4 Things the Atheist Movement Has Done Badly (and How to Do Them Better) [View all]

[rug]

The atheist community has a lamentable tendency to make the same mistakes over and over.

By Adam Lee / AlterNet
February 6, 2016

Born in the shadow of September 11, the New Atheist movement took up the mission of pushing back against religious dogma and warning the world about the danger of unchecked fundamentalism. In the years since, this community of modern nonbelievers has made some surprising inroads and can claim some major victories to its credit. Atheists have fought tirelessly for a truly secular state, where no religion receives preference in the law and no one is disadvantaged because of their beliefs or lack thereof. Atheists have supported science and stood against dangerously irrational ideologies like climate-change denial. Atheists have called attention to the evils of totalitarian theocratic regimes around the world. Atheists have stood for people's absolute right to leave cruel, oppressive, patriarchal religions, to live and think freely, and to choose for themselves what makes their lives worthwhile and meaningful.

However, no movement is without its flaws, and the atheist community in particular has shown a lamentable tendency to make some of the same mistakes over and over. Too often, we atheists have failed to notice our own blind spots, needlessly chased away potential allies or otherwise blundered in ways that's kept our cause from being as influential as it could be.

Here are four of the biggest mistakes the atheist movement has made, and what we can do better to fix them.

1. Take diversity and inclusion seriously. The atheist movement's roots in mostly white, mostly male, mostly upper-class people show all too clearly in its tendency to parade the same faces over and over, on the boards of influential secular organizations, on the speaker lineups of major atheist conferences and in the news stories that get written about the movement. Too often, an all-white or all-male slate is seen as the unremarkable norm.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/4-things-atheist-movement-has-done-badly-and-how-do-them-better