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Angry Atheism - Fuel for Social Movement in a Time of Change

JaysonR

Graduate Poster
JaysonR
Joined
May 16, 2013
Messages
1,816
The Stage
It would seem to many today that, "angry atheism", is rising rapidly; that the institution of religion is under attack, and yet; that new and strange religious behaviors are popping up nearly at the same rate.
What's going on? The world is on its head and it seems like it happened in a rush!
Society is increasing its running away from the traditions of religion in America, and at the same time, there seems to be an aggressive aversion coinciding with this flee.
Accompanying this upset, it appears that verbose and active preservationists of traditional religions are popping up at an equally alarming rate.

...

Edited by LashL: 
Snipped for compliance with Rule 4. Please, do not copy and paste lengthy tracts of text from elsewhere. Instead, just cite a short quote and provide a link to the source.



*Offline Citations: "The concept of globalization merely reconfigures our present understanding of the possible significance of New Religious movements as conceived under the conditions of 'modernity', though in ways that have some important yet limited analytical and explanatory advantages no yet fully appreciated by scholars of New Religious movements."
Dr. Lorne L. Dawson
Professor of Sociology at the University of Waterloo. (Dec 1998). "The Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements and Globalization: A Theoretical Prolegomenon". Society for the Scientific Study of Religion 37 (4): 580–595.
 
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I am an atheist, but not am not angry at anyone.

As gambling cruiser rightly said, there are many people on this planet that have much bigger problems than the existence, or non-existence of a supreme being. A large fraction of the worlds population are starving, so I would be very surprised if they have the energy to be angry about anything.
 
Angry-atheism is a myth or perhaps a religiously inspired meme. Questioning any religion or part thereof leads to cries of of pain just because these religions have been able to continue for so long to suppress any dissent. They have been content to make their wealth by a form of totalitarian oppression and now see their power and therefore their customers drifting away. Look around the news sites and media outlets such as YouTube. There are far more foam flecked rants from the religious than from atheists.

Atheism has been around for a very long time, the Abrahamic religions have long recognised the danger and have tortured, maimed and killed atheists. As we, in the West, now do not accept such barbarism, atheism is simply growing to a significant and natural proportion of the population.

It is hard to say for certain, but I feel that general education with its emphasis on questioning, has accelerated the growth. This of course, was also recognised by religions, which opposed it except for religious indoctrination. Having failed to control education it is interesting and alarming to see their attempts to replace science with magical thinking in the curriculum.

So no, there aren't many angry atheists, active ones, yes, and even anti-theists but we don't have the religion's dog-like response to having their meal ticket removed.
 
In the minds of many theists, simply saying "I disagree" or even worse "I do not believe because [add evidence -or lack of it- here]" is enough to labell you an "angry atheist" or "new atheist". Its like a declaration of war. You are questioning something that can not, should not be questioned, in their minds.

And if you dare questiong their holy and divine rights to attempt submitting other people to their codes, well, you will be an even angrier and hateful atheist.

Compare atheists' discourses with religious discourses and tell me who's actually angry and spreading hate, prejudice and authoritarian rules.
 
Gawdzilla said:
The delusional can do what they want as long as they don't try to force their delusions other people. That's where I get a testy.
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Exactly this. I only get angry when believers (mostly Christians) whine and moan that they are being marginalized or suppressed every time they are prevented from forcing their beliefs on everyone else. And it usually occurs in a strawman fashion, such as "They took religion out of schools." No. No, they didn't. Pay attention to the facts, please.
 
Psi Baba said:
Exactly this. I only get angry when believers (mostly Christians) whine and moan that they are being marginalized or suppressed every time they are prevented from forcing their beliefs on everyone else. And it usually occurs in a strawman fashion, such as "They took religion out of schools." No. No, they didn't. Pay attention to the facts, please.
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"You can't pray in school anymore!" Hell, they prayed at Hogwarts when the finals came up. :D
 
Just to be clear, the OP doesn't intend to state that all atheists are "angry atheists", nor does it intend to state that such an adjective belongs to the majority, but instead only to a fringe.

An example of that fringe in the public would be Sam Harris, a rather admitted angry atheist.

The OP's general interest was to examine the relationship that the fringe of angry atheism has in the current setting of American spiritual culture.

