Atheism evangelism followup

[dougo]

I posted a comment on hahathor's post about evangelical atheists, and since I never followed up on my post about it here, I figured I'd repost part of the comment here.

The thing that spurred me into asking [whether atheist evangelism was any better than religious evangelism] was this: I saw a documentary about evangelists where someone explained that, if you truly believe that someone you love will go to Hell because they are not a Christian, then shouldn't you do everything you can to prevent that loved one from going to Hell? It does make logical sense, if you accept the assumptions of Sin and Hell. And it made me think, hypothetically speaking, if I truly believe that someone I love is doing damage to themselves because of their religion, then shouldn't I do everything I can to convince them otherwise? For instance, suppose I knew a Christian Scientist who was suffering from a treatable illness, but who refused medical treatment in favor of prayer. If I cared about this person, shouldn't I try to convince them that medical treatment is far more likely to be effective than just prayer? Maybe this doesn't count as evangelism, since I'm not trying to convert them completely to atheism, just away from a particularly egregious corollary of their religion. But it falls into the category of "disabusing others of their beliefs". This is an extreme example, but I think this is the kind of motivation that spurs people to talk someone out of a religious belief: the stereotype is that religious people do some irrational things based on their religious belief that can sometimes be harmful to themselves or others, and if you think that this might happen, then in theory it's socially responsible to try to change their mind. But, yeah, in practice it's usually just rude.

To be clear, I personally think evangelism of any sort is usually a bad idea, not just because it's rude, but also because in general it's dangerous to assume that you know better than someone else what's good for them. But I think the motivations of atheist evangelists can be as virtuously-intended as religious evangelists who want to save your soul from eternal damnation.

Comments

[flourish.livejournal.com]

No, it's OK. I understand what you're saying, and that I asked you a very difficult and possibly unfair question.

I guess I understand your point on a theoretical level (I recognize that most religions, if not all, have caused some kind of harm as social institutions, and that for some people, that may be condemning). But I have a hard time understanding how it translates into practical, concrete details - is there any kind of theism that is acceptable to practice, in your view? etc.

I also wonder whether it isn't unfair to say that churches as social institutions can never make up for their flaws. For instance, the USA has never made any kind of reparations for slavery, nor segregation, etc. Obviously I blame the USA as an institution, to some degree, for the horrid racist history of the country. But I also believe that the USA as an institution isn't irreparable - that by working at it we can hopefully make things better within it. I feel approximately the same way about the UCC (my denomination), and I think that strides within it have actually, genuinely been made, even though there's still a long way to go.

Now, I totally dig that you can believe that there are inherent flaws in theism that fuck up someone's worldview entirely, so the whole thing is rotten at the core. This is, I assume, how anarchists feel about the USA's existence. I respect that even if I don't agree with it. But your arguments thus far have led me to believe that you are more concerned with specific wrongs that religions have committed rather than deep flaws in the belief system - am I right?

[flourish.livejournal.com]

I should add, since I can't edit my comment, that I didn't intend to suggest that racism no longer exists. (On reread I realize that "horrid racist history" might imply that, which was not my intention.) And that adds another level to the analogy, I guess, but that's neither here nor there...

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

But your arguments thus far have led me to believe that you are more concerned with specific wrongs that religions have committed rather than deep flaws in the belief system - am I right?

close, but i'm not even sure how to clarify.

i'm concerned with specific wrongs and their relation to deep flaws. i would care less about the deep flaws if they didn't give rise to specific wrongs. something like that.

the deep flaws are hard to examine w/o their effects to look at. and if they have no effects, then they matter little. something like.

[flourish.livejournal.com]

Right.

I guess what's tough is that it's hard to trace back the cause from some of the effects. You go back far enough and religion really means "cultural group" - so often the bad things are happening because they are expedient and humans envision an ingroup/outgroup relationship - for example, the various ways that Jews have been persecuted I think has less to do with actual Christian beliefs (though those were obviously the pretext) and more to do with the fact that people wanted to seize the Jews' property.

Of course, that's not true in every case. Sometimes there are genuine harms that result directly from belief systems - peep the Quiverfull movement or the FLDS today and some of the abuses that occur within those contexts.

But even then it is more complex. Yes, beliefs have something to do with people becoming Quiverfull, but so do wider societal ills like sexism and racism etc. And I don't think those are purely the fault of religion - or, at least, removing religion isn't a silver bullet that removes them, and getting religion isn't an infecting thing that infects you with them, at this point!

So to me, it would make more sense to talk about the ills of in-group/out-group thinking than to single out religion. But of course, that's from the perspective of a religious person - so I am not surprised that we would differ on this! ;)

[flourish.livejournal.com]

Er, and again as an edit - with persecution of Jews I was thinking less about the Holocaust (AUGH GODWIN'S LAW AUGH) and more about their expulsion from Spain. Let's not even touch the Holocaust thing! I do not want this to turn into that discussion! I need to read my comments over before I hit 'send'!