Religious Intolerance 2.0

Okay, so, having taken a while to parse out my thoughts on the issue, I need to revise my stance on Atheism and Privilege.

The Privilege Denying Dude featured and linked in my previous post seems to have stirred up a lot of vehemence and anger on tumblr. Most of it in quite the opposite direction of mine. And, truth is, I agree with them. There isn't an Atheism privilege. Atheism does tend to by tied up with other privileges, largely because science and positivisim, but Christianity still pretty much reigns supreme in the West.

It'd be pretty false to try to claim that there is an actual Atheist privilege.
However, based on my experiences and observations, Atheism carries a hell of a lot of social capital compared to everything but Christianity. And I think this is really what people are talking about. Being Atheist, at least, where I've grown up and gone to school, automatically credits you as a researcher or academic. It's a more socially respected, and less questioned viewpoint that any other non-dominant belief system. As an Atheist, you can expect to be taken seriously in ways that most of the rest of the non-Christian theist population simply are not. Obviously, this isn't true everywhere.

Atheism is every bit as legitimate a belief system/world view/whatever it is for whoever as anything else. But being an Atheist doesn't make you better than anyone else. And that's the thing I think the OP of that PDD, my last post, and really this one too, are trying to get at. Everyone deserves to had themselves and their beliefs given basic respect, and not have the worst assumed about them automatically.

Nonetheless, I have met an awful, awful lot of Atheists who seem to feel themselves entitled to drag out and deride, without any attempt to actually understand, the beliefs of Theists. Even those close to them. Of course, you have a right to inwardly go all "LOL OMG MAGICAL SKY FAIRY". But when you do that in the face of a Theist, who may well have let on to their Theism with extreme hesitation for exactly that reason, you're being a jerk. Plain and simple. And this is what bothers me. This sense of entitlement and superiority.

I should hope the reasons I have a problem with Theists hating on Atheists are obvious. If not, I will happily spell them out on request. Really, they're basically the same as the following.

Instead, the reasons I have a problem with Atheists hating on Theists (besides, you know, I'm technically a Theist, and I don't like being hated any more than the next person), in no particular order, because I'm kind of drunk, and don't feel like ordering things.

1. It creates unnecessary divisions between underprivileged peoples who would be better of working in coalition.
Atheists don't have privilege. Neither does any other group that isn't of the dominant religion in a given area. This remains very true in the U.S, where, honestly, we suck at the whole separation of church and state thing. The extraordinary bullshit in regards to reproductive rights going on right now is proof enough for the stance that sacred (not secular) belief system should make it's way into any legislation. Period. Rather than fighting amongst ourselves over who's more oppressed, or even who's right (who really cares in the long run. we all think we're right) we should be working together to ensure that the public sphere remains secular, and retains everyone's rights, regardless of religious affiliation.
2. It usually rests on adherence to a deeply flawed paradigm.
Sooooo. A word I've been seeing a lot in relation to the PDD post in question is 'objective', and 'objective evidence' presumably as to why all religion is worthless? This is based on my own experiences of course, but most Atheists I've met claim to believe in science, and objectivism. I hate to break it to you, if you don't already know, but 'objectivism' is really just positivism wearing it's big kid pants. It's still based on the myth of the unaffected observer who caries absolutely no biases and experience based perspective from real life, and somehow magically has no affect upon that which zhe is observing. It's still based upon the privileging of Cis White Formally Educated Male perspectives and ways of knowing. Objectivism is biased, also fabricated. Should we try to be as objective as we can? Of course! But we should never assume objectivity. Ever. Numbers on a page can be objective. The instant we try to infer anything from them, they cease to be, because the simple fact that we are human. Science rocks, but it isn't perfect. Neither is anything.
3. It usually rests on a false dichotomy.

 There seems to be an underlying assumption here that one cannot be both religious and educated. That one cannot believe in both the divine (in the sense of super or supra natural) and science. This is simply not true. In fact, it isn't even hard. Loads and loads of Christians, Muslims, and everyone else believe in evolution, even though that goes against Abrahamic doctrine. I for one do not literally believe that Ireland got it's name because some drowning sailor/warriors were afraid they wouldn't be able to get back to shore unless they heeded the goddesses wish. Believing in science and believing in some god or other are not mutually exclusive categories. Theism does not necessarily equal ignorance, Atheism does not necessitate a lack of ignorance.
4. WTF do you know about it anyway!?
You don't. You don't and you can't. You simply cannot know with any certainty why someone has chosen a particular path, or the what how and why of that path and it's meaning to them, unless they tell you. This goes back to numbers 2 and 3, and the privileging of White Cis Male McStraighterson the Third ways of knowing. I don't think it's fair to equate a religious belief with a belief that 2+2=5, or what have you. These are often different kinds of knowing that serve entirely different needs. Religion can be a site for resistance; against racism, against sexism, against capitalism. It can be a site of empowerment. Imagine you're a girl growing up learning through your parents religion to hate your sexuality. Then you strike out on your own, you try out Atheism, and, it turns out, it's more than a little bit of a good ole boys club and they don't want you anyway. You go on to discover something else that celebrates femininity and female sexuality. Are you made ignorant, or empowered by this discovery? Say you suffer from clinical depression, and chronic pain. Your faith and faith community happen to provide a grounding point and a support network for you that help keep you together through suicidal periods. Could you have gotten it elsewhere? Yeah probably, but so what? They were right there when you needed them, and you're alive in part because of it. Religion is part of identity way more than knowing 2+2 =/= 5 is. For many people, it's a source of strength, of community, a way to feel connected to their family and culture. Any number of things. And you can't just assume it's because they don't know any better. And really, to assume that, and deny any other factors is a pretty Cis White Male McStraighterson the Third thing to do anyway.
5. Nobody has all the answers. Nobody.
Seriously, a long time ago (well, not all that long ago really, in the grand scheme of things) science was telling us that a womb was an independent entity that lived in cis woman's body, that would float away and start leaching off her other organs if it didn't get enough sex. Less long ago, it was telling us that races were genetically distinct, and that there were definite biological differences between them that effected things like intelligence, sex drive, and moral inhibition. And that you could tell someone's personality and deviant proclivities by how much body fat they had. Those who've had the grave misfortune to ever have to read part of The Bell Curve know that science is still being used in an attempt to make us think that race inherently has something to so with intelligence. (Though if you think the research used in that text is good science...I'm sorry). In the right hands, science is as manipulable as any religious doctrine, since it requires mediation between scientists and the general public. Anyway, the point is, what makes us so sure we have it right this time? Obviously we've come a long way, but nothing is perfect. Does science offer much more in terms of explanatory power than creation myths? Of course. But we've yet to disprove, and probably never will be able to fully disprove, the existence of some sort of divine. Science is imperfect, and as long as it is people are going to be turning elsewhere to fill in the blanks, and fill the emotional and spiritual needs they can't always get from science.

If someone is trying to force their dogma (especially on a large, into law kind of scale) onto you, by all means, fight back with everything you have. I'll be fighting right beside you. But it they're just being, and happening to be being while Theist, you  know what you're doing when you're shaming the Wiccan or Buddhist, or  Muslim or even Christian or what have you? You're forcing your dogma on them. That's not any better.

So, Uh, that's my piece I suppose. Drunken rant over. Thank Brigid for the spell check embedded in everything now, or the composition of that could have been a real travesty =P
TL;DR BE NICE TO EACH OTHER ALREADY! It's just basic human decency to respect one another.