Are All Religions Equally Crazy?

This piece was originally published on AlterNet. Please note the addendum at the end about my use of the word "crazy" in this piece.

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Are less established religions really crazier than older mainstream ones? Or are mainstream religions just more familiar?

Does any religion make more sense than any other?

Atheists, by definition, don't think any religion has any reasonable likelihood of being true. And yet, for some weird reason, we're often asked to choose between them. Believers often accuse us of ignoring more moderate and progressive religions while we trash the low-hanging fruit of hard-line fundamentalism. We're accused of disregarding sophisticated modern theology so we can zero in on the simplistic faiths held by the hoi polloi. (Neither accusation is fair; many atheists, including myself, have taken aim at both modern theology and progressive religion, and in any case fundamentalism and other widely-held religions are valid targets for critique -- but that's another rant.) Yet at the same time, many believers seek our approval for their particular beliefs. "Sure," they'll say, "a lot of those other religions are silly -- but my religion makes sense! Don't you agree? Don't you? Huh?"

For the most part, it's a game I don't like to play. I think all religions are equally implausible, equally based on cognitive biases, equally unsupported by any good evidence whatsoever. But sometimes, the battiness of a particular religion is powerfully borne in on me, to the point where it becomes impossible to ignore. And it forces me to consider the question: Is this religion really any more batty than any other? Or is it just less popular? Less familiar? Is it simply newer, and thus has had less time for the more wildly ragged edges of its wackiness to smooth out? Is this religion really as crazy as it seems -- or are all religions equally crazy?

Magic Hats Versus Magic Snakes

First, just to be very clear: I'm not saying that all religious believers are crazy. I'm saying that religious beliefs are crazy. I'm criticizing the ideas, not the people. And when I say "crazy" (or "nutty" or "batshit" or "lunatic" or what have you), I don't mean "literally, clinically mentally ill." I mean "crazy" in the colloquial sense. I mean... well, I'll get to that.

I was in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago giving a talk, and I took the opportunity to visit the Mormon Temple Square. If you're not a Mormon, you can't go inside the Mormon Temple itself; but Temple Square has all sorts of attractions for the non-Mormon visitor, including the tabernacle, the assembly hall... and two different visitors' centers, specifically designed to explain Mormonism to the non-Mormon, and to make the religion seem inspiring, and to entice people into the faith.

I have no doubt that it has that effect on many people. Mormonism is one of the fastest-growing religions on the planet; there must be something about it that people like. But its effect on me... Well, it was inspiring, all right. It inspired me right into a rollercoaster ride of hilarity and horror. It inspired me, at one point, to out-loud laughter that I was literally, physically unable to control. It inspired me to get the hell off their property, take several deep breaths, and rant incoherently with my wife about what an appalling nightmare of indoctrination and brainwashing it was, before we plunged back in. It inspired me to work on my atheist activism ten times harder than I ever had. Its effect on me was not to entice me into the faith. Its effect was to make me think, even more strongly than I had before, "This religion is batshit crazy."

But then I started thinking.

How much crazier is this, really, than any other religion?

Let's not mince words. There is some profoundly crazy stuff in Mormonism. The magic underwear. The retroactive baptism of the dead. Getting to be a god on your own planet after you die. The Garden of Eden being in Missouri. The foundational story of Joseph Smith reading secret magical golden plates through a magic hat. The baptismal font sitting on the backs of twelve cows. (Okay, fine, oxen. Still.) The washings and anointings and veils and temple garments and secret handshakes and other highly ritualized pseudo-Masonic ceremonies. Lying for the Lord. (No, really. Look it up.) The casual shrugging-off of well-known, thoroughly documented facts of history and archaeology that contradict Church doctrine. The shameless, barefaced retroactive continuity, to the point of actually lying about the religion's history. ("Polygamy is not a central tenet of Mormonism, and it never was. Racial bigotry is not a central tenet of Mormonism, and it never was. Stop looking at The Book of Mormon. No, stop it. We'll tell you what our religion says, thank you very much.") Mormonism loves to present a wholesome, clean-cut image of almost obsessive normality to the public... but when you scratch the surface, what you see is howling, chaotic lunacy. That assessment may seem harsh -- but if these ideas were presented in any context other than a religious one, nobody would be debating it.

But then I started thinking:

How much crazier is this than any other religion?

How much crazier is this than talking snakes? People living inside giant fish? Boats that carry two of every living creature on the planet? Magic crackers that turn into the body of your god when you eat them? Magic fruit that ruins the lives of all your descendants? Virgins giving birth? Sprinkling magic water on babies so if they die they won't burn forever in Hell? A planet that was created 6,000 years ago, despite an overwhelming body of evidence to the contrary from every relevant scientific field? A god who sacrifices himself to himself to save the world from the punishment he himself was planning to dole out?

And let's not just pick on Christianity. How much crazier is this than ritual washing in a polluted magic river? Transferring your sins to a live chicken, waving it over your head, and having it slaughtered? Transferring your sins to a bundle of money, waving it over your head, and donating the money to charity, because the chicken thing is just too weird? The compulsory covering of women's bodies from head to toe? The compulsory wearing of hats? A god who's okay with you smoking weed, but doesn't want you drinking alcohol? A god who's okay with you drinking alcohol, but doesn't want you smoking weed? A god who doesn't want you to draw pictures of real things? A god who wants you to cut off your daughter's clitoris? A god who wants you to cut off the tip of your baby boy's penis?

Plenty of religions are loaded with crazy when you scratch the surface. You don't even have to scratch very hard.

So why do these older, more mainstream religions seem less crazy?

A lot of it, I think, is popularity. If lots of people believe something, we're more likely to give it credibility. This is a bias that all human brains are vulnerable to, and it's largely unconscious. (Although many religious believers will make this argument consciously and overtly. Spend enough time in the atheist blogosphere, and I guarantee you'll see it pop up: "How can you dismiss something that so many people believe in?") We're social animals, and we're wired to think that if everyone else thinks something, it's probably true. Or at the very least, that it's not batshit insane on the face of it, and we ought to give it serious consideration.

From a strictly evolutionary standpoint, this bias makes sense. Other people can, in fact, be a useful reality check: if everyone in your tribe is screaming "Tiger!" and you don't see one, it still makes sense to run. But it's a confounding bias to contend with when you're rigorously examining a truth claim. It makes it hard to voice unpopular perceptions... and indeed even to conceive of them. It's very, very difficult to be the first person to say out loud, "The Emperor has no clothes." It's even more difficult to say it to ourselves.

