major movement for social change in this country, and probably in the world. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, the modern feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-war movement in the Sixties, the anti-war movement today, you name it... all of them have had, as a major driving force, a tremendous amount of anger. Anger over injustice, anger over mistreatment and brutality, anger over helplessness.

I mean, why the hell else would people bother to mobilize social movements? Social movements are hard. They take time, they take energy, they sometimes take serious risk of life and limb, community and career. Nobody would fucking bother if they weren't furious about something.

So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, telling us to disempower ourselves. You're telling us to lay down one of the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You're telling us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able to do without. You're telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works far, far better when it's coupled with passionate anger. In a battle between David and Goliath, you're telling David to put down his slingshot and just... I don't know. Gnaw Goliath on the ankles or something.

I'll acknowledge that anger is a difficult tool in a social movement. A dangerous one even. It can make people act rashly; it can make it harder to think clearly; it can make people treat potential allies as enemies. In the worst-case scenario, it can even lead to violence. Anger is valid, it's valuable, it's necessary... but it can also misfire, and badly.

But unless we're actually endangering or harming somebody, it is not up to believers to tell atheists when we should and should not use this tool. It is not up to believers to tell atheists that we're going too far with the anger and need to calm down. Any more than it's up to white people to say it to black people, or men to say it to women, or straights to say it to queers. When it comes from believers, it's not helpful. It's patronizing. It comes across as another attempt to defang us and shut us up. And it's just going to make us angrier.

And when believers tell passionate, angry atheists that extremism is never right and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, they're making a big, big mistake. Not just because they're making us want to spit in their eye. They're making a mistake because they're simply mistaken. Read this piece from Daylight Atheism on The Golden Mean. Read the quotes from the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the American Revolution. And then come tell me that the moderate position is usually the right one.

And you know what else? I think we need to have some goddamn perspective about this anger business. I mean, I look at organized Christianity in this country -- not just the religious right, but some more "moderate" churches as well -- interfering with AIDS prevention efforts, trying to get their theology into the public schools, actively trying to prevent me and Ingrid from getting legally married, and pulling all the other shit I talk about in this piece.

And I look at atheists sometimes being mean-spirited and snarky in blogs and books and magazines.

And I think, Can we please have some goddamn perspective?

Because the other thing I'm angry about is the fact that, in this piece, I've touched on -- maybe -- a hundredth of everything that angers me about religion. This piece barely scratches the surface. I know, almost without a doubt, that within five minutes of hitting "Post" and putting this piece on my blog, I'll think of six different things that I'd wished I'd put in. I could write an entire book about everything that angers me about religion -- other people certainly have -- and still not be finished.

Are you really looking at all of this shit I'm talking about, a millennia-old history of abuse and injustice, deceit and willful ignorance -- and then on the other hand, looking at a couple of years of atheists being snarky on the Internet -- and seeing the two as somehow equivalent? Or worse, seeing the snarky atheists as the greater problem?

If you're doing that, then with all due respect, you can blow me.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled attempts at civility.


Addendum: If you're having trouble commenting, seeing your comment, or reading the other comments on this post, please read this. Thanks.

Addendum 2: I've written a reply to the most common themes that are coming up in the comments here. If you're going to comment on this post, you might want to check it out first.

Comments

[Dave Child]

ESVA: Good point. Isn't there a strong argument to be made that the person who was raised religious owes it to themselves to at least evaluate that as an adult? Meaning they are choosing to keep their religious beliefs and never analyse them, simply assuming them to be true. In my opinion that opens them to derision as well. I would say that those attempting to throw off the religious shackles, for want of a less dramatic phrase, will and do have a hard time doing so, especially when their parents remain within a faith, but in that case wouldn't a little carefully judged ridicule of their former religion simply help them?

[Skeptigator]

I have to agree wholeheartedly with the post, it's content and it's sentiment.

I would like to make two points. First, I've never been comfortable with the casting of atheist's as some kind of persecuted minority. Victimization always seemed so pathetic. You are right when you say that Christians find every opportunity to cast themselves as victims of persecution or warriors standing against the dark forces of "The World" *insert darth vader theme song*. And yet here we are giving our atheist amen's and hallelujah's to a post that certainly paints a persecuted atheist perspective.

It always grates on my nerves and makes me roll my eyes when I read it in Christian (and Atheist) literature. I guess maybe because it seems so irrelevant. My thinking goes...

