Wazzup with this?

“…one of those Christ-centered Christians whose pure goodness is enough to give pause to the most hardened atheist.”

Why do you characterize atheists as “hardened” and suggest we’re surprised or grudging at the goodness of religious people?

We can hate the sin and love the sinner, just like everyone else, my friend.

I think atheism is a more soft-hearted position. We accept how vulnerable we all are, because we expect that this life is all we have. We know that the tender mercies of this life aren’t heaven-sent, they come from loving people of free will.

i try to spit on wholesome, goodness-stuffed xtians whenever i can. ;-)

it’s true tho, some people buy into that “they hate you for your goodness!” line about atheists too often. we don’t hate you. we pity some of you, but hatred is reserved for other things. it’s not worth it.

Well I don’t actually, and I really should learn how to edit myself one of these days.

The line about atheism was supposed to read:

“…enough to give pause to a hardened atheist like myself…”

I was poking at my own position, nobody else, and trying to convey that as much as I have no empathy for the supernatural there are in fact decent people doing decent things for whom religion is a central part of living. Occasionally I meet one whose transcendent beatitude is striking and it takes a moment, a pause, to remind myself that it all really is just brain chemistry.

While I should have been, meant to be, clearer in owning that thought, I still do not see how anyone else would have taken what I wrote as an insult. Clearly two people did, so I’m missing something and sorry about that, to both of you and any others who were put off. I said nothing about atheists being haters or fundamentally intolerant, don’t think that, never have and never will.

Did you really think from reading this that I’m a Christian? Must work on clarity of expression, I walked away from all religion a long, long time ago. One hundred percent secular humanist, and even that faith in the essential goodness of humanity is often shaken. I call myself an atheist but strictly speaking I am agnostic, since I can find no basis for claiming special knowledge about the existence of a god one way or the other; I am, however, highly doubtful. If it turns out that I’m wrong and there is an involved, responsible god, then eternity is going to be very long indeed for both of us – I have many bones to pick, and much constructive criticism that likely will not be well received.

VL, I will say that stories about religion and religious people here at Corrente are consistently condemning – and to be sure the ones told about horrible people doing horrific things in the name of or under the guise of religion are justified – but an occasional recognition that not everyone with a supernatural belief system is inherently awful wouldn’t hurt in making clear that agnosticism and atheism can exist without demanding blanket condemnation of every religious individual.

As to the word “hardened” yes, actually, I do think that in this society, in life in general, it takes a tough, hardened person to openly face the reality of our transience and not embrace or hypocritically mime the cultural norms. Tough and hardened, firm and fixed and solid in one’s position, does not mean hateful or cruel or anything negative. I could have been, should have been clearer but IMHO, speaking for myself, it is hard to be an atheist.

This was just a sweet story about nice people doing something decent for themselves and others on Valentines, instead of the usual corporatist self-aggrandizing materialism; a little ray of sunshine in the gloom. I wasn’t looking to pick any fights or offend; sorry it worked out that way.

just pointing out an almost-dog whistle. no biggie. my attitude these days is the err, and get my harshing on, in favor or strong defense of the atheist analysis, whenever the opportunity strikes. someone has to counter all the xtian whining.

Even secularists often willfully or unwittingly buy into the stereotypes of atheists as less-goodnatured than our religious betters.

I was pretty sure you personally weren’t a religionist, but I suggest that we’re not helping usher in a more enlightened world when we feed those myths about hard-hearted atheists.

BTW, I frequently make the point that my heroes include such highly religious people as MLK and Jimmy Carter, and that I don’t think religion is a marker for badness. The point of my “Religious People Are the Best People” posts is that it’s not a marker for goodness, either, despite the omnipresent claims that it is.

“Hardened” is not the equivalent of “hard-hearted” although it does seem to be used often in conjunction with negatives such as “hardened criminal.” I see no reason why one couldn’t use the terms “hardened believer” or “hardened atheist” as factual statements without being pejorative. I consider my opinion hardened in regards to having decided against a personal embrace of religion, all I was saying.