Then adding to this de-crazification phenomenon, we have the power of time. In the earlier days of a religion, the battier elements are much more prominent. But with time, if a religion flourishes and becomes more mainstream, the rough edges get smoothed off. "Our Savior is returning within a generation" turns into "Our Savior is returning one of these days." "You have to wear a ginormous hat all the time" turns into "It'd be nice if you wore a little hat in the temple." "God created the entire universe out of nothing in six days" turns into "God created matter and energy and the laws of physics and let them unfold into life as we know it, and when we say 'day' we don't mean a literal 'day,' and it's absurd and unfair for you to think that we do." The battier elements get abandoned entirely, or get hidden out of sight, or get shoved to the back burner as trivial and peripheral, or start being seen as metaphorical instead of literal. (45% of all U.S. Catholics don't even know that, according to the doctrine of their own Catholic Church, the magic cracker literally becomes the body of their god when they eat it. They think it's symbolic. They apparently weren't paying attention in catechism class.)

The fascinating thing about Mormonism is that we can see this process happening in real time. As a religion founded within the last two centuries, during a time of good historical record-keeping, Mormonism is an intriguing case study of how a religion transforms from a despised fringe cult to a popular branch of mainstream modern faith. And part of that picture is the ways that the fringier elements have either been abandoned wholesale or kept out of the public eye. .. and indeed kept out of the eyes of its own adherents until they've already bought in. (Mormonism even has a "milk before meat" concept: teach the easy, non-controversial stuff about Mormonism first, and wait to teach the batty stuff until adherents are too deeply invested to leave.) The degree to which Mormonism has become mainstream is the degree to which the less digestible nuts have been eliminated from the fruitcake.

But most of this phenomenon, I think, is simple familiarity.

I didn't learn about magic Mormon underwear until I was an adult. So when I did, the battiness of the belief smacked me in the face. I was like, "Really? Magic underwear? Really?" And the same was true for the magic hat, and the secret handshakes, and the Garden of Eden being in Missouri, and so on and so on. Every time I learn something new about Mormonism and Mormon history, it's... well, it's new. And I can see its craziness with fresh eyes.

But I've known about magic crackers and talking snakes since I was very young. So they just seemed normal. Part of the cultural landscape. I didn't believe in them -- but for years, I didn't think about them very hard. And again, because these beliefs were widely held, when I did think about them I gave them more credit than they actually deserved.

So is it fair to think that Mormonism -- or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Scientology, or any other relatively new religion -- is really any crazier than more mainstream religions? Is it fair to think that it's crazier than the mainstream varieties of Catholicism or Baptism, Hinduism or Buddhism, Judaism or Islam?

I spent my day at Temple Square going back and forth on this question. One minute, I'd be thinking, "Well, okay, this is pretty nuts... but it's not really any crazier than magic crackers and magic snakes." The next minute, I'd be confronted with some new form of wacko, and I'd be thinking, "No, this really is crazier."

So which is it?

I think the answer depends on what exactly we mean by "crazy."

Crazy Is as Crazy Does

Like I said earlier, when I say "crazy" here, I don't mean "mentally ill." I mean... well, what, exactly?

If by "crazy" we mean "out of step with cultural norms"... then yes, Mormonism really is crazier. Pretty much by definition. To some extent, battiness and reasonableness are defined by social norms. In the Victorian era, it was considered entirely normal for women to wear tightly-laced corsets, all day, every day of their adult lives, to the point where their physical functioning was seriously impaired and their internal organs were deformed. In modern society, doing this would generally be considered pretty damn freaky. Instead, many women in modern society wear high-heeled shoes that impair their functioning and deform their feet, all day, every day of their adult lives... and this is considered standard, non-crazy behavior. So yes, by this definition, the more mainstream a religion is, the less crazy it is. And so yes, by this definition, Mormonism is crazier than, say, Catholicism.

But if what you mean by "crazy" is "out of touch with reality"?

Then it's all equally crazy.

Any belief in a supernatural world that affects the natural one is equally implausible, equally the product of cognitive biases, equally unsupported by any good evidence. Some religions contradict reality quite blatantly, flatly stating that well-established historical and scientific facts aren't true. (Young-earth Creationism does this with basic facts of evolution; Mormonism does it with basic facts of human history.) Other religions do a better job of presenting a plausible face and shoehorning their beliefs around reality. (The standard progressive Christian belief in theistic evolution is Exhibit A. Theistic evolution is entirely inconsistent with even the most basic facts of evolution, but these believers can still convincingly tell themselves and others, "No, no, we think science is great, of course we accept evolution, we're not out of touch with reality.")

But all religions are out of touch with reality. All religions are implausible, based on cognitive biases, and unsupported by any good evidence whatsoever. All of them ultimately rely on faith -- i.e., an irrational attachment to a pre-existing idea regardless of any evidence that contradicts it -- as the core foundation of their belief. All of them contort, ignore, or deny reality in order to maintain their attachment to their faith.

And by that definition, all religions are equally crazy.

Some just hide their craziness better than others.

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Note: I have read the comments criticizing my colloquial use of the word "crazy" in this piece, and am seriously considering them. I'm not sure I agree with them, and I'm a bit puzzled at the automatic assumption that I don't have any experience myself with mental illness. (That's not, in fact, the case. I've struggled with depression off and on for most of my adult life, and while I don't currently consider myself as someone with mental illness, I am someone with a history of mental illness, and I have to carefully manage my life so as to minimize a chance of a recurrence.) But I have heard the criticisms, and I am taking them seriously. I've decided to go ahead and reprint this piece as originally written, with the original language, since I think it's important that the stuff I write for AlterNet be archived here in more or less its original form. (Especially since the comment threads on AlterNet are so -- how shall I put this? -- challenging, and re-posting them here gives my readers a chance to discuss my pieces in a more welcoming forum.) But the message has been received, and I'll be re-thinking this language in the future.

Comments

[Meghan]

This fall I might be going to Salt Lake for the APS conference. I'll have to check out the square.

Any Mormons out there? How do these beliefs translate to the real world? Do most Mormons literally believe this stuff? Or is a metaphorical interpretation, like progressive/liberal interpretations of other Christian sects?

I wasn't raised in religion so all of this seems equally off-putting to me. I have a hard time dealing with other scientists who have devout religious beliefs. I don't understand how they can suspend reality/skeptical thinking in only one area of their life.

Note: If a fellow scientist tells me she is devout I don't treat her or her work any differently. I just don't understand it.

[chanson]

Mormonism is one of the fastest-growing religions on the planet;

Not true. It was a fairly fast-growing religion up to a few decades ago, but now is flat-lining or even declining.

It's amazing how many people hear about Mormonism's amazing rate of growth in the same faith-promoting-literature pack with claims about Joseph Smith seeing angels -- and yet will immediately reject the latter, while believing the former without question. Is it because it's juxtaposed with a statement that's obviously absurd that turns people's critical thinking off for the statement that could theoretically be true...?

