Monday Meme Madness - Atheists are STILL stupid edition

Happy Monday, everyone! Time for another edition of meme madness. This week we're looking at a few memes about how stupid atheists are. Let's get right to it.

Meme #1: "I'm an athiest cause religion is for stupid people." Still can't spell 'atheist' correctly.

Looking at the image chosen, this meme fits into a couple of stereotypical categories. The first is that atheists are all young teenage men. The second is that all atheists are angry. Both of these stereotypes allow a theist to dismiss an argument without considering it. In the first case, the theist can say, "Oh, it's just a phase/that young man is in rebellion/he is immature and doesn't know what he's talking about." The idea is when the person grows up a bit, he will come to realize that religion is right. In the second case, the theist think that atheists are actually mad at their god for some tragedy or even something minor like a person not getting his way.

Both characterizations are false and completely unfair. Sure, there are some young atheists, and some of them are outspoken on the internet, but that doesn't make their argument invalid. Also, there are loads of atheists who are not young men, and they too are outspoken on the internet. But, a lot of theists don't know any atheists and won't go looking fo them. They probably have this stereotype of the young rebel who will "come to his senses" as an adult.

The angry stereotype is equally unfair. Anger is often seen in our culture as negative, but there can be righteous anger. When you see the abuses of religion, when you see people suffer because of religion, it can make you angry. But atheists spend a lot of their time happy too. They are not permanently angry.

The text itself is a form of ad hominem attack too. It is dismissal because of typo; your argument is invalid because you spelled a word wrong! This is silly. Sure, we should proofread our memes and texts, but typos happen to everyone. Most Christian memes have all kinds of typos, grammatical errors, and weird punctuation. Christianity is not invalid because of them. It's invalid because there's no evidence for their god.

Meme #2: You made another meme making fun of religion? Oh yes, atheism is so much more tolerant.

This meme hinges on a bit of equivocation of what it means to be tolerant.

Based on the text, "tolerant" means not disagreeing with people, not engaging their arguments, and basically allowing statements to go unchallenged. It also elides people with their beliefs. If you disagree with religion or find some part nonsense, then you must be intolerant of the people that hold that belief.

Let's be clear about a goal that a lot of atheists have (and not just atheists but other religionists too): the separation of church and state. In part, this means removing laws that enshrine people's religious beliefs or show a preference for some religions. When the rationale for a law can only be from someone's holy book, and no real-world harm can be demonstrated, then we want it removed.

Religious people often don't see the damage that their laws cause, and in some cases they don't care.

They also don't see the damage their own beliefs cause in their own communities. Just look at this blog about preachers who have decided to murder their wives because divorce is frowned upon. Yes, divorce is so reviled that people decide to kill their spouse. What kind of messed up morality is that?

Tolerance is not about avoiding discussions about what is correct or incorrect, right or wrong, best or worst for society. Tolerance is actually about not establishing laws that infringe on people's abilities to lead their lives in the way they choose (as long as they are not infringing on others). In a one-on-one, tolerance is about actually listening to the other person, considering their arguments, and being respectful of them as a fellow human. You don't have to respect their ideas though.

Certainly Christians don't respect atheists: they say we have no morality; they say we have condemned ourselves to hell; they say we are angry and stupid, "just" rebellious teenagers whining on the internet; they say we must have done something wrong since god hasn't revealed himself to us.

Oh, and it's not "atheism" that's on the internet. It's individual atheists. This just shows more of that same elision of people and ideas. People do things. They are imperfect. They might not show their best side or express themselves the best on a given day. That doesn't make the idea less right or wrong.

But I think it's easier to dismiss an argument if you can say, "they're just being intolerant!" Once again, don't deal with the content, don't address the issue. Just lob an unrelated comment like a smoke bomb and run off claiming victory without ever having to present evidence. It's easier that way.