Author: Andrew Sullivan

A reader writes:

First, thank you for giving atheists a say in your conversations about religion. One of your readers referred to atheists like me as “dickheads” because he gets tired of us constantly talking about our disbelief in gods. Okay, I’ll happily join the ranks of feminists who were dickheads about getting the vote, African Americans who were dickheads in the pursuit of equal rights, and those dickhead gays who demand respect and the same rights as heterosexuals.  I only want my government to respect my right to not believe the existence of a god, to remain neutral when it comes to religion, to not push Christianity as a national religion, or give special privileges to religions.  I want a social climate where atheists are not stigmatized.

A number of friends and relatives have told me in private that they, too, don’t believe in the existence of gods but either cannot or prefer not to make that public.  I want that to end someday.  I want to see a day when people believe or don’t believe because it makes sense to them, not because everyone else believes it, or that’s what’s expected of them.

I speak out so that our leaders understand there are atheists out there who feel just as strongly about our belief as they do about their religion.  I never want another person to experience what happened to me a few years ago.

When my wife’s sister collapsed and died suddenly, her whole family was devastated. At the funeral they were still reeling. My wife’s family is devoutly Catholic and she never told them that I was an atheist (she’s accepted it).  During the Catholic service honoring her sister’s life, the priest spoke highly of her sister’s service and devotion to the church, that she is now in a better place with Jesus, and how Great our Lord Jesus is. To reinforce this, he exhorted everyone who believes in the love of Jesus to stand up. My wife and I were seated near the front of the church and I quickly had to decide what to do. I chose not to stand. Everyone saw this and it just added to the pain of the moment for my wife. (I might add that I am not the same race as her family, which added to the awkwardness.)

I want religious leaders to understand that exhortations like this can embarrass those who aren’t Christians, and in some cases it can break up families and marriages.  If the priest had just asked those who believe to say “Amen” few if any would have noticed those who said nothing.  This has left a lasting scar on my marriage and my relationship with my wife’s family.

I honestly don’t care if people believe in a God or not.  I never talk about people’s religion or try to convince them there is no God unless they bring my atheism up first. I’m only a dickhead when people force their religious beliefs on me or on my government.  I want people to understand that there are a lot of atheists out there, that we are sane, moral citizens with rights we are willing to stand up for.

Another atheist:

I don’t think New Atheists are any more militant or angry than other minority advocacy groups, but I can freely admit that there is some actual anger, and that there are some pretty legit reasons for it. There is a large segment of the population that believes that an atheist is inherently immoral because humans are incapable of having a moral compass without divine belief. There is the mirror belief, even among agnostics, that being religious is somehow an indicator of higher ethical standards. Given history, a lot of atheists find this annoying, dismaying, and at times infuriating. Does not every minority encounter and react to these sorts of morally superior arguments and broad based but inaccurate characterizations and assumptions? Why is the bar for anger and militancy set so low when discussing the godless? And I have not even touched on religion’s extraordinary influence on the culture wars and politics, which Thomas Wells makes only the briefest mention of before dismissing it.

Lastly, regarding your reader who analogized atheism to his dislike for soccer, questioning the appropriateness of him constantly berating his friends and relatives if they ever watch the sport: Know what I do at the half-dozen events per month that involve someone telling us to bow our heads in prayer? I remain quietly respectful, as all atheists I know would do. Know what I do if someone asks me about my religion or what church I attend? I tell them I am an atheist. See the difference? The only time it may get a little tense is if I am baselessly accused of immorality, hatred of god, willful disobedience to what I “know must be true”, or encounter the justification of a preferred public policy decision because “its in the Bible.” You tell me who is being the dick in such a conversation.

One more:

Great thread, thanks. Let’s say the New Atheists are indeed “dickheads” and “contrarians,” as your writer argues. That’s even more of a reason to speak out, and do so with grace and kindness.  One of the best compliments I ever received was from a Christian co-worker after she found out about my atheist activism, saying that my kindness disproved the stereotype of the amoral atheist.

Nick Danforth explains how north ended up at the top of maps:

There is nothing inevitable or intrinsically correct — not in geographic, cartographic or even philosophical terms — about the north being represented as up, because up on a map is a human construction, not a natural one. Some of the very earliest Egyptian maps show the south as up, presumably equating the Nile’s northward flow with the force of gravity. And there was a long stretch in the medieval era when most European maps were drawn with the east on the top. … In the same period, Arab map makers often drew maps with the south facing up, possibly because this was how the Chinese did it.