Anyway, I'd just like to recommend Parker & Stone's new musical The Book of Mormon as the most fantastic treatment of this question (again using Mormonism as the example).

[Larian]

I really can't think of a religion that isn't crazy, so of course they all are. :)

[Locutus7]

The true believers of mormonism believe in polygamy, but they ostensibly disavow it because "society is not ready for that belief." And for Utah to achieve statehood they had to publicaly disavow it.

To prepare society for acceptance of polygamy, mormons back TV shows and movies depicting polygamy to show that it is just another lifestyle choice (stage 1 of altering opinion).

Mormons are adept at using media to incrementally alter opinions. The Mormon authors of Ender's Game and Twilight both have admitted they incorporate mormon beliefs into their writings.

Mormons have traditionally used science fiction to portray their beliefs even in the 1950's (Zenna Henderson's The People series). Maybe all religions do it to different extents, I don't know.

[Strakh]

Greta:
Why, yes, yes they are.
Whatever the physicists say, we are born into this reality, and we use the senses we are born with to learn how to best survive in this reality.
All religions, without exception, state that those senses are 100% wrong. Religions state that what we cannot see, taste, touch, hear, or smell is so much more important than any sensory input we actually receive that we must value what we cannot perceive over what we can.
This causes a state of cognitive dissonance so severe that those who are abused in that manner (and make no mistake, it is abuse) may have difficulty the rest of their lives perceiving what is real and not real.
Some are strong enough to fight this abuse and rise above it. Sadly, they are in the extreme minority and always have been. But they are remembered, always for their clarity of thought and their humanity.
So yes, Greta, all religions are crazy, not merely in the colloquial sense, but in the actual, hallucinatory type we currently lock people up for.
And while your voice is strong, intelligent, and poignant about this, people like you have been saying this literally for as long as those mentally unstable people have been spewing the idiocy of religion.
And as far as I can see, it hasn't made one damn bit of difference. After 54 years of fighting the filth of religion, I see this country sliding so far back that completely deluded maniacs like Sarah Palin are actually allowed to speak in public, let alone walk freely among the sane.
And by the way, gentle readers, if this offends, too bad. I've seen so much misery inflicted in the name of g0d, I no longer care to mince words.
That's why it's better for people like Greta to get the word out.
It's nice to see the torch of the extreme minority get passed again, as the light of reason and reality struggles against the darkness of the malevolent, life-hating force that all religions represent.
(Enjoy your blog and your take on things. Refreshing to see some real joie de vivre in atheist writing again.)

[Azkyroth]

Oh, cripes, not THAT shit again.

I think there's a valid argument for not using actual diagnostic terms imprecisely as derogatory adjectives - like, say, describing the god of the bible as "schizophrenic." "Crazy" has been largely decoupled from the connotation of mental illness; the colloquial understanding is that it refers to habitual behavior or mindsets to which some combination of the terms attention-drawing, unpredictable, irrational, uninhibited, and dangerous applies. Obviously this does overlap with some mental illness symptoms, but it's been used colloquially to describe acts of physical daring and thrill-seeking, parties, music tempos, and political views - far more often than it's used to refer to actual mental illness symptoms - for decades at the least. Using it to describe these religions is *accurate* given that colloquial understanding. And given that, I as a person with multiple psychiatric diagnoses find the insistence that it be dropped...kinda patronizing, actually, and given the obliviousness of the people who seem to have taken up that cause, obnoxiously paternalistic.

(I never have heard back on what similarly evocative adjective they expect us to replace it with.)

[kagerato]

I don't understand the objection to the use of the word "crazy" here. Surely believers aren't going to be any less offended if we call their views "deluded", "false", or "utterly lacking any trace of evidence".

There seems to be a kind of severe reductionism going on here. "Crazy" is immediately associated with the worst cases of mental illness. The truth, of course, is that there are many kinds of mental illness and many degrees exhibited thereof. You can't reduce this to a binary state.

Being able to point to other people who share your precise beliefs is not a means of escaping responsibility or proof of certitude. Without evidence, it merely implicates them in shared delusion.

[Terry]

The interesting thing to me about Mormons (from a sociological viewpoint) is how effective they've been in growing and turning their image around so quickly.

The religion was designed very well. For instance, they have left the power of Revelation in the hands of the church leadership. So if any part of the faith becomes too damaging to their continued growth and revenue stream, they can jettison it. As they did with blacks having "lesser souls" than whites.

It will not surprise me at all if the Mormon leadership has a revelation about homosexuality in the next couple decades, once their adamant opposition becomes a liability.

They also do a lot of great image-control. The Mormons went from being hounded out of the country to having their Tabernacle Choir singing during imporant government functions and having very high level US politicians in such a short time.

But the real masterpiece of mania is how vigorous they are in their indoctrination. Not only do they hammer their religion into their children non-stop, but they train all their young men to be missionaries then send them out into a cruel world to almost solidify that "us against them" mentality. Always in pairs, where at least one is very string in the faith.

On the surface, this is to try to gain recruits, but I think its more important purpose is to cement the tribalism of the young men and lock them into their Mormon identities.

The other evil-genius part of Mormonism is holding onto people. Most little cults you hear about...the first thing they try to do is separate you from your support group, your friends and family members, to make you dependent on the cult.

But Mormons breed this in from Day 1. The cult IS your friends and family, your entire support group. If you stray, you endanger the souls of your family. You can no longer attend the weddings and funerals of your loved ones. Many people lose everything they hold dear, when they walk away from the Mormon church.

And yet the entire outward vision of Mormons is big, strong, happy familes full of love. And who doesn't want that in their life?

[John the Drunkard]

Yes, yes, yes.

ALL religions partake of the same, elemental batshitdom. The details: talking snakes, cannibal crackers, magic underware, god's official share of loot etc. come far, far down the epistemic/cognitive line.

Another example of the same kind of error: the Thomam Jefferson-Sally Hemmings story. We can concoct as many fantasies as we like about their relationship; from Romeo and Juliet to Simon Legree and Little Eva. The underlying outrage is the same: Jefferson OWNED Hemmings. This is so fundamentally wrong that further speculation seems ridiculous.

Magical imaginary friends in the sky=crazy. The rest is stamp-collecting and theology.

[Stonyground]

It is interesting that many religious folk can recognise the total absurdity in every other religion but not their own which they perceive as being perfectly reasonable. Even pointing out to them that the only reason that they make this one exception is the place and time that they were born and raised makes no difference to their position.

[starskeptic]

RE: 'magic crackers'

I've always preferred the term 'Jeez-its' myself...