Ok Fine I'm a persecuted minority.
Soooo... This changes how I act how? I can still vote, voice my opinions, not go to church, own a gun, quite frankly the Bill of Rights prohibits the government from intruding on my life as much as my evangelical neighbors. Sure we have an unpopular (but free to express it) opinions. My atheist wife and I can get married, have children, and be buried in a non-Christian cemetery.

Homosexuals not allowed to be married, that's persecution. Minorities being unable to vote, or use a particular drinking fountain, bathroom or seat on a bus, that's oppression. Atheist's not being... uh... popular or... uh... understood properly... uh...

Having said all of that my perspective is quite different from the author. While raised in a low-income situation, I am certainly not now. I am a white, hetero, male who lives in a very white, hetero Indiana, USA. I am quite sure I have never suffered a day of persecution, prejudice or oppression for a day in my life. Well, there was this one time when I used to dress like a Goth/Raver with the full spikes, black nails, green hair and walked into a department store with a backpack. I'm quite certain security was only a couple steps behind me at any given time. Does that count?

Secondly, sometimes observing religious things is less about the religion and more about the people. Just last weekend I was a groomsman in my brother-in-law's wedding (Catholic). As part of the ceremony we were instructed to walk down the aisle, stop in front of the altar, bow as a sign of respect to the Jesus and take our seats (yea! for seats). I did as instructed not because I was showing any kind of sign of respect to Jesus but as a sign of respect to my brother-in-law because to not have done it would turned "his" day into "my" protest and that seems to be a particularly selfish thing to do.

As a hilarious side note my 8 year old was the ring bearer and when he was instructed to bow to Jesus (who was situated slightly off-center) he bowed the wrong way (It didn't occur to me at the time that he didn't know what Jesus looked like). The wedding coordinator said "You need to bow *towards* Jesus" and my son said with absolutely no fear, "Sorry but I don't know where Jesus is at". I almost wanted to cry with joy but instead laughed uncontrollably once I saw the woman's expression. I'm going to give that boy an extra hug tonight because he has absolutely no idea how brave a statement that was.

[AJ Milne]

That's it. That's exactly it. Thank you.

[Brad]

Stomper, I apologize. When I was referring to the Catholic Church as a small subset of Christianity I certainly wasn't meaning in number of followers or how large they are. They follow their own set of rules and standards that many of the Protestant religions do not and basing Christianity as a whole off the Catholic Church is a bad idea as many of the Evangelical Churches do not think highly of the Catholic Church at all and think they give Christianity a bad name (which appears to be proven even more so by this article and many like it every day on the internet).

Second of all, I'm not being defensive. Why would I be? I'm being positive. The post was fine and her points are valid. I'm simply stating that if Christians acted like they should, atheists wouldn't have a need to be angry.

Maybe I should have just posted that and have been done with it. So I will:

If Christians acted like they should, atheists wouldn't have a need to be angry.

[Gibb]

boo hoo hoo. all you poor little atheists; what great injustices this minority must endure.

don't you realize that rallying against all gods or religions is EXACTLY THE SAME as rallying for any one of them? it's just another religion trying to win out. good luck.

most ironic passage: "My time is valuable and increasingly limited, and I have better things to do with it than debating with people who pretend to care about evidence and reason but ultimately don't."

I wonder how much of your valuable time was wasted on this post. just a little food for thought in the buffet of praise.

[spblat]

My compliments!

[Geoffrey]

Though I'm a lifelong Christian, I find that I have to say "amen" to your post. Most everything you're angry about is caused by the forced indoctrination of religious viewpoints by (usually unqualified) authority figures, and that makes me angry too. There is no merit in following a religion because man forces you to. I am angry at the complex social power-grabbing structures that have grown up around religion, at what they do, and how they tar and poison the honest religion that the laity would much rather follow -- if only they had choice in the matter.

[Jane Know]

Luis said, "I'm angry that on both occasions I didn't have the guts to say that the doctors and nurses who took care of them also deserved some credit."

thanks. :-) why go to nursing or medical school, if we can just let Jesus take care of the sick people?

[CJ]

Excellent, and sadly necessary, rant.

Except perhaps the part about the NCAA final four. I don't believe in god but if there were such an entity surely he or she would damned well care about which team won the final four!

Personally, my anger could be assuaged if two things were to occur:

1)Believers of any stripe would just admit that there is no rational or evidentiary basis to their belief -hence the act of faith term.