Perhaps “hard-core” would have been the clearer choice, but then that fricative destroys the lyric balance of the sentence and I would have had to rewrite the entire paragraph to regain symmetry. This writing stuff is tough for those of us without a gift, so cut me a little slack wouldja huh?

And yes, the iconic, charismatic religious figures are easy to revere (pun intended) but I’m more concerned with the everyday believer and what they feel when they hear the whole of religion condemned. I understand all about enabling and perhaps surprisingly so do they. Among my acquaintances, and I believe across the entire nation, there is even now a great ongoing discussion about the meaning of their alliance with the Right, how they have been both duped and willing co-conspirators in what they now see as an evil enterprise, and what exactly they should do about it.

My wish is that they find common ground with progressives, making this world a better place is as easily a goal for those with a god as for those without, and that they are not driven away from that option because they feel they are being mocked for their sincere belief.

Guess I’m channeling Rodney King here, but with a speech impediment.

Peace.

Are not the same thing. The first one requires suspension of reason and/or honesty, the second one requires kindness and empathy.

Religion, at least the “I’ve got special knowledge of God variety,” is based on falsehoods. I’m simply not going to dance around that. If people are tricked into, or deluding themselves into, believing things that are untrue, I don’t believe we do them — or our world at large — any great favors by stifling our honesty about that fact.

Truthing a child about Santa Claus might be “hard-hearted.” With adults, might we not admit our well-earned skepticism and complaints? Or is telling the truth an ungainly and regrettable habit that elitist liberals must be shamed out of?

Also, in such a context, “hardened” is an unflattering term. Yes, like “hardened criminal.” It connotes inflexibility and suggests a hard heart. It is precisely this acceptance of pejorative frames that “The Atheist is Always Wrong” is intended to counter-act.

People in other maligned minorities have learned to bust people using stereotypical dogwhistles, but with surprising frequency, atheists blow those whistles themselves, seemingly as a sheepish compromise to the authentic Good People.

Not arguing they don’t exist, of course they do; am suggesting that once you start looking for them, you can see/hear them everywhere if you aren’t rigorously discriminating. Where the line is I surely don’t claim to know, but I am concerned that restrictions on language could be so severe that it becomes impossible to converse, and – not pointing fingers here – that it can also be a weapon used by an oppressed group to lash out at those they see as oppressors in ways that are not related to actual oppression. Andrea Dworkin comes to mind, 99.98% spot-on but the other 0.02% so over-the-top wrong that much of the rest of her valid argument got drowned.

Perhaps I am, as you seem to suggest, so numbed or co-opted that I cannot recognize a pejorative when I express one. I’ll ponder on that. I suggest to you, ever so gently, that we’ve got real, concrete, clear, unequivocal, screaming-out-loud religion-mediated manipulation and control to battle, and a word that may or may not have a negative interpretation isn’t worth a fuss. I’m wondering if maybe there was something else in this piece that disturbed you, and it somehow crystallized on that word? Not claiming there is, just struggling to see how “hardened atheist” means anything more than the literal connotation.

While I have you, would “hard-core” atheist be acceptable, or does it imply obscenity? How about “committed atheist” or does that have implications of mental health problems? Help me with the boundary here and I’ll try to respect it, unless of course it feels too restrictive and then we’ll have a heated disagreement. Right in the moment I’m just puzzled about “hardened,” but then I think “Latin@” is absurd so maybe I am just old and out of it.

If you’ve been brainwashed, does your brain get more wrinkles?

The “hardened atheist” construction suggests that a full-on atheist is calcified and unyielding, a cold sort who stands to be thawed — if (miraculously?) possible — by an angelic Christian.

Why not start using the phrase “hardened Jew” or “hardened Muslim,” and see if anyone is troubled by it?