[Chris H]

I was at one point going to Episcopal Sunday School and Mormon Sunday School on alternative weeks. After my folks got divorced, my dad decided to go for the cliché and got engaged to one of the secretaries at his office. But since she was Mormon, he had to convert to get married. Yes, my dad came to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for pussy. (I'm sure it's not a unique story.) The relationship fell through before the marriage happened, though, and he got engaged to another woman from the Temple who was herself a good argument for how religion can enable mental illness. (Admittedly, though, by the same standard she was also a good model for the argument that Teddy Ruxpin enables mental illness.)

I was exposed to more of Mormon culture than I ever want, and I didn't even get the really crazy shit. One of my strongest memories is when some of his friends were driving my brother and I to the wedding reception. On the way, the father of the family turned around and just said, "So, when are you guys joining the Church?" The assumption that we would join, sooner or later, struck me like a slap in the face. I was already kind of creeped out by the authoritarian, Stepford-like nature of the church, and his assumption that he didn't even have to ask if we'd considered it, or what we thought of it, deeply pissed me off. My brother and I stared at each other for a moment, our mouths open, and then said almost simultaneously, "Uh.... We're not." I remember a lot of silence after that.

The other thing I remember was a really, really bad play that showed at the local Temple. It had something to do with these two guys who were close friends as souls in the cosmic pre-life, then meet each other in their lives on earth. One of them ultimately dies as the other cradles him in his arms; even then I found the play to be heavy on the homoeroticism.

[Chris H]

I think that we could really stand to have a long, complex conversation on the difference between clinical and colloquial language. There's a lot of people on the left, I think, who get caught up in trying to refine language down to proper usage based on what a word means in a clinical or literal context, not taking into account its implications in the larger society. One of the problems with criticizing people for the colloquial use of words like "crazy" is that inevitably this approach is directed against words that are most likely to be used in highly emotional and stress-filled situations, and people really need ways to express themselves in those situations. When we over-critique colloquial language, we risk making our legacy be a bunch of people who are emotionally mute.

Like you, I've suffered from depression a lot over the years. It's almost my emotional default setting. When I'm really far gone, when my mind feels completely shattered emotionally, crazy is a really good description of where I feel like I'm going. It's actually pretty restrained. It might be clinically inaccurate, but it expresses the frenzied loss of control that builds up in my mind, and the sense that just one more thing will send me spinning off into oblivion. Sometimes words need to be looked at for what the speaker is saying, rather than what the dictionary says the word means.

[Waxis]

@ starskeptic - "Jeez-its" just about cost me a monitor. Damn.

Re "crazy" in this context, it strikes me that only the hypersensitive will be willing to go through the contortions required to link the word back to their own states of mind. I've got issues of my own as well, and frankly don't object to "crazy", nor "nuts", "looney", or "batshit fucking insane" regardless of when, where, how, or to whom those terms are applied.

Part of not being crazy is having enough balance in your world view to realize that not everything is about you. Believing otherwise is … ahh, you know.

Re the Mormons - I was one for a while. Converted at 12, dropped it at 19. Calling it a childish whim would be just about accurate.

And yes, you are are expected to believe all the batshit fucking insane crap they tell you. Including the stories about how the magic underwear saved people from burning in fires, getting shot, etc., and how Joseph Smith used magic goggles to translate plates of solid gold which he dug up from a hill in New York, but couldn't show to anyone or else Moroni would get mad and take the plates away.

That's almost as nuts as 72 virgins, or a god with an elephant's head.

[Facebookjaska]

I have thinking about the very same issue a while ago, even if my own example of a recent batty religion was Scientology. However, I think that my conclusions were quite similar as Greta's: http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2009/05/27/is-scientology-really-different-from-the-older-religions-6188123/

[AtheistUndrwrld]

I don't know if you should consider using other words in future. I haven't read all the comments, but to me it seems like if one person believed these things they would be considered crazy, the strength in numbers doesn't change that fact.

Besides, I believe you were referring to the concepts of these religions. Ideas cannot be clinically insane, so the colloquial usage seems to make perfect sense.

[Robert B]

Thanks for your attention to the word "crazy." I didn't originally post about it, and I wouldn't have - although it bugs me a little, I have more than one mentally ill or neuroatypical friend who uses the word just as you did, so it would be odd of me to flip out on a stranger for it. Still, I definitely appreciate that it's something you're giving serious thought to.

I also really liked the article itself. Based on my friends and the public figures I'm aware of, Mormons don't seem to be any less rational or moral than members of any other faith. I don't know much about their theology. But, if a philosophy is basing everything off the first premise of "We should worship an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity," does it even matter what comes after that? (In terms of truth and falsehood, I mean - from a moral perspective things can always get worse.) It only takes one logical contradiction to make something false; everything else is redundant.

[Rachel]

http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/11/30/a-song-defending-scientology/

[Christin]

I find it interesting how many comments here make the very same arguments for the continued use of "crazy" as we see used by the religious against atheist activism. Hypersensitivity - check, popular understanding must be correct - check, people really need it for emotional value and support during stressful times - check, people who are deprived of this thing lose something important (emotional fluency, morality) - check. I expected more.

To me, the base issue is this: some people are hurt and their lives made harder by this word. There is no reason why I should or must use it instead of the other, far more descriptive and precise words that communicate information instead of only being pejorative. So, why use it? I see no reason. And, now that I've taken the time to think about it, it makes me uncomfortable in the same way that racial, homophobic, sexist, and other ableist slurs do.

[Greta Christina]

...instead of the other, far more descriptive and precise words...

Christin: So what are you suggesting as those words?

I'm serious. I don't want to use language that's hurtful and insulting. But there's a reason I used this word: it expresses exactly what I wanted to express. And I couldn't think of another word that expressed it. I couldn't think of another word that even came close. If you think there are far more descriptive and precise words... what are they?

[Ellie]

Hi, Greta Christina.
Use the word 'crazy' all you want (IMO.)
I'm a shrink-type person.
I'm also mentally ill, with a mood disorder, duly reported to my board, my hospital's credentialng committee, the DEA, and everyone else of concern, every single licensing cycle. "Eternal vigilance is the price of" if not liberty, at least function...
'Crazy,' like 'queer,' is in the process of being reclaimed.
Sure, we can pretty it up and call it "mentally interesting, " but what the hospitalst wants to know is: "crazy or not"...

I and my colleagues tell people every day that they're not crazy - but we then also promise to tell them when they ARE, and that we need them to listen up when I say so.
They do.
Because "crazy" makes sense to them. And what "crazy" means is "gravely impaired or danger to self/others" to me; to them it means "out of touch with reality to the point of grave impairment."
When I then say to someone, "OK - now you've hit 'crazy' - " it really gets their attention.

Again, use the word. Destigmatize it. Crazy / crazed / fragmented / dropped / broken. Works for me.

[Dan M.]

@Christin ...very same arguments... popular understanding must be correct...

