Extremism is ugly… but not quite as ugly as Bryan Patterson’s jumbled thoughts on Atheism

Is it just me or has the recent success of the Rise of Atheism Conference brought Australian religious commentators out of the woodwork?  Case in point Bryan Patterson’s Extremism is ugly, whatever it is cloaked in

THE can is open and now there are worms everywhere.

It started when a judge in Britain decided believing in climate change was a bit like believing in religion. Mr Justice Burton ruled that green philosophical beliefs deserved the same protection in the workplace as religious convictions.

So, once again, the definition of religion has been skewed.

Another British court was asked to define Jewishness after a 12-year-old boy with a Jewish father and Jewish convert mother was refused admission to a school because he was not considered to be really Jewish. The mother, you see, didn’t convert into an orthodox synagogue and was therefore considered by the school to be not a convert at all.

Meanwhile, the US state of Missouri this week is trying to decide, for tax purposes, whether yoga could be considered a religion.

And what is a religion anyway? A philosophy? A moral code? An established organisation with strongly held doctrines?

Can non-belief now be considered a religion? Maybe.

In 2005, a US federal court of appeals ruled that Wisconsin prison officials violated an inmate’s rights because they did not treat his atheism as a religion.

And the online publicity for a global atheist conference in Australia reads like an invitation to an evangelical meeting.

“The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organised ignorance,” thunders a quotation from atheist author Richard Dawkins on the invitation to attend the conference.

[Read more, it gets better…or is that worse]

Bryan opens with an interesting idea,  that the term religion has been skewed, so broadly defined that it has become almost useless as a descriptor. I think he is right to some extent, and this line of thinking he should of continued along and he might have had an interesting article.  The opening paragraph, however, was a set up for a weak piece attacking atheism which could be summarised as “Atheism is a religion and an extremist one at that”.  It’s hardly original and frankly I have seen more articulate attacks on atheism.

He slips into his “Atheism is religion” routine with reference to the violation of an atheist prisoner’s “religious rights” in Wisconsin 2005, without actually examining the case in any detail.  Kristy, one of the commenters on the discussion thread highlights this

Well, yes and no.  Kaufman, the defendant, specifically argued that atheism was not a religion.  In fact, he insisted that it was the antithesis of religion.

The confusion occurs because of a legal technicality.  In the US, the Supreme Court has ruled that for purposes of the First Amendment, atheism can be defined as a philosophy of deeply and sincerely held beliefs concerning issues of ‘ultimate concern’.

Recognizing that such philosophies are not necessarily theistic, the Supreme Court has frequently recognized atheism as equivalent to “religion” for cases involving First Amendment rights.  In other words, it’s treated, in court, as a kind of ‘honorary’ religion.

So, the Court was treating Kaufman’s case in a way which gave his beliefs equal status with religion, because the US Constitution prohibits the government from favouring religion over secular or non-theistic beliefs, seriously held.

[source]

This shallow treatment of the points or examples he raises continues throughout the rest of the piece.  He claims that the advertising surrounding the Global Atheist Convention,

reads like an invitation to an evangelical meeting

to which I had responded,

Actually it reads like advertising puffery to me. They are advertising a conference which, seemingly because they are not religious, they have to fully fund themselves. What’s next, claiming that the Advanced Medical Institute is a religion because they overstate their evidence and the problem of male sexual dysfunction?

The further the reader is dragged through the piece the shoddier Bryan gets – he goes from poor argument to poor journalism.  He makes reference to the satirical response of atheists in the Divine Denial of Service Attack:

An Australian group of atheists, believing Christian radicals had closed down their websites, asked all atheists to pray meaningless jumbled prayers at a certain time last Sunday, presumably to confuse the God they claim they don’t believe in.

Did Bryan read this bit on the groups Facebook page?

PS: no hate speeches please, i intend this group satirically.

I can’t quite decide if this was the result of lazy reporting or a deliberate attempt to deceive readers to reinforce his ideology.  Is he lazy, deceitful or both?  I’ll let you judge.

He then repeats oft brought up oft refuted canards that make me question whether or not he should be pinged for plagiarism,

And in the US, groups of atheists meet on Sundays in quasi-churches to worship their non-belief.

So to Paterson, anyone who meets on Sunday, in a building with a shared purpose is religious- I had better tell the fellows down at the bowls club that we should be getting religious tax concessions.  I am sure that some atheists still attend church like Dick Gross and there are those that attend Unitarian churches, but by far the majority of atheists I know hold lectures, happy hours or spend time in social activities with those not atheist on weekends.

Then he tries the old Atheist indoctrination gambit,

Atheist groups have complained about parents indoctrinating their children, but set up atheist summer camps, which encourage “scepticism” among the young.

I suppose I can’t be too harsh, other, better journalists, have made similar erroneous claims.  But by far his worst piece of journalism and perhaps (I am still prepared to consider that the man is stupid or that he maybe able to provide actual evidence) his greatest piece of deceit was the following quote:

In Ohio, an annual Christmas parade was cancelled this week after threats from atheists to sue a council for using public money for an event linked to celebrating the birth of Jesus.

I and others have asked on a couple of occasions for a link to this evidence as all I can find is variations on the following (my emphasis in bold):

AMELIA, Ohio (AP) – An Ohio village’s Christmas parade has been cancelled amid concerns over possible lawsuits, expected protests and logistical problems.

Amelia Mayor Leroy Ellington said the Amelia Business Association that sponsored the parade for the past few years backed out and more problems emerged when the village council considered sponsoring the nearly 30-year-old parade. The village solicitor told council members Amelia could be sued for using public money for an event linked to celebrating the birth of Jesus, Ellington said.

When the village hoped to avoid problems over the constitutional issue of separation of church and state by changing the Christmas parade to a “holiday” parade, that drew angry responses.

“We received e-mails and letters from people who were upset at taking Christmas out of the name, but that wasn’t why we canceled the parade,” Ellington said. “The bottom line is that we don’t have anywhere to start the parade or end it and no one applied for a permit. We could call it anything, but we still couldn’t put it on unless we could get past the logistical hurdles.”

Ellington said the parade in the village of about 3,500 would have included 75 floats, marching bands and other participants.

Some churches have said they would protest if Christmas was omitted from the name, and a local church withdrew permission to use its parking lot as a staging area, he said.

[source]

How the hell did Bryan manage to pin the cancellation on Atheists?  The only protests referenced where from churches.

The rest of the article is mostly quotes from Frank Shaeffer author of Patience With God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism). Including the following rather ironic quote:

In his new book, Patience With God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism), Schaeffer criticises Christian and atheist evangelicals who seem more interested in selling books and themselves than promoting ideas.

It seems that the closer we get to the convention, the more wild, inaccurate ranting we will generate from some of the religious.  Keep it up ladies and gentlemen it makes you look silly and generates us publicity.

Note the comments thread on the article can be found here:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/faithworks/index.php/heraldsun/comments/atheist_rebuttal_to_last_sundays_column/

Related posts:

1. Atheism – a religion? Why is it that some religious proponents treat or label...
2. Welcome”Atheist Climber” to the ANZAB crew Atheist Climber has  joined ANZAB (Australian and New Zealand Atheist...
3. Groundhog day – The so called “New Atheism” and framing of atheist history and heritage History is a guide to navigation in perilous times....