24. I’m angry that, in fourteen states in the United States, child care centers operated by religious organizations don’t have to adhere to basic standards of health and safety, and don’t even have to be licensed. I’m angry that children in these child care centers have been harmed and have even died because of poor or non-existent staff training or grossly unsafe conditions, and that the operators are immune from prosecution.
25. I’m angry at the Sunday school teacher who told comic artist Craig Thompson that he couldn’t draw in Heaven. And I’m angry that she said it with the complete conviction of authority… when she had no basis whatsoever for that assertion. How the hell did she know what Heaven was like? How could she possibly know that you could sing in Heaven but not draw? And why on Earth would you say something that squelching and dismissive to a talented child?
26. I’m angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism. Not a broad, theistic evolution, “God had a hand in evolution” version of creationism, but a strict, young-Earth, “God created man in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years” creationism.
I should clarify this one, as people often misunderstand it. When atheists say that we’re angry about how many creationists there are in the U.S., a common response is, “What business is that of yours? Don’t they have the right to believe whatever they want? You’re just as intolerant of their beliefs as they are of yours!”
So let me explain. If creationists are trying to get their religious beliefs taught in the public schools — paid for by everyone’s taxes, forced on children whose families don’t share those beliefs, in direct violation of the First Amendment — then it isn’t just their own business, and I have a right to be angry about it.
But if they’re not trying to do any of that — if they’re just ordinary people trying to get by, working two jobs to pay the bills, and they’re leaving their school boards alone — then I’m not angry at them.
I’m angry for them.
I’m angry that they’ve been taught to fear and scorn one of the most profound, powerful truths about the world, and to embrace a lie that flatly contradicts an overwhelming body of evidence. I’m angry that they’ve been taught that loving their god means rejecting the reality of the Universe he supposedly created. I’m angry that they’ve been taught that scientists — people who care so much about the Universe they devote their lives to painstakingly figuring out how it works — are wicked and evil. I’m angry that they’ve been taught that virtuous religious faith demands that they disconnect themselves from the march of human knowledge.
I’m not angry at them. I’m angry on their behalf.
27. On this topic: I’m angry that school boards across the United States are still — more than eight decades after the Scopes trial — having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools. School boards are not exactly loaded with time and money and resources, and when they spend it fighting this stupid fight, they’re not spending it, you know, teaching.
28. And, in a similar vein: I’m angry that science teachers in the U.S. public schools often don’t teach evolution, or give it only a cursory mention, even when teaching it is sanctioned and indeed required — because they’re afraid of sparking controversy and having to deal with angry fundamentalist parents. Evolution is the foundation of the science of biology — biology literally doesn’t make sense without it — and kids who aren’t being taught about evolution are being deprived of one of the most fundamental ways we have of understanding ourselves and the world.
29. I’m angry that right-wing Christians in the United States are actively campaigning against anti-bullying laws in elementary and high schools, on the grounds that religious freedom includes the right to harass, threaten, and intimidate gay kids.
30. I’m angry that, in public, taxpayer-paid high schools around the country, atheist students who are trying to organize clubs — something they’re legally allowed to do — are routinely getting stonewalled by school administrators. I’m angry that the Secular Student Alliance has to push high school administrators on a regular basis, and has even had to sue them, simply to get them to obey the law.
31. I’m angry about what happened to Jessica Ahlquist. I’m angry that, in a public, taxpayer-paid high school in Rhode Island, a banner with an official school prayer was prominently posted in the school auditorium — in direct violation of the Constitution and of clear, well-established legal precedent. I’m angry that when Ahlquist asked her high school to take down the banner, her request was rejected, and she had to go to court to get her school to comply with the law. And I’m angry that, when she won her lawsuit — in an entirely unsurprising, non-controversial ruling — she was targeted with a barrage of brutal threats, including threats of beating, rape, and death.
32. I’m angry about what happened to Damon Fowler. I’m angry that when he asked his public, taxpayer-paid high school to stop a school-sponsored prayer at his graduation, he was hounded, pilloried, and ostracized by his community, publicly demeaned by one of his own teachers, targeted with threats of violence and death, and kicked out of his house by his parents.
33. And I’m angry that what happened to Jessica Ahlquist and Damon Fowler are not isolated incidents. I’m angry that things like this are happening around the United States, and all around the world. I’m angry that, even when the law clearly states that the government can’t endorse religion or force it on its citizens, people are often too intimidated to insist on their legal rights… because they’re afraid they’ll be bullied, ostracized, and threatened with violence by their classmates, their co-workers, their communities, their friends, even their families. I’m angry that this doesn’t just happen to atheists: it happens to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, religious minorities of all varieties. And I’m angry because these people aren’t wrong to be afraid.
34. And I’m angry that people hear stories like this… and still insist that atheists don’t suffer from discrimination and should stop complaining about it, because we have protection under the law. I get angry when people blithely ignore the fact that legal protection doesn’t do much good if people are intimidated out of demanding it.