You just equated using popular consensus to determine the truth of (a) whether there exists a universal super-being, and (b) what the popular consensus of the meaning of a word is. Really? You don't don't see how popular understanding is a little more relevant in one of those?

[Puck]

It's good to see that my one comment on the previous posting of this piece turned into a discussion. I'm on the fence about the use of the word crazy. I know a lot of people who have asked me not to use it because it hurts them personally and I've tried to excise it from my language out of respect of them. At the same time, I have friends who use the word crazy pretty frequently, some of whom are deliberately reclaiming it and some of whom just use it as part of their daily language. I don't know what's right, so I err on the side of not hurting my friends' feelings.

Onto the topic at hand: I completely agree that there is not a single religion that is not out of touch with reality. My response when I find out someone is a theist of any sort is usually to smile and nod and leave it at that. Most of my friends, whether religious or not, are pretty reasonable people in other areas of their life. If I ever see them using their religion to justify fuzzy thinking I try to call them out on it, but I have to admit that I'm not very good at that sort of thing. It's a process...

[Robert B]

@ Dan M.:

The issue isn't what the word means. I don't think anyone's arguing that the meaning of Greta's article was confusing or that she was deliberately insulting the mentally ill. The issue is, when someone uses the word "crazy" to mean "very foolish, out of touch with reality," is this usage offensive/marginalizing?

In the last comment thread, the one for the preview of this article, someone compared it to using the word "gay" to mean "bad, displeasing" or the word "pussy" to mean "coward." I've heard plenty of cases where those meanings were clearly understood by majority consensus, at least within the group where the speech was happening, but that doesn't change how demeaning they are to gays and women respectively.

The question at hand is, does the word "crazy" work the same way? And that's an issue where majority consensus is a very problematic authority to call on. Privileged groups like the mentally well and neurotypical tend to either be the majority or to dominate majority discourse, so I don't think the majority should get to rule on what's hurtful to an unprivileged group like the mentally ill and/or neuroatypical. In other words, the majority don't get to be the judge this time, because they're the ones on trial.

That said, I think I agree with Ellie that we should go ahead and use this word in a way that reclaims it. People use the concept of "crazy," in the same sense as Greta used it, as a check on their own thoughts and behavior - and this check is at least as useful for the mentally ill etc. as everybody else. That really fits for me, and apparently a lot of my friends.

[Azkyroth]

I don't understand the objection to the use of the word "crazy" here. Surely believers aren't going to be any less offended if we call their views "deluded", "false", or "utterly lacking any trace of evidence".

There seems to be a kind of severe reductionism going on here. "Crazy" is immediately associated with the worst cases of mental illness. The truth, of course, is that there are many kinds of mental illness and many degrees exhibited thereof. You can't reduce this to a binary state.

The objection is supposed to be that the people who have mental illnesses that are not of a dangerous, destructive nature (at least with treatment) and their loved ones are going to shrivel up and die because of that association if the word "crazy" is applied pejoratively to irrational, destructive beliefs and attitudes consistent with that degree of mental illness (aside from the special exemption from mental illness diagnoses for well-recognized religious beliefs).

Never mind what we actually think on the matter, of course....

[Azkyroth]

I find it interesting how many comments here make the very same arguments for the continued use of "crazy" as we see used by the religious against atheist activism. Hypersensitivity - check, popular understanding must be correct - check, people really need it for emotional value and support during stressful times - check, people who are deprived of this thing lose something important (emotional fluency, morality) - check. I expected more.

To me, the base issue is this: some people are hurt and their lives made harder by this word. There is no reason why I should or must use it instead of the other, far more descriptive and precise words that communicate information instead of only being pejorative. So, why use it? I see no reason. And, now that I've taken the time to think about it, it makes me uncomfortable in the same way that racial, homophobic, sexist, and other ableist slurs do.

Okay. Let me put it this way.

I am on the autism spectrum. I may have other issues as well, and in the past have been diagnosed with variants of bipolar disorder, which I don't think is accurate and have stopped medication for without differential ill effects.

I have objected in the past to people who have used the term "socially inept" to describe people who were behaving in a fashion exhibiting a strong sense of entitlement and a disregard for the views and rights of others, either in general or a specific group (that group usually being female humans). This is because the term is imprecise and probably inaccurate - a failure to understand empathetic social relations cannot be assumed from such behavior since it necessarily reflects a disregard for the other party and thus is as likely, if not more, to reflect a sense of being entitled to dispense with empathetic social relations, and in any case a disinterest in understanding or performing them. It's not just hurtful and marginalizing to associate that behavior with people who struggle (usually in good faith) with social skills, it's untrue and doesn't express the speaker's thoughts.

I've also objected to the suggestion that certain people perceived as obnoxious, self-centered, or disregardful of others might have Asperger's syndrome (Ayn Rand has come up), again because it doesn't accurately describe them, as well as being hurtful.

I do not, however, object to the use of terms like "arrogant" to describe people who are, well, arrogant, despite the fact that my difficulties with social skills and academic gifts have in the past lead to people calling me that and related terms.

I see two issues here.

First, I agree with you (I presume) that the use of, say, "schizophrenic" or "bipolar" nondiagnostically to describe disturbing or irrational behavior, is inappropriate and potentially hurtful. "Mentally ill" and "socially inept" are analogous as well. However, I see the objection to the use of "crazy" as being analogous more to a hypothetical objection, on my part, to the use of "arrogant."

When one says someone is "socially inept" one often means that they're acting arrogant and entitled. When one say someone seems Aspergerish, one usually means they're acting arrogant and disregardful of others, which aren't accurate descriptions of the psychological state of Asperger's. When you say someone is "crazy" you usually mean they're irrational, unpredictable, attention-drawing, and/or dangerous, which is pretty much the understood meaning of the word "crazy." When you make reference to a "schizophrenic deity" for instance, you're also saying the party in question is acting "crazy." In every case, it's perfectly reasonable to say what you mean. I find your reference to religious disregard for the views of atheists ironic because it seems more analogous the other way: you're arguing that we shouldn't use a perfectly good, relatively precise, evocative word, because a few people have unusual associations for it that may lead to them being hurt or offended. And I don't understand how you could possibly arrive at the conclusion that the understood meaning of the word isn't relevant.

Second, my reading of this anti-"crazy" campaign is that it looks like a handful of neurotypicals motivated by something analogous to noblesse oblige have taken it on themselves to decide for a group of people with disabilities what they might find offensive (such speculation being informed by a rather patronizing view of the sensitivity of mentally ill people) and started a crusade to rid the world of it on their behalf, without actually consulting them. As a member of that group, I feel like I'm being shoved into something analogous to a passive sick role and having power of attorney demanded by people who presume they're entitled and responsible for acting on my behalf because I just can't, the poor dear. I find this paternalistic and insulting. It's incredibly offensive, and considerably more marginalizing than the imprecise or evolving use of "crazy" by any reasonable standard. And furthermore, the rhetoric invariably assumes that people with these disabilities will support the effort, if their support matters at all, since anyone who objects is presumed to have no experience with mental illness or other psychological disabilities. In other words, the message is that, being a member of the marginalized group who doesn't agree with the message of a set of people who have presumed the right to speak for the group, I don't even exist. It's hard to get more marginalized than that.