So who was primarily responsible for the flip?

The north’s position was ultimately secured by the beginning of the 16th century, thanks to Ptolemy, with another European discovery that, like the New World, others had known about for quite some time. Ptolemy was a Hellenic cartographer from Egypt whose work in the second century A.D. laid out a systematic approach to mapping the world, complete with intersecting lines of longitude and latitude on a half-eaten-doughnut-shaped projection that reflected the curvature of the earth. The cartographers who made the first big, beautiful maps of the entire world, Old and New — men like Gerardus Mercator, Henricus Martellus Germanus and Martin Waldseemuller — were obsessed with Ptolemy. They turned out copies of Ptolemy’s Geography on the newly invented printing press, put his portrait in the corners of their maps and used his writings to fill in places they had never been, even as their own discoveries were revealing the limitations of his work. For reasons that have been lost to history, Ptolemy put the north up.

Previous Dish on north-south cartography in The West Wing here. Money quote:

When the top of the map is given to the Northern hemisphere and the bottom is given to the Southern, then people will tend to adopt top and bottom attitudes.

(Image of map from the 15th century depicting Ptolemy’s description of the Ecumene via Wikimedia Commons)

A reader quotes another:

I’m not saying the white boy you posted doesn’t have skills, but the alphabet rapping concept, including progressive acceleration, was done a long time ago by Blackalcious [see above]. I’m more okay with white boys having their place in hip hop if they bring their own perspective and style to the table, like The Streets for example.

In sum: Once “Alphabet Aerobics” hit in 1999, a white person can’t make a rap with the alphabet and still be considered original. White rappers having their own perspective and style means they can’t revisit a concept done by a black artist, even if it was done 15 years ago. Obviously this is artistic elitist bullshit. While having predominantly black artists in hip hop made for amazing music, as it was a medium for artistic outsiders willing to do something new, it got mired in cliches and authenticity-by-skin-color, leading to a lot of forgettable, stale music. The reader who you quoted is still stuck in looking to skin color for authentic music, and it’s racist. Not nearly as degrading or dehumanizing as institutional slavery, Jim Crow, or unjust as white privilege that still exists today. But it’s racist nonetheless, and he/she probably excuses it because it’s focused against whites.

On a very different note:

I almost wrote you a letter during the Dylan Farrow discussion, but I never quite found quite got to it. But now you’ve brought Brother Ali into it. Brother Ali is not just a talented freestyle rapper. He’s also a touching and personal lyricist. A few years ago, our family was shattered by the discovery that a very young relative was the victim of molestation by her father.

We immediately took in their family (minus one person who, with any luck, will never leave the loving embrace of our state’s prison system.) They’ve been living with us for several years as their mother puts her life back together, brick by brick. The daily challenges go beyond the scope of a letter to a popular blogger.

As the victim is still a child, it partly feels like a waiting game. What will she remember? Will she feel isolated by her past? As a teenager, will she be overcome by anger? Will she be able to find love and comfort as an adult, or will she be constantly haunted? Will she feel the need to take some form of revenge, as Dylan Farrow did? Was Farrow’s letter cathartic? If so, will she ever get a chance to do something like that herself?

I’m predisposed to believe Farrow. True or not, whatever happened in that family, she’s clearly in a tremendous amount of pain. I hope that she can release her anger. I hope that she can find peace and love in her life. Hell, I hope I can release my anger some day.

I first heard Brother Ali’s song Babygirl right about the time this all went down, which was amazing timing. Brother Ali discusses it after performing it in this video (around minute 5):

Hearing it then was touching. I applaud him for writing it. It can’t be easy to open up your family’s life for art like that.

On a side note, in the middle of all of this, my mother became very ill with c. diff collitis. She spent nearly five months of a year in hospitals, coming very close to the end several times. She eventually received a fecal transplant. After that, her health took a nearly unbelievable turn for the better. With the c. diff no longer killing her, other systems were allowed to come back to normal. So, that’s a Dish Trifecta for me. Stop stalking me!

And thanks for reading.

Thanks for sharing.