BTW, I just googled “hardened atheist,” “hardened Christian,” “hardened Muslim,” and “hardened Jew.” There are well more citations of the atheist variety than all the others combined. So, do carry on characterizing us that way. It’s the Christian thing to do.

debating truth, and dragging in superstition?
It’s depressing.

Seen some interesting argument tacks in my time but Google as the zeitgeist arbiter of invective definition takes the cherry. No need for that 3rd Edition of the OED now.

On the other hand, since two of three commentators fixed on the same word in the same way, the practical writer accepts reality and the requirement to change; thanks to VL and CD for an apparently needed correction. The basic error, it now seems to me, was in generalizing the statement rather than making it personal. One should be able to impugn one’s own self with, well, impunity. I’m not certain about the proper etiquette for revising a post, having (humble tone) so seldom been required to do so, but I’ll figure out something.

Sarah, I did write the first draft without mention of the subject’s religious drive but it seemed to me a sort of prejudice and left a gap in motivation, since it is so unequivocally central to their lives and activities. I brought it back in with a second draft; perhaps a third would have been a good idea.

This thread has gone too many levels off any intended track. Should have tied in an Obama reference, or introduced products of elimination.

“Goodbye, girl. Already Catullus is hardened“…

That’s the phrase that comes to my mind. As it would.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Seriously, you’ve never seen the number of google citations used as a means of checking something’s prevalence in the zeitgeist?

I do it and encounter it frequently.

Speaking of meta, if I could figure out the google search to find out how many times people have used google search results to prove a point, I would….

Oh, and did I mention that this was a nice post?

Number of terminology hits on Google surely means something, but I must confess I don’t know what. The total quantity of discreet Internet accessible documents containing certain words doesn’t tell me anything about how those words are being employed, the context in which they are used, or what they might mean to those who wrote or read them.

And while it’s tempting to consider the Internet as the whole sum or perhaps a true reflection of contemporary communication, surely it is not; television, radio and Internet-independent print still have a following that is substantial, and to a significant degree different from, Internet users. Parsing that all out and discerning how the meanings of words might be shifting probably takes more than Google.

Google Zeitgeist is no more enlightening:

However many hits there are on these topics, I am skeptical that god is in the machine, that the meaning of love can be discovered without directly experiencing it, and that kissing can be learned through words and pictures. The large number of topic searches surely shows widespread curiosity, but it doesn’t tell me much other than there may be a lot of people who are bewildered by loved and needing to be kissed.

I’m old-fashioned and conservative when it comes to words. Not that I expect language to be static, change is good; necessary, valuable and exciting. But when interpreting words, existing definitions are the most reliably correct and for meaning, context is all; if there is more than one possible reading, the writer should by default be credited with the one most positive and forgiving. Only when the existence of code words has already been established and the context is clearly inculpatory should their use as “dogwhistles” be claimed; even then, observers must be cautious to prevent their own biases and projections from placing meaning that does not exist in the mouths of others. My rules, they help keep me from running my brain in circles; no one else is required to follow them.

I’m sticking with context plus my big Webster’s, and relying on others with an OED to help in a pinch.

Oh, and no, VL, you hadn’t commented on the post itself. Thank you.

1. I was being mildly ironic with my comment about my comments about your post. The subject line of my first comment in the thread: “Nice story, but….” I’m pretty sure OED and Webster will avow that that’s a comment about the post, and a (mostly) positive statement.

2. Google searches are, IMHO, a pretty good way of sussing out conventional thought. I wasn’t using the search to determine what a word meant — we know what “hardened” means — but to see if there’s a greater tendency to suggest that atheists are hardened than others. We can debate the scientific purity of the search, but the distinctly higher frequency of “hardened atheist” citations over others is surely suggestive that atheism is more likely to be deemed “hard” than other points-of-view on spiritualism. And finally, as my mother-in-law says, “who’s kidding who?” (a rare ungrammatical colloquialism for her) — we well know that there are broadly accepted stereotypes of do-gooding, Ned Flandersy Christians but that atheists are conventionally held to be joyless
(no Santa Claus for you!) and severe.