(And this mostly holds even if my misreading of the effort as being led by neurotypicals is inaccurate, frankly.)

[AtheistUndrwrld]

I totally agree with Dan M.

language is made up by people, when every one agrees that google is a verb, it becomes a verb. Really, it does, I just googled it.

That is exactly how language works.

When you are arguing for the existence of a being, like god, opinion doesn't matter.

[Azkyroth]

(I, of course, meant "even if my READING...is inaccurate". Hold the cheap shots. >.>)

[Azkyroth]

And perhaps I should clarify the bolded portion:

When one says someone is "socially inept" one often means that they're acting arrogant and entitled. When one say someone seems Aspergerish, one usually means they're acting arrogant and disregardful of others, which aren't accurate descriptions of the psychological state of Asperger's. When you say someone is "crazy" you usually mean they're irrational, unpredictable, attention-drawing, and/or dangerous, which is pretty much the understood meaning of the word "crazy." When you make reference to a "schizophrenic deity" for instance, you're also saying the party in question is acting "crazy." In every case, it's perfectly reasonable to say what you mean.

Let me rephrase: you should say what you mean. In the one out of four cases above where what was meant is actually what was said, it's reasonable to say it.

[Robert B]

I still don't find it convincing that the word means what it's supposed to. A word could be powerful, provocative, precise, and otherwise extremely useful, but I don't see how that would have anything to do with whether it is morally right to use. I'm much more convinced by the people speaking from life experience and expertise who are saying they just don't find it offensive.

(By the way, since we seem to be sharing, I'm multiple and I live with depression. So include me in that last. But even so, I'm very glad the issue is being seriously considered.)

[Ronald King]

Being human is a cognitive bias.

[Brian Killian]

Your definition of faith sounds more like a definition of fundamentalism.

And of course atheists are as capable of being fundamentalists as any bible thumper. You can be a fundamentalists about anything really.

The real question is: who is more out of touch with reality, the religious person or the atheist? Which leads to still more questions like...

What is reality?

And how do we know it?

Not exactly things which admit of easy answers, and so calling each other "crazy" doesn't really go very far.

[Ronald King]

Brian, Calling someone "crazy" actually goes far in enhancing one's narcissism which we know is a defense mechanism defending oneself against the awareness of being nothing. It puts one in the delusional position of superiority within one's belief system which forms the individual's reality.

[Robert B]

@ Brian Killian:

1) All else being equal, the religious person.

2) All this stuff everywhere.

3) Science.

Do I get an A?

Granted, while saying the answers is easy, the reasoning and logic to back them up are trickier. I'd be happy to have a conversation getting into reasoning and logic. Please, after you.

[Billy Cook]

Mainstream religions are not crazy, they are fiction and insane.

I was born in Salt Lake City and I have fewer issues with Mormons than I do with Catholics.

My dad was Mormon, my mother was Catholic, I'm just a spiritual being having a fucked up human experience here.

[AgnosticTom]

I’m new here – attracted by a link I was sent on your post demolishing Pascal’s Wager. Love your writing, wit, energy, rants and, most of all, your intensity. But – (there’s always a “but”, right?) – how is atheism itself NOT just another crazy religion?

From my perspective as an agnostic, atheism is simply the religion of non-religion. To me the only rational answer to the question “Is there a God?” is ”No one knows” because at this time there is also no tangible, provable evidence there is not.

Then, again, I absolutely loathe anyone asking me if I believe in God. That’s never really the question being asked – even by atheists. Genuinely asked, the question would be stated “do you believe about God the way that I do?” So my answer, even to atheists is always “no.”

All religions do indeed always reside somewhere on the crazy spectrum. Including atheism, albeit at the low end of crazy.

That's because all religions are based on a fanatical, faith based need to convince others their view is correct. Regardless of the particular faith, the goal is to educate the ignorant sinners about the salvation of truth – as each faith sees it, of course.

Thus truth becomes relative, which truth cannot be. Truth itself is absolute. It is only one’s state of knowledge that is relative.

Relative to what? Well, truth, of course.

Admittedly, atheists don’t distort well established scientific and historical facts to achieve the convincing of the weak-minded. Athesits do, however, seem to believe, like every other faith, that they are in possession of the whole truth. i.e., there is no God and thinking one (or more) exists is, well, crazy.

Atheism does not rest on non-belief, because that very non-belief is, in fact, also based on a very strong belief – namely, that if there is no way to run an experiment to produce evidence that [whatever] exists, then it automatically becomes axiomatic that [whatever] doesn’t exist. Period. Atheist have a vested faith in the unassailability of that belief.

Yet by that measure it could be argued that microbes, atoms, radiation, and what is presently known of quantum mechanics and all other scientific facts only began their existence when humans discovered ways to test and, therefore, prove their existence. They were only then made retroactive to the beginning of time – whatever that is.

Sorry, but that sounds almost as implausible as any of the other misguided and distorted beliefs accurately attributed to the other religions.

The difference between agnosticism and atheism is simply this. When asked if he/she believes in [whatever] for which there is no evidence whatsoever that [whatever] exists, an agnostic relies on the only thing he/she knows 100% to be certain at that very moment. Since, like atheists, we cannot accept the existence of [whatever] without proof, we are also unwilling to accept the non-existence of [whatever] without an equal amount of proof. Since it is impossible to prove a negative, agnostics must embrace not knowing.

Not knowing is a path to potentials and possibilities and the abiding hope that all truth is not yet known.

The only absolute in my life is certainty that I know almost nothing about the universe in which I reside – no matter how small the subset of the larger universe might be that I can observe or how much I can learn in this lifetime .

The great part about embracing the certainty of not knowing is the relief of any need for faith.

For as the High Priest of Salemanship, Saul of Taurus, said as he recruited Christians and built the early Church – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Happily agnostics do not require any faith whatever to stand on the solid rock of our own ignorance and there from laugh at both those who ardently believe in things they can’t see, touch, smell, hear, taste, count, sort or measure as well as those who cannot believe in things that no one has yet discovered or figured out an experiment to prove.

I have always held that the only thing worse than an unanswered question is an unquestioned answer.

