Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
For some years there has been a faction of atheists who use their atheism to be bigots. When asked to take some action on social justice issues like feminism or racism, some of these atheists go out of their way to ‘prove’ why their lack of values causes them to either ignore social justice issues or to support the status quo. Activist and blogger James Croft calls out these bigots and makes some great points why atheists shouldn’t use their atheism a cover for their bigotry.
In what seemed like deja vu, Republicans in the Ohio legislature rigged a committee vote on the anti-abortion law known as the Heartbeat Bill (House Bill 248). The GOP pulled a similar stunt back in 2011 in the Ohio Senate to pass out of committee Senate Bill 5 that attempted to strip collective bargaining from public employee unions.
This weekend social media blew up when comedian Bill Maher and actor Ben Affleck debated Maher’s views about Islam on his HBO show. Affleck makes the same mistake most liberals make when religion is involved in a debate, they conflate criticism with ‘racism’. Ideas like that lead us to blasphemy laws.
The heated portion of the debate started after comments from author Sam Harris:
On Monday night, Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah intercepted a Tom Brady pass and returned it for a touchdown. He decided to celebrate the big play and knelt to the ground in the endzone to pray. He was penalized according to the rulebook but the next day the NFL said it goofed. Now there is one set of rules for religious players and another set for those who don’t wear their religion on their sleeves. Religious privilege has arrived in the NFL.
Yesterday, my Facebook feed included a link to another article by Chris Stedman that attempts to make me feel bad because I don’t love religion. He uses a point made by another writer that actually doesn’t support his conclusion. If he thinks a study proves that some atheists, like Christopher Hitchens, don’t speak for all atheists then he needs to include all the information – that atheists like Chris Stedman also don’t speak for all atheists.
Chris Stedman, an atheist who wrote the book “Faitheist” and is a columnist for Religion News Service, wrote a post on September 24th that was an interview with author Dale McGowan who is Executive Director of Foundation Beyond Belief along with other hats he wears in the freethought community.