And sarcastic was how I took the “Nice story but” construct and there you go. Didn’t put me off, not everyone likes sugar in their cuppa, but apparently I was mistaken – so, thank you twice.

As to “we all know” what hardened means in this context, I suppose I could be a minority of one but even so that statement comes up just shy of its claimed unanimity. I do consider myself hardened on the topic of religion and godness in general, chewed it over for a good long time, made my decision and now I’m not having any of it, plain and simple, and nothing short of the Second Coming is going to move me; so there it is, a statement of fact.

My view, being hardened on the topic of atheism does not imply in any way that I am hard-hearted or joyless in general and certainly those are not attributes that have been widely ascribed to me. Your experience may well be different, but my own atheism has been reasonably well accepted once people understand that I’m not out to denigrate their beliefs.

Religious “leaders,” priests and ministers more so than rabbis, prefer to not have me around and that’s understandable, it is their rice bowl I threaten, but “joyless and severe” are attributes that append rather more to them than to this unregenerate, pass the bottle, don’t bogart that joint, where’s the next party, look at the pretty flowers kind of guy.

In my experience it is, rather, the liberation of atheism, the notion that we don’t actually need an all but endless list of silly rules about personal behavior to force us into goodness and keep us from evil that people seem to find threatening, the idea that happiness and responsibility can be found without externally imposed restrictions from supernatural powers is to most people revolutionary and the concept of joy unbounded by sin is more than they can bear. If anything, as I see it, atheists are suspect for having too much fun and that inherent permissionless joy is something the self-selected higher powers cannot abide.

Let’s find some stories about joyful atheists doing good in the world, shall we, and promote them so as to change this stereotype that deeply concerns you. Meanwhile, I hope the cognitive dissonance of my hardened-yet-joyful atheism is not too discomfiting, and I will try to respect your concerns by not applying that construct to you or to others.

Hard work, hard target, hard fact — for me these appear to be self-explanatory (caveat: if George W. Bush ever saw hard work in his entire life, clearly he mistook it for somebody else’s job).

Harder arguments, harder goals, harder defenses — these too I can grasp using context if not the OED.

Hardened means something different to me — a hardened heart is the least likely explanation, but a hardened target is something within my ken. There are also variations on hardened — case-hardened as a type of metallurgic quality or as the sort of (flattened affective) reaction one sees in long-time-veteran workers in high-stress occupations, when they’re not indulging in a form of hardened release (aka black humor); work-hardened, as the callused hands of e.g. a machinist’s mate or a bronc fighter; but a hardened spirit transcends and melds all these elements.

So for me — I have seen too many instances of “religious people are the best people” as a pure sarcasm (bringiton, has anybody ever threatened to pray for you? If not, you’ve been spared one of the sweetest excruciations of existence among polite Southern women — and trust me, you’re glad you missed it) or as a direct affront (see my post on St. Mary’s and the woman referee for just one case) to the truth.

I don’t know that “hardened” applies more to atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Shinto or otherwise, or Islamists; I do know that “hardened hearts” are one of the so-called biggest strengths among the true fundamentalists — hearts hardened against all evidence in life, hearts hardened by dogma and superstition against any consideration born of simple human emotion, hearts hardened in the fiery rhetorical furnace of “Left Behind” advocacy and Fred Phelps’ demagoguery — which I find somehow saddening. Perhaps I’m cynical.

I don’t find either bringiton or vastleft “hardened,” except that both of you refuse to let the overweening popularity of our current hardhearted national politics and popular opinion interfere with your determination to give everybody you encounter the fairest shake you can.

What can be more moral than that, whether it be driven by theology or simple human decency?

Credit is usually given to Mae West, although there’s no solid source. I reference here one that describes itself as a “Vast archive” and by golly, that’s good enough for me.

So as to avoid accusations of misogyny:

Stevens/Islam on Fancy Dancers: “they move so smooth, but have no answers.” Indeed.

Peace, all.