So I irritate my religious friends by asking them questioning their answer until I exhaust their ability to come up with ridiculous plausible answers. Most of my friends who are religious are progressives - very smart, well read, thoughtful and logical up to the point of being able to embrace not knowing. So sometimes it takes awhile to exhaust them.

With atheist friends it’s usually not as much fun to question their answers. Atheists are by design (intelligent or otherwise) also very smart, thoughtful, ridiculously knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, and really wonderful people. But when it comes to discussing religion, all they’ve got in their arsenal is, “You can’t prove any of that crazy shit.” Once they realized I agree with them about religious insanity, there’s nowhere to go except to insult them – as I fear I may have done here.

But my experience with almost every atheist I have known, is that while they can point out the absurdity of religious beliefs, more often than not, their ability to do so with such ease results in an arrogant superiority complex that blinds them to their own inability to prove a negative and admit, that they can be, when all is said and done, exactly as faith based as their targets.

And that’s just, well, crazy. Not bat-shit crazy. Just crazy in the the normal everyday wonderful use of the word.

[Maria]

Tom, are you as dogmatically agnostic about ALL possible concepts the fanciful brain of the human species are able to come up with?

Do you snicker as arrogantly at the poor Santa believers as you do at the likewise poor Santa deniers, when clearly the only sane stance is to remain agnostic about the matter?

[Eclectic]

I have to respond to Tom's comment at some point, but it's a bit long. Bascially, I'm not dogmatic about the non-existence of a deity, but there absolutely is evidence. I've explored the matter and am convinced. I'm as sure that Yahweh doesn't exist as I am that I would burn my hand if I put it on a hot stove. That is, certain enough that I'm not interested in more research.

Back to my intended point: perhaps it would actually be useful to use more mental helath terminology. We can distinguish neurotic and psychotic believers.

A neurotic belief, like a fear of spiders, is one which is recognized as irrational, but one follows anyway.

A psychotic belief is one which the believer is unable to distinguish from reality.

Note that this is a taxonomy of believers, not beliefs. Although the more elaborate stories tend to be associated with psychosis.

[AYY]

GC, Why does it matter if all religions are equally "crazy"? Religions that are more doctrinaire are going to have beliefs or doctrines that make them seem crazier than religions that are less doctrinaire. The beliefs and practices of the less doctrinaire religions can still be untenable.
So I don't see what good it does to argue, for example, that Unitarianism is more rational than Mormonism, or that Reform Judaism is more rational than Haredi Judaism, if the core beliefs are still untenable.

Eclectic, 1101.
Not sure your distinction between neurotic and psychotic beliefs is correct. I don't see how a belief can be neurotic or psychotic, if the person can otherwise function rationally in life. Lots of people believe in the historical accuracy of the Bible, or that there really is an omniscient, ominipotent Supreme Being whose will we can discern, and who has the properties that Judeo-Christian religions ascribe to it. One might say that these people are unable to distinguish that belief from reality, but the fact is that many have those beliefs, and if in their minds there is a rational basis for those beliefs, and they function rationally in other aspects of their lives, I don't see how you could consider their beliefs psychotic.

[Margo K.]

@ Greta Christina

Thank you for taking the "crazy" issue seriously. I did not expect you to change this article, I just think you should just be more careful in the future. Your willingness to think about difficult issues is one reason I respect you so much as a blogger.

Azkyroth said:

"(I never have heard back on what similarly evocative adjective they expect us to replace it with.)"

@Azkyroth

I gave some suggestions on the first page on this article. You can go back and read them if you missed them.

I agree that neurotypicals deciding what should and should not be offensive for mentally ill people is patronising. I changed the way I thought about the word "crazy" because of some writings by mentally ill people about the word. I know many people with mental illnesses do not find the word used pejoratively as hurtful, but since some do (according to what they have said) I have tried to be more careful about how I use it for the sake of those who are hurt by the pejorative use. Again, you can find some writing by people with mental illness on the issue by googling "Feminists with Disabilities crazy" (I would link if links were allowed in the comments).

I am a bit puzzled by the comments talking about reclaiming "crazy". I have nothing against the reclamation of "crazy" as a non-pejorative word, but that's not how the word was used in the article - Greta was using the word 'crazy' to describe what is bad about religion, not to describe religion in a neutral or positive way.

While I think religious people are mistaken, I don't think they are any more mentally unstable than I am (I identify as neurotypical, but that doesn't mean my brain is perfect), nor do I think religious thought is more divorced from reality than some of my own thoughts. I like to think that my skepticism makes me better at sorting out my divorced-from-reality thoughts than religious people, but I think it's a matter of having the right knowledge and choosing to take a skeptical attitude, not a matter of our brains being wired differently.

[Margo K.]

Oh - and by the way I want to point out that Greta made the exact same point about religious believes not being more mentally unstable than non-believers in her article - I was responding to comments, not the article itself.

I also want to point out that the very fact that some people are referring to believers as "mentally unstable" shows that the link between "crazy" and various mental circumstances has not be severed in the popular imagination.

[Christin]

@Greta Christina: At other places in the essay, you describe them as out of touch with reality, fringe cult, implausible, hilarious, appalling, shameless, chaotic, and put particular emphasis on the magic bits (which has automatic connotations of silly untruth). Other options include ridiculous, weird, frenzied, confused, eccentric, silly, bizarre, and wacky. I felt that you made the point well and clearly; I just don't see how "crazy" really contributed any more. It's evocative, and makes for a good headline, but that's all I saw.

[Christin]

@Dan M.: Way to miss the other three points I made.

There are many people who say "Well, God is just another way of saying love (or justice, or the universe)" without addressing any of the institutions of or harm caused by religion and belief. Should we agree to that, or hold them to the way the word has been used for centuries?

Back to the topic, I am going to take a prescriptivist stance here and say that sometimes the majority of people choose to use a word in a way that is insensitive. I would never say that it's okay to say "how gay is it that they believe this", even though there are many people who would say it's a perfectly legitimate use of the word. Do you see at all where I'm going with this?

I think @Robert B's comment says what I'm trying to get across well. However I will add that I see reclaiming a word as something that can only be done by those to whom it applies, not just anybody using it because it's been rehabilitated.

I'm also going to link to another essay on popular meanings and slurs in context: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2006/07/theres-no-good-way-to-use-fag.html

[Christin]

@Azkyroth: The essays I have read on "crazy" that inform my position were written by people not on the autism/aspergers spectrum, but with other mental illnesses and conditions. My reasoning though is the same as not using other slurs that are considered acceptable in some circles and not in others. (Similar to how @Puck wrote). I'm still thinking about the rest of your last paragraph though. I don't think anyone necessarily SHOULd find it offensive, but I have met people who think it is.

@Everyone: Sorry this took three comments. I'm not quite sure if there's a better way, but it wouldn't let me post them all at once.

[Margo K.]