35. I’m angry that, when my dad had a stroke and went into a nursing home, the staff asked my brother, “Is he Baptist or Catholic?” And I’m not just angry on behalf of my atheist dad. I’m angry on behalf of all the Jews, all the Buddhists, all the Muslims, all the neo-Pagans, whose families almost certainly got asked that same question. Heck — I’m angry on behalf of the Lutherans and Methodists and Presbyterians whose families got asked that question. That question is enormously disrespectful, not just of my dad’s atheism, but of everyone at that nursing home who wasn’t Baptist or Catholic.
36. I’m angry about my wife Ingrid’s grandparents. I’m angry that their religious fundamentalism was such a huge source of strife and unhappiness among their family, and that it alienated them from their children and grandchildren. I’m angry that they persistently pressed their religion on Ingrid, to the point that she’s still traumatized by it. And I’m angry that their religion, which if nothing else should have been a comfort to them in their old age, was instead a source of anguish and despair — because they knew their children and grandchildren were going to be burned and tortured forever in Hell, and how could Heaven be Heaven if their children and grandchildren were being burned and tortured in Hell?
37. I’m angry that, because of religious bigotry against LGBT people, Ingrid and I had to get married three times, before we finally got to have a wedding that was legal in our home state. I’m angry that, nine months after our marriage, Catholics and Mormons spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours to pass Prop 8 and make it impossible for any other same-sex couples in California to marry. I’m angry that our marriage is still not seen as a real marriage in (as of this writing) 42 of the 50 states. I’m angry that, when we travel to places like Missouri or Colorado, we have to worry about w
hat happens if one of us has to go to the hospital — will the other be able to make decisions on our behalf, or even be able to visit? I’m angry that even our federal government won’t recognize our marriage as real — because fear of offending the religious right controls how laws get made in this country. And I’m angry that religious and political leaders are scoring points by exploiting fears about sexuality in a changing world, fanning the flames of those fears… and giving people a religious excuse for why their fears are justified.
38. I’m angry about “lying for the Lord.” I’m angry that the Mormon Church officially advocates a policy of deception, concealment, exaggeration, selective disclosure, censorship, and outright dishonesty about the history and tenets of their religion — aimed at both the general public and members of their own church — in order to protect their image. I’m angry that Mormons who have violated this policy, and who told the truth about the church’s history and teachings even when it was unflattering, have been excommunicated.
39. I’m angry about Mormons baptizing people into the Mormon Church after they’re dead. I’m angry that thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims were posthumously baptized into the Mormon faith. I’m angry that Mitt Romney’s family baptized his father-in-law — Edward Roderick Davies, a staunch atheist who referred to religion as “drudgery” and “hogwash” — after his death.
I know. This one seems weird. If I’m an atheist, and I don’t believe in any sort of afterlife… why should it matter what happens to dead people? Once you’re gone and are rotting in the ground, what difference does it make whether someone writes your name on a piece of paper and dunks it into a tub of magic water?
It matters because freedom of conscience matters.
It matters because one of the central pillars of human rights is the right to come to our own conclusions about religion. We have the right to go to our deathbed with our own judgments about God and the afterlife. If there is nothing else in the world that is entirely our own, we still have the insides of our heads. And having someone else come along after we die, dunk our names in a tub of magic water, and say, “You thought you were an atheist or a Catholic or a Jew — but guess what! You’re a Mormon!”… that is profoundly screwed-up.
If the Mormon theology were right, and only people who’ve been dunked in the tub of magic water (alive or dead) could enter the glorious afterlife… that is one messed-up theology. And if it’s wrong — as I obviously think it is — then it’s degrading, invasive, and disrespectful of people’s most basic rights: the right to go to our grave with our own conscience, our own free will, and our own decisions and conclusions about some of the most important questions that human beings face.
40. I’m angry that, in fundamentalist Mormon polygamous cults, girls are raised from birth to believe that they’ll be tormented for eternity in the afterlife if they don’t marry whatever man they’re ordered to by their preacher. In most cases when they’re teenagers. In many cases as young as thirteen. In some cases, younger. And I’m angry that, in these same cults, teenage boys are routinely terrorized, kicked out of the community, and exiled from their families, on the flimsiest of pretenses, just so there’s less competition for marriageable girls.
41. And I’m angry that, in the non-fundamentalist, non-polygamous, entirely mainstream Mormon church, girls are raised from birth to believe that they’ll be tormented for eternity in the afterlife if they don’t marry, bear lots of children, and be submissive to their husbands… and gay kids are raised from birth to believe that they’ll be tormented for eternity in the afterlife if they don’t suppress and deny their sexuality.
42. And on a related topic: I’m angry that, in Salt Lake City, Utah, 40 percent of all homeless teenagers are gay — most of them kids who have been kicked out of their homes by their Mormon families.
43. I’m angry about the lesbian veteran who came to her VA hospital seeking help for depression… and who left the hospital three hours later determined to kill herself, because a Marine Corps nurse harangued her for three hours about her “lifestyle of sin” and whether she’d been “saved by Jesus Christ.” I’m angry that any health care professional in the world would place their religious proselytizing as a higher priority than the immediate health crisis of a patient in their care. And I’m especially angry that this religious harassment took place at a United States government institution, by a government employee acting as a representative of the country.