In my view, considering the contexts that I outlined in the OP; angry atheism is a net good, as it really is the marking point that pulls the sheet of social change wider and wider. The average folks are far within the middle of that sheet, and not at the edge pulling as hard as they can.

However, I wanted to highlight that, for those who are part of that demographic (such as the example of Sam Harris, and some people whom I know personally), they are a very effective group that offers a definite benefit to society by pushing the dialogue into positions that require more serious consideration by those who are casually spiritual; it becomes more important for a casually spiritual person to determine their position in identification as they have a markedly contentious dialogue to enter into socially if they choose to interact by the same labels as the traditionally religious demographics.

As such, we see "non-affiliated" rising more and more at the same time as the rise of atheism in percentage.

Where someone before may have claimed to be religious, because it was just easier to state that; they may very well choose to distance from that label today as siding with that label is going to cause uncomfortable interactions socially.

So what do angry atheists do? They help raise the charge of stigma for religion; that is essentially folks like Sam Harris' interest (and a few of my acquaintances).


And this is good because, as I said; this helps create an unease and that helps cause creation, as more people will want to be spiritual, but do not identify with this religion that is seen socially under fire and accusation by "angry atheism".


Again, this doesn't mean an atheist is just angry.
I'm an atheist, and I'm not an "angry atheist"; it's very hard for me to stomach folks that are like Sam Harris.
I suppose this is my way of digesting the observation of that group; by placing it into the wider social context and considering its product.
 
I'm actually just posting a one liner here to make sure this comes up in my subscriptions. The formatting of your writing makes it a little difficult to read.

I skimmed at got the gist of it. I sure hope you've read Gramsci and James Scott's Weapons of the Weak, it's old and I'm not really a fan of sociology. However he touches on how "gossip" is used by some of these tribes to keep the big shots in "check." I haven't read it in ages but you might find it useful. Sometimes the old ones get us thinking in a different way. It's mostly about Cultural Hegemony.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0300036418


Now I'm going to mull over what you are saying for a bit before I officially reply. I want to read through it again.

But just to toss something at you. In my experience most angry atheists are people who had been raised in a fundamentalist type home or a "conversion" type home. Especially Christian. You don't really get ex Jews for example as "Angry Atheists."

What is seems like to me is that a person who was raised in a home that lived by a mantra of conversion, "accept Jesus and be saved" ultimately became conditioned to feel that what others believed was wrong and that there is only one RIGHT way of thinking. And so when they transfer that over to atheism they have "take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy."

Basically they are a raging Christian Fundamentalist dressed up as an Atheist. And it's creepy.

More later.
 
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I'm an atheist. I often get angry. The two are related, but not in the way you might think. Anger is a primal emotional reaction, whereas my reasons for self-identifying as atheist are intellectual and require careful thought and introspection. In a sense, atheism reins in my anger when it comes to religious injustice and abuse, and allows me to express my feelings in a rational manner.

As I've said, I still believe in the potential of religion to do much good in the world. That can't happen if everyone is shouting past each other.
 
truethat said:
I'm actually just posting a one liner here to make sure this comes up in my subscriptions. The formatting of your writing makes it a little difficult to read.
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If you have any feed back on this, I'd be interested to read it.
I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing.

I skimmed at got the gist of it. I sure hope you've read Gramsci and James Scott's Weapons of the Weak, it's old and I'm not really a fan of sociology. However he touches on how "gossip" is used by some of these tribes to keep the big shots in "check." I haven't read it in ages but you might find it useful. Sometimes the old ones get us thinking in a different way. It's mostly about Cultural Hegemony.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0300036418
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I haven't read these authors, no.
To be honest, I don't read many books.
Most of my reading is direct reports and studies coupled with observation and thinking.

I'll look those up though and see what they offer.


But just to toss something at you. In my experience most angry atheists are people who had been raised in a fundamentalist type home or a "conversion" type home. Especially Christian. You don't really get ex Jews for example as "Angry Atheists."

What is seems like to me is that a person who was raised in a home that lived by a mantra of conversion, "accept Jesus and be saved" ultimately became conditioned to feel that what others believed was wrong and that there is only one RIGHT way of thinking. And so when they transfer that over to atheism they have "take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy."