"(I identify as neurotypical, but that doesn't mean my brain is perfect)"

I apologise for making this comment. It implies that neurotypical brains are better than neuro-atypical brains, and is the exact type of thinking I am still trying to shake myself out of.

@ Christin

I am interested in essays on "crazy" written by people with mental illnesses that you have read. Can you give me search words to plug into google so I can find them? As my faux pas shows, I still need to think about this issue myself, and I find such useful.

[Robert B]

Yeah, apparently some people really did think that "crazy" here was denoting something related to mental health. Calling religious beliefs "crazy" didn't offend me. (Partly this was because Greta was so clear about what she did and didn't mean by the word.) The comment proposing that religious beliefs be classified as neurotic or psychotic, I have to say, did offend me. To wield the technical language of mental illness at people with unwelcome beliefs is... Orwellian, frankly. Even if those opinions are really really disagreeable and false. It implies that the proper response is medical: doctors, drugs, hospitals, straitjackets. I find myself reacting to it emotionally, as if to a threat of violence.

It's also demeaning to the mentally ill to use them as a rhetorical club. But that's a less upsetting aspect than the other, for me.

(And I can't fully explain why "crazy" is okay if "psychotic" isn't. The arguments I just wrote seem to apply pretty well to "crazy" also. If someone made that case I would totally understand how they felt.)

[Margo K.]

Ah, I finally found the essay (again, on Feminists with Disabilities - it's the site I'm most familiar with) which first made me think about the use of the words "crazy" and "insane". You can google "This is Why We're Always on about Language" and it's the first hit. While this essay is about "insane" the person who wrote this also identifies as "crazy". And, coincidentally, "atheist".

[Eclectic]

AgnosticTom: Methinks you are a little too smug in your uncertainty.

Here's the core of my disagreement with you (taken slightly out of context):

an agnostic relies on the only thing he/she knows 100% to be certain at that very moment

This, I claim, is complete rubbish. The only thing I (or anyone) can know to be 100% certain is cogito ergo sum. Beyond that, it's all a bunch of extrapolations from imperfect observations. I am not 100% certain that I am not living in the Matrix (or Plato's cave, to use the classical version). I am not 100% certain that the keyboard I am typing this on, much less the blog comment I am responding to, is not a figment of my imagination.

If you require 100% certainty before reaching any conclusion, you're never going to get anywhere.

Are you certain that your hair is the same colour now as it was last time you looked? I know that your experience is that it has never changed colour without some obvious intervention, nor have you heard about it happening to anyone else, but that's an extrapolation.

The way I like to resolve this is to say that "proof is subjective". The evidence that we consider may be objective, but the amount of it required to quiet our internal doubts, i.e. to constitute "proof", is indeed subjective.

I just happen to think that some people profess an impractically high standard. Why do you use such a standard for theological questions when you use a much lower one for the rest of your life? (E.g. What's the point of driving to work if you're not 100% certain that it'll be there?)

As I, and Greta, and Richard Dawkins, and many other outspoken atheists have written, considering a matter proved does not mean that we are utterly unwilling to change our minds given new evidence.

It means that we consider the search for new evidence to be a waste of effort. So you're welcome to keep looking, but I have better and more productive things to do with my life, thank you very much.

Another point you make:

Atheism does not rest on non-belief, because that very non-belief is, in fact, also based on a very strong belief - namely, that if there is no way to run an experiment to produce evidence that [whatever] exists, then it automatically becomes axiomatic that [whatever] doesn't exist. Period. Atheist have a vested faith in the unassailability of that belief.

That's a pretty serious misstatement of my claim. I assert that if there is no way to run an experiment to produce evidence that [whatever] exists, then it does not matter if [whatever] exists. Because it will never make the slightest difference to me.

If it would make a difference, then that would be a runnable experiment!

I don't care about some abstract philosophical definition of "existence" of utterly imperceptible things. The point is that I can go on acting as if it doesn't exist, and I will never make a mistake by doing so.

Now, on to the last point I want to address: atheism is a religious faith

That's because all religions are based on a fanatical, faith based need to convince others their view is correct. Regardless of the particular faith, the goal is to educate the ignorant sinners about the salvation of truth - as each faith sees it, of course.

I can talk about the morality of educating people, but the most important reason for "proselytizing" is that if I don't, it has very real consequences for me.

A political democracy is based om the "marketplace of ideas". "Crowdsourcing" may be a new word, but in this area, it's a very old idea.

Growing up, I never experienced any conflict with religious believers, so I really didn't care. The most outspoken atheists are usually drawn from religious converts, who are offended by the lies that they were taught and would like to help others facing the same problems.

But these days when religions are routinely manipulating world politics, and there are active struggles to make over multiple countries as theocracies, if I want the right to live my life in non-religious peace, it is a civic duty to speak up and be heard.

That's a civic duty, one imposed by my citizenship, not my atheism.

For more on this point, see Greta's essay on "Shut up, that's why".

[Christin]

@Margo K: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/12/crazy-does-not-equal-stupid.html is part 2 of a three-part series about how crazy is used as shorthand for violent, stupid, and worthless and therefore maps those meanings onto mental illness. I feel fairly certain that shakesville has another post on it somewhere, but it's also been explicitly stated that authors and commenters find it harmful. The FWD one is another. Unfortunately I don't always keep the best track of my reading history, but if I remember any more I will drop them here.

[AgnosticTom]

@Maria. I am 100% certain there is a Santa Claus because for far too few years that passed in a blink, I WAS Santa Claus. And for the past few years I have been fortunate to be the father of two recently ordained Santas. With any luck, I'll one day be the grandfather to a few more Jolly Elves.

@Eclectic - I'm very glad Jonas Salk and others like him did not buy into your assertion - "I assert that if there is no way to run an experiment to produce evidence that [whatever] exists, then it does not matter if [whatever] exists. Because it will never make the slightest difference to me."

Throughout history many diseases thought to be incurable were simply accepted as God's will.
Fortunately people of science did not accept that because there was no known experiment it didn't matter that a cure didn't yet exist. That mattered to a great many people - for all you know, their work may have even mattered to you.

Also @eclectic. Yes, indeed. I am certain my hair is the same color today as it was yesterday. I'm as bald today as I was yesterday and as I will be tomorrow. Sadly, when it's gone it's gone. :)

Also @ecletic - "I can talk about the morality of educating people, but the most important reason for "proselytizing" is that if I don't, it has very real consequences for me."

That's very Christian of you. :) Or, at a minimum, I'd say it doesn't distinguish your stated intentions all that much from the same argument used by all religions.

But I do get your point and it's a good one. I'd rather endure the proselytizing of 1000's atheists all day any day than any one Christian's for 15 minutes.

Thanks for the replies. I'll work on the smugness thing.