44. I’m angry that in Jerusalem, because of pressure from ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders, a major conference on gynecology refused to allow any women to speak. And I’m angry that this didn’t happen in the 15th century, or the 19th: it happened this year, 2012, the year this book is being published.
45. I’m angry about “modesty patrols.” I’m angry that in Jerusalem, women and girls who don’t adhere to the modesty standards of ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders are harassed, terrorized, spat on, and physically assaulted. I’m angry that girls who appear in public with boys have been pepper-sprayed; that women who wear red blouses have had rocks thrown at them; that a woman who didn’t obey a fellow passenger’s order to move to the back of the bus was beaten; that stores selling clothes regarded as provocative have been vandalized; that stores selling MP4 players that could possibly be used to view pornography have been torched. I’m angry that even an eight-year-old girl, Naama Margolese, was subjected to a mob who screamed at her, spat on her, and called her a whore, for walking to school with her arms exposed.
46. I’m angry that the Hasidic newspaper Di Tzitung erased U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from an important and historic group photograph, because their religious beliefs hold that publishing photographs of women is immodest and could be sexually suggestive. And I’m angry that their supposed “apology” for this action insisted that their policy of never publishing photographs of women, and thus expunging them from the historical record, “in no way relegates them to a lower status.”
47. I’m angry about Israel and Palestine.
48. I’m angry about the Holocaust.
49. And I’m angry that people try to blame the Holocaust on atheists and atheism. No, Hitler was not an atheist. That’s a myth. All the best evidence overwhelmingly confirms that Hitler had religious beliefs. And religion was one of the central justifications for the Nazi Party’s persecution of the Jews, and for the calculated extermination of six million of them.
50. I’m angry that people in Africa — including children — are being terrorized, driven from their homes, tortured, maimed, and killed, over accusations of witchcraft. Not in the Middle Ages; not in the 1600s. Now. Today.
51. I’m angry that the belief in karma and reincarnation gets used as a justification for the caste system in India. I’m angry that people born into poverty and despair are taught that it’s their fault, that they must have done something bad in a previous life, and the misery they were born into is their punishment for it.
52. I’m angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. I realize that it happened in 1633: I’m still mad. And I’m angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.
For those of you who don’t know what happened to Galileo: For the crime of publishing a book showing that the Earth went around the Sun, he was ordered to recant, had his book and any future books he might publish banned, and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life… because the theory that the Earth went around the Sun contradicted Holy Scripture.
53. And I’m angry that what happened to Galileo was, relatively speaking, a walk in the park. I’m angry that astronomer Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for (among other things) advocating the position that the Sun was simply one star among many. Let me spell that one out: For advocating scientific positions that were contrary to Church doctrine, the man was tied to a stake in a public square, set fire to, and burned to death.
54. I’m angry on behalf of the atheist blogger in Iran who told me they have to blog anonymously because if
they’re discovered, they’ll be executed.
55. I’m angry that people are dying of AIDS in Africa, because the Catholic Church convinced them that using condoms makes Baby Jesus cry.
56. I’m angry that women are having dangerous and even deadly illegal abortions — or are being forced to have unwanted children who in many cases they resent and mistreat — because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.
57. And I’m angry that abortion rates go up when schools teach the deceptive, hysterical, flatly untrue version of sex education known as “abstinence-only”… and that religious opponents of abortion still advocate abstinence-only sex ed, and still oppose giving teenagers access to birth control and accurate, evidence-based information about sex. I’m angry that, even though these believers claim to care about abortion because they care about the life of undeveloped embryos, they actually place a higher priority on their real agenda: enforcing the sexual morality of their religion.
58. I get angry when religious leaders opportunistically use religion, and people’s trust and faith in religion, to steal, cheat, lie, manipulate the political process, take sexual advantage of their followers, and generally behave like the scum of the earth. I get angry when it happens over and over and over again. I get angry that when we see a newspaper headline reading “Religious Leader Steals, Cheats, Lies, Manipulates Political Process, Takes Sexual Advantage of Followers, Generally Behaves Like Scum of Earth,” we shrug and think, “Oh, yeah, must be Tuesday. So what else is new?” And I get angry when people see this happening, and still say that atheism is bad — because without religion, people would have no basis for morality or ethics, and no reason not to just do whatever they wanted.
59. I get angry when religious believers make arguments against atheism — and make accusations against atheists — without having bothered to talk to any atheists, or read any atheist writing, or freaking well spend ten minutes Googling the word “atheism” to find out what we actually think and say. I get angry when they trot out the same old crap about how “atheism is a nihilistic philosophy, with no joy or meaning to life and no basis for morality or ethics”… when if they spent ten minutes in the atheist blogosphere, they would discover countless atheists who experience great joy and meaning in our lives, and are intensely concerned about right and wrong. I realize that ten minutes of Googling is a dreadful inconvenience… but if you’re going to be bigoted and hateful against millions of people, it seems like the least you could do.
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless Page 2