2) Believers would keep their beliefs out of government. Their faith (no doubt combined with more than a moderate ignorance of biology) should be absolutely prohibited from influencing public policy.

This reminds me of how blown away I was at the Democrats' responses to gay marriage in the GLBT debate.

I can't understand why anyone, who expects to be considered for President of the U.S. and has even a passing acquaintance with our country's history and the constitution, could have answered in any other way than to state that separation of church and state guarantees that the state would not dictate that any church perform same-sex marriage but at the same time necessitates that the state recognize such unions performed by any legitimate church as well as all civil unions. Period. And that doesn't even require that they comprehend (as Gov. Richardson evidently does not) that sexual orientation is not a preference/choice.

[gregory]

nah, why be angry at the ignorant? they cannot help it. and anyway, they are on the way to where you are, and you are on the way to where those beyond you are... a-theism being the goal of all true spiritual search based on truth and reality, going beyond the concept of god to the direct perception of the formless oneness of existence.... (most atheists don't get that, but i don't hold it against them)... enjoy

[glomerulus]

Many of the things you hate about religion are the same thing we believers hate too. Sorry, but being an atheist doesn't grant you a monopoly on outrage.

[Brian Dewhirst]

Hear, hear!

Among the best posts I've seen on the subject. Three cheers.

Thanks, and best of luck to you and Ingrid. (There is always Massachusetts... though some seem to have forgotten the meaning of 'full faith and credit'!)

[Nick]

If you could hear me clapping, then...well, you'd hear it. Very well written.

[mapantsula]

Word.

[octopod]

Brad, my fiance is the sort of man you describe, and I don't let him "lead me" -- furthermore, he doesn't want to. Once in a while, yes; probably a little less often than I lead him. Most of the time we make the decisions together.
Letting him "lead me" would be disclaiming my responsibility as an adult human being, which is not a good way for anyone -- male or female -- to live. I don't think most men or women want to live as children either. Maybe some have been taught that they do, and maybe some are willing to because it's easier, and they're lazy.
Kind of like vesting all ultimate moral authority in your imaginary friend who comes from a book you once read, for that matter.

[No one]

Jesus can take away your anger.

[Nick Hara]

i agree. there have been few times where i see injustices that have been ignored by a whole country, (i'm still young, just 18) and i find it extremely disheartening to know that there is not only a world of ignorance out there but an ignorance that has the public's ear.

Great Post

[Jeremy Grant]

People need neither religion nor aethism as an excuse to behave badly.

No need to look further than humanity as the reason why people do nasty things. Humans do bad things, religion is neither part of the problem nor part of the solution (nor is aethism for that matter).

I am sorry for whatever abuses you have suffered to make you so angry.

[Chris]

I don't think there's really a need to be angry, to be honest. If everyone was to just chill out and let everyone believe what everyone wants to believe, then that's fine by me (don't try and persuade me to change my opinion without rock-hard evidence though). I guess you could call me an atheist, but what I really think is that on evidence, the Big Bang theory and evolution are the most probable explainations at this point. If anyone would like to correct me with a more solid piece of scientific evidence that points me to the contrary (sorry, religious text quotes don't count as more solid than scientific results to me) then I'll be more than happy to take that into account when assessing "what went on" and whether or indeed who is out there.

My girlfriend is Christian, but that's never caused a problem. We each respect each other's beliefs and that's just great for us. All the angry people should try it.

[Rick]

Here is one more for you to be angry at....You are angry because you are separated from God by your own thoughts and deeds.

[Speaker-to-Animals]

I hope you won't mind if I borrow or paraphrase parts of your article to write to a local newspaper that badly needs to hear them, that, as just one of many examples of biased and pejorative coverage, in covering Pride Day in a small town, in which there were hundreds of protesters and one "religious-right" anti-protester, chose a photo of one protester and the one anti-protester, each with their signs, as though their messages and popularity were on an equal footing. Shame on them!

[Christopher M. Walsh]

Wow. That was cathartic. Thanks!

[Tina B.]

All I can say is wow! I have been visiting blogs for awhile now, and web sites, where some people say that being angry doesn't help one bit, just makes us look bad. Thank you for opening up my eyes, again. I love your writing, also I think you need to write a book on this subject. I would buy one! :)

[Marie]

I am genuinely glad that you are angry and can embrace these passionate feelings and claim them with such conviction. I am also purely ecstatic for you, that so many have supported your post.