Basically they are a raging Christian Fundamentalist dressed up as an Atheist. And it's creepy.
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That is an interesting matter of inquiry, and one that would be interesting to look into; the social demographic for the cultural background motives of "angry atheist" individuals.

I don't exactly address that in this writing; this is more an apologetic piece for "angry atheism", establishing a social placement of net gain for the disposition in general terms.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
I'm an atheist. I often get angry. The two are related, but not in the way you might think. Anger is a primal emotional reaction, whereas my reasons for self-identifying as atheist are intellectual and require careful thought and introspection. In a sense, atheism reins in my anger when it comes to religious injustice and abuse, and allows me to express my feelings in a rational manner.

As I've said, I still believe in the potential of religion to do much good in the world. That can't happen if everyone is shouting past each other.
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That's good, and I agree with you about the potential of religion.
Based on this, I wouldn't categorize you as the concept of "angry atheism".

A quite overtly known example, for comparison, is Sam Harris.
Harris is extremely open about being fed up with religion and wanting nothing short of removal of it from society; focusing all of his attention on outlining how religion is a force of harm and ethical wrong in society.

It's not often that the every-day-atheist falls into the classification (though some may seem like it at times).
It's more of a fringe demographic; probably fewer than there are "angry theists" (though I have no data to support this guess; it is only a guess).
 
If you need any pointers, my Masters was in theology. I extended to a second Masters at Union Theological Seminary at Columbia and dropped out because I felt it was all total BS.

But I'm a Strong atheist. Very strong. I don't just "Think" there is no God, I know it. It's been proven. And at the same time I have very diverse religious friends from all backgrounds. Many people on this site have accused me of being a closet Christian when they get into "Angry Atheist" mode.

Some sources for you, Paul Knitter was my professor at Union and the class was about a duality of belief between Buddhism and Christianity. That was interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_F._Knitter


Gramsci and Scott are easy reads. You could just honestly wiki Gramsci to get a grasp of Cultural Hegemony. But that's basically a term that is missing in your writing that anyone in the "know" would expect to see there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci (I don't know nuthin' about him btw so don't go crazy, you just really need to know his theory)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony


ETA TRY THIS< it's much simpler to understand.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-cultural-hegemony.htm

Why I thought Scott was interesting in Weapons of the Weak, (try ebooking it or kindle) is that he focuses on how Anger seems to be a weapon of those who feel dominated by others. He touches on cultural hegemony a lot but in a "village" setting. I thought it might inform your writing.


My own experience of years of conversations, (Not so scientific but a lot of perspective) is that whenever someone is really angry towards what they deem to be "pushy believers," they have usually grown up in a religious home or attended a church. As opposed to someone who had a sort of "slack" upbringing.

At first I thought it was a sort of spiritual adolescent sense of rebellion. It seemed (and still seems) very insecure and immature and not confident when it happens.

But over time I realized that it applies to people of all ages. Older people as well. Dawkins is a good example.
 
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I think anger has a place in atheism. I'm not angry most of he time but when I hear about religious inspired violence or witch burnings I get pretty $(&$;&@ mad.
 
truethat;

I will definitely make a point to look into the citations and readings that you provided.
Considering that I'm not formally educated in sociology (...yet...working on anthropology), I wasn't familiar with the term for the conditions implied in what I wrote; so thanks for the education on that term (always love to learn)!

I almost went to theological school many years ago, but a few months before starting, I realized that my opinion of the field was very, very low and that I wasn't wanting that at all (I agree with your conclusion regarding the field).
Instead, I spent a number of years living with different religious groups to satisfy that interest in religious diversity study (which turned out to be a very interesting experience).

Considering your background, I think you'll probably find many of the topics that I choose to bring up to be interesting; I look forward to your feedback on topics going forward.

Another topic I'd be interested on your thoughts on is this one
Examination of Spirituality as a Systemic Function (I don't go into the greater detail in that iteration of the topic, but that topic is massive and I could fill many pages on it beyond what I wrote in there).
 
lopeyschools said:
I think anger has a place in atheism. I'm not angry most of he time but when I hear about religious inspired violence or witch burnings I get pretty $(&$;&@ mad.
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Just to be clear; this isn't the qualification for "angry atheism"
Sam Harris' disposition is an example of "angry atheism".
Hope that helps clarify the concept a bit. ;)
 
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