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Posted by on Oct 22, 2014 in Atheism | 2 comments

Dictionary Atheists, Unite!

Been seeing a decent amount of chatter about “dictionary atheism” in my feeds of late. Here are just a few examples:

Seems like as good a time as any to weigh in. Since “dictionary atheist” is not in the dictionary, I’m going to stipulate a couple definitions myself.

 

dic·tio·nary ath·e·ist

noun \ˈdik-shə-ˌner-ē, -ˌne-rē\ \ˈā-thē-ist\

1: a person who does not believe in any gods, and who does not generally expect other unbelievers to agree with them on non-theological issues

2: a person who does not believe in any gods, and who is also a misogynist racist ableist shitlord

 

That second usage seems to be the more popular one in so-called social justice spaces, and can therefore be safely ignored. The first definition is by far more relevant for my purposes here. My idea of a dictionary atheist is someone who, upon meeting another atheist, takes the trouble to find out whether that person identifies as communist, progressive, libertarian, conservative, anarchist, or something else, and welcomes them to the secular movement regardless of their politics. My idea of a dictionary atheist is someone who, upon meeting another atheist, takes the trouble to find out whether that person identifies as a Humanist, an Objectivist, a Satanist, or something else, and welcomes them to the secular movement regardless of their ethical framework. My idea of a dictionary atheist is someone who, upon meeting another atheist, takes the trouble to find out whether that person identifies as a scientific skeptic or a paranormalist woo-peddler, and welcomes them to the secular movement regardless of whether they have yet to sort out science from bunk.

Personally, I happen to identify as a left-leaning centrist, a Secular Humanist, and a scientific skeptic, but if I come across someone who is an atheist, hardcore anarcho-libertarian Satanist, and devotee of essential oils and therapeutic touch, I’m still going to invite them to join the club.

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How else would I get the chance to argue them into better positions?

I don’t need you to agree with me on metaphysics, physics, science, ethics and politics in order to join my atheist club. I don’t even need you to agree with me on social issues that I really care about, such as same-sex marriage and separation of church and state. All I ask is that you keep an open mind. You’ve already managed to overcome at least one really popular, really bad idea. We can move forward together from there.

 

  • Shatterface

    I always took non-belief in gods as necessary and sufficient conditions for judging if someone is an atheist or not. If that means sharing atheism with Stalin and Ayn Rand, tough shit.

    Over the last few years we’ve seen the sufficient criteria attacked as setting the bar too low; now non-belief isn’t even necessary, with pagans and wiccans guest posting on ftb.

  • SchrodingersTherapist

    I’m an atheist. I’m also a supporter of social justice. The two are unrelated. Saying otherwise is like saving that if you believe the earth is round rather than flat, and goes round the sun rather than vice versa, then you have to be a radical feminist.

    I’m active in various causes such as marriage equality in my state, humane treatment of immigrants, etc. I often find myself working alongside progressive Christians. I’m not going to take my ball and go home just because they have theological disagreements with me. That would make me pretty unserious and dillentatish about the causes I’m working on.

    Similarly, if I’m fighting for church-state separation, I’m not going to insist that my allies on this issue must march in 100% ideological lockstep with me on unrelated issues.

    I don’t know why the Freethoughtblogs Atheism Plus brigade have so much trouble with this simple concept – unless they’re being dishonest and would rather posture and indulge in recreational outrage than actually accomplish anything.