Believe me when I say that there are many of us that feel the same way and are too afraid to say these things out loud and confront people, for fear that we may be chastised and thrown out of society for good...not that ultimately we would mind.

You have certainly inspired me to change these thoughts, and reconsider my repressed anger.

THANK YOU.

[Susan]

I get angry that we have to write stuff like this (and inevitably expose ourselves to having our characters ripped up via ensuing arguments) just to defend ourselves, when they're the ones who believe in unicorns.

[Greg Perry]

Blah blah, blah blah blah.

More tired rhetoric from an overzealous something-or-another.

Doesn't matter if you don't believe in God, it is still a belief system - and one that you are entitled to practice and believe pursuant to the United States Constitution.

Your time would be better spent trying to change the political process and influencing your elected officials, instead of penning angry-emo-atheist-woman rants and blaming the ills of U.S. society on a group of individuals that a) don't practice the teachings of the Bible, and b) will say or do anything to get votes for public office.

[Calis]

Your post is well written and it sums up many of the things that piss me off daily. With the anger being stirred up from so many directions, it's hard to know where to focus the energy. I think we could be on the brink of so good changes for all of mankind, but we'll all have to take an active role in bringing the changes about. For so many years we've had to just accept the believers while they sneer and attack us. It is time for them to have to accept us, then perhaps we won't need to sneer at them. If we all accept that everyone is likely to have a different viewpoint than us, then it will only make the world a more interesting place.

[Jason]

Thank you. I too am angry about people who think I should sit on the sidelines and accept being treated as less than a full citizen because of my lack of belief in an invisible sky father.

... And so very much more.

[CalGeorge]

"What, however, is one of the greatest commandments taught in the new testament? Love thy neighbor as thyself."

There's no commandment that tells you to be stupid, however, is there?

By believing in the fairy tales told in the Bible, you are perpetuating gross ignorance.

It doesn't matter how much love you convey while doing it.

Stop treating your brain like crap.

[RoyKaBob]

I'm angry that I read all that and there wasn't a new, insightful thought in the whole article.

[Sid Schwab]

Couple 'a followup comments: regarding the "Thank you jesus" comment above. If people believe jesus, or god is responsible for an uncle living through heart surgery, then it must also be true that he's responsible when someone doesn't. To be consistent, people should say "thank you jesus" when uncle joe dies in the OR, also. If jesus intervenes, he intervenes.

Also. what this atheist wants: I recognize that for most people, being human and all, giving up religion would be too hard to face. But what I want -- and what the world desperately needs -- is to have leaders who, if they must be religious, can keep it to themselves; and who use evidence to make decisions that affect us all. Having a president who thinks god talks to him is demonstrably dangerous. If you want to believe in god, fine and dandy. But don't take me to war over it. And don't use it to quash science, to discriminate against people for their sexual preferences, or to ignore facts. We see how that works. God helps us all...

[Angie]

Thank you.

[Robert V]

So you're angry that atheists suffer the same abuse and torment as non-atheists?

And you're angry that non-atheists are morally no better than atheists?

Geez.

Next post: why are atheists self-righteous?

[Kilgore Trout]

Best Rant Ever.

Thank you and I hope its Ok that I linked to this from my (tiny)site.

And Thanks to PZ for showing us this spectacular work.

If anyone ever accuses me of being an angry atheist I'll simply point them this way and say, yeah maybe I am, can you blame me?

[captain brad]

Hey there,

I don't have anything terribly articulate or insightful to add, but I did want to say I enjoyed reading this immensely. Thank you.

(I was linked to this from the atheism community on LJ).

Cheers,

Brad

[Eric Z]

Wow. I have a lot to say about this, but I'm going to keep it short:

First, I'm a Catholic.

Second, I agree with just about everything you have to say.

[David Thorne]

Bravo!

It takes a lot of guts to be able to say the things you said and to once and for all finally justify the right to stand up and scream at the attrocities and ignorance and downright stupidity of people that cant understand the monumental amount of scientific fact that "God" is nothing more than an imaginary friend for grown ups, used by governments and other organizations to strike fear into millions of fools.

Thank you very much for writing this.

I will be linking it to my site and hope to drive a few more hits to yours.

Again: BRAVO.

[Peter Fork]

I like the pictures, nice job!

