Non stamp collecting becomes a political party
Written by Tom Beasley in Opinion, Politics at September 12, 2011
"We created Support Atheism.com because we care about you. We care that becoming and being an atheist is horribly difficult in many families and communities. We care that young atheists (already suffering the hardships that come with growing up) are struggling with difficult celestial/existential questions, and this skepticism might not be popular with friends. We care whether the people and leaders within this world base their beliefs upon what can be determined most true and useful."
In the thousands of debates, arguments, discussions and chats that occur all over the nation, atheists often respond to criticism with some simple analogies. The most popular form of atheism is defined as “weak atheism,” “negative atheism,” or “agnostic atheism.” This, of course, all changes on the kind of definition you ascribe for God. This position is often explained through the questions: “is bald a hair color?” Atheism is merely a lack of belief. Similarly, is not collecting stamps a hobby?
Atheists run into constant trouble, however, when theists observe that some (perhaps even this author) spend vasts amount of time “not collecting stamps” or, perhaps, combing bald hair. This practice, for many atheists, is undoubtedly true. Yet, still, at the core of atheism is no real position at all. There is merely a pointing out how flawed the position is that others put forward. We do not claim to know, we merely claim to know that others do not know.
Yet there is a movement, albeit small, developing to have a national atheist party. I can see where this is coming from; atheists have too small of a voice for how large we are (in particular when compared to the political sway of Jewish groups with similar sizes). We can almost all agree on separation of church and state First Amendment issues, so why not band together to work on those? I can see this argument and perhaps this is important. Yet we must highlight that some people come to atheism through Ayn Rand, just as others come to it through Penn Jillette or Christopher Hitchens. All of these people have distinct political views, in particular different from the typical liberal atheist stereotype. Unifying as a party will ultimately divide what small unifying principles we have. Some internet posters pose questions like, “what do atheists have to say about foreign oil dependency?” for example. The answer should be: nothing.
I follow the throng of other atheists who come out and say that a national atheist party is a bad idea. This gives nothing but ammunition for the religious propagandists who talk about how we worship evolution and Darwin. No one should listen to those people anyway — but let us not give them a grain of truth. We have a problem with uniformity, but it is the very criticism of group-think that drives us to political involvement. Yes, we can agree on some general principles and yes, we should unite under those principles. And yet no, we should not form a political party. At best the group will create an even deeper problem in resolving the problem of what “atheism” means.