Several weeks ago, a post here at PoliGazette prompted an extended discussion about the nature of atheism.  Along with a couple of others, I contended that atheism has often allowed itself to be dominated or at least publicly represented by a coterie of militants who have given the atheist movement a strongly negative orientation.  Basically, atheism has become defined by its contempt towards religion and religious people and any positive message has been almost entirely lost.

Several commenters took exception to this depiction, insisting that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that the atheist message was rarely if ever intrinsically linked to anti-religious prejudice and hatred.  Unfortunately for the skeptics, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has made my point for me in the most public way possible in Washington state.  The display indicates that atheism is not limited to non-belief in God, but includes a very aggressive hatred towards believers even in a relatively brief and entirely voluntary summary of its views by its own most public adherents.

The FFRF sign, included by the force of neutrality laws in a holiday display, comes in three parts:

The first proclaims the atheist reliance on reason and stakes a claim on the holiday season:

At this season of the winter solstice may reason prevail.

There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world.

Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

The first section seems entirely legitimate and if the FFRF had chosen to leave it at that, it would have constituted a point of response for defenders of atheist groups. The second treads up to the line of negativism with a gratuitous and largely irrelevant observation that serves no purpose except a pejorative implication against religious believers during the highest religious holidays in our society — caddish, but not obstreperously so. The third part, however, is so far over the top in its blatant bigotry as to require condemnation from any fair-minded person, including both believers and atheists.

Imagine if a public nativity scene also included an add-on sign that said, “oh, yeah, also, atheists suck”.  Such a gratuitous addition would not only rightly offend atheists, it would probably be removed from the display entirely.  But with this atheist proclamation, that option is not available because the anti-religion hatred is intrinsic to the FFRF’s holiday message.

There seems no way for atheists to claim provocation as a defense here, either.  Nativity scenes and Christmas trees may be an unwelcome reminder of the popularity of dominant religious and derivative interpretations of the holiday seasons, but they do not in any way explicitly condemn or exclude non-believers.  The sign from the FFRF strides contemptuously across the line of common courtesy and civility and does so in an arrogant and self-righteous manner that clearly demonstrates that these vices are not isolated to religious fundamentalists as much as atheists would like us to believe they are.

To be clear (and to pre-empt the inevitable misrepresentation from atheists in comments), I am not saying that the sign should be removed.  It is clearly legally required that any state-sanctioned holiday display allow contributions from all religious and non-religious perspectives.  But the fact that it is legal does not make it morally or ethically proper to undertake gratuitous and unprovoked attacks during a religious holiday season nor does it exempt hateful content from criticism.  Fundamentalist religious bigots are subject to criticism when they make their bile public, so also should militant atheist bigots be.

As long as such material continues to be the public front of the atheist movement, I do not think it is unreasonable for non-atheists to conclude that the atheist movement is, at its heart, rather bigoted and contemptuous towards others. Whether such hate is intrinsic to atheism is a matter for legitimate debate, but atheists who want to claim it is not so should be more active in stepping up to condemn the excesses pouring forth from their own ranks year after year after year.

As long as the public representatives of atheism remain fixated on being against religion, it will remain difficult to see atheism as being for anything.