[TheBuddha]

"You will not be punished for your anger... you will be punished by your anger." - The Buddha

[W. E. Messy]

I get angry at sophistry, begging the question, and equivocation.

[Shannon Vyff]

Great post, I'm off to share it on some net sites I frequent... don't get to taut my anger often--but it is nice to relish in our evolutionary heritage from time to time. I'm angry about death, so I support the Methuselah Foundation. I'm angry about religion so I teach children about religions at my Unitarian Universalist Church. I'm angry about my blink of an eye in the time scale of things--lifespan--so I'm a cryonicist, in case it works because human society continues to advance the next millennium, and we can figure out how to stop aging just like some animal species that effectively do not age now, because they got the luck of the draw evolutionarily. I'm angry about inequality resources with humans, so I support many non profits like True Majority, Save the Children, The Heifer Foundation to try and help those who have shortened lifespans now, due to their poverty, lack of education, health or food. I'm angry about selfish people who are wealthy compared to most in the world, who live in an unhealthy way--so I try to set an example for my children and raise them as responsible Earth citizens.

So thanks, your anger is eloquent and encapsulates what so many are thinking... and anger begets action....I like to think that the world continues to become a better place each year...

[Bill C.]

What a stupid post. Not one mention of things in the Muslim world. In fact when the Muslim world gets a mention she is feeling bad for a Muslim girl. Maybe that Muslim girl would have done well to ditch her own delusions and fantasies and been able to give that teacher a real reply.

Not a word about honor killing (over 5,000 a year) in the Mid East or about the general status of women there as chattel. 9/11 gets one line. Not a mention of any one of the Mullahs, Clerics, or imams who issue insane fatwas, execute gays, execute dissidents, and execute and arrest women for uncovering their wrists. But George Bush, Falwell, Haggard, and the pope all get done over thouroughly.

Typical blinkered feminist cant. If you want to increase the respect people have for atheists then try to cultivate a real ethical consciousness and not just use it as a prism through which to focus your own cultural self loathing.

[regeya]

I'm angry at people who always have to spout off about their religious beliefs--or about their lack of religious beliefs.

In all seriousness, I really do tire of the "creationism vs. science" debate, because as you point out, it's a bogus debate. Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, there are reams of evidence that science is getting it right more often than not. To all the Southern Baptists tuning in: What is so wrong with studying the natural universe? Why do DINOSAURS, for Pete's sake, through all of you into such a tizzy?

And angry people piss me off bad enough that I want nothing to do with them. Ta-ta.

[Monument]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Atheism is a religion, welcome to the club. We're all angry about something.

[Monument]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Atheism is a religion, welcome to the club. We're all angry about something.

[Julia Kosatka]

Brad said:

"If they don't feel a change in themselves, the longing for more, the need to understand what they are feeling than they can go along with their lives."

Gee. How terribly gracious of you. We only have to jump when you say frog and perform a short sentence for our lack of belief in your imaginary friends.

How about this, instead? Everyone who thinks they're hearing the voice of God or 'feeling his hand in their lives' should submit to psychological examinations. I hate to think how many undiagnosed schizophrenics there might be out there masked by the nature of religion. Anyone found mentally competent could then "go along with their lives".

Talk about being unclear on the concept. While I'm not an atheist (yet, who knows what tomorrow may bring), I *am* an anti-religion agnostic. And I'm angry, too! What part of being hammered on all sides by Christians doesn't Brad and his cohorts get? No one in the US is non-Christian due to ignorance of the religion. Good grief, most of us would LOVE to be able to forget it exists. I used to know the stats, but have forgotten the precise numbers - something like 75% of natural born non-Christian Americans in the US were raised Christian (myself included). The more we learned about it, the less we could believe.

[Sea Man]

You're angry because you want an excuse to whine. Live and let live and you will have nothing to be angry about. I hope this rant made you feel a bit of relief, but rest assured you have done nothing to make the world a better place with your incessant whining. Thanks for nothing.

[gburnett]

An excellent, excellent piece. I couldn't agree more. We need anger to ignite change - our polite, contrite, respectful stance of the last 50 years or so has gained us NOTHING. We need to get pissed off and make them realize that ATHEISTS ARE NOT THE ONES THAT ARE CRAZY!

[Josua]

The comments speak volumes about the manner in which you approached this and portrayed your anger.

Well done.

[Andy Cunningham]

I share your anger.