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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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As some of you know, I have no belief at all in any entity that many religions call a god.
That being said, I have noticed that most public utterances by anti-theists ( I really like Hitchen's word) tend to be on the liberal side, to say the least. In fact, many revel in taking verbal shots at conservatives, assuming all conservatives are also bible thumping christians.
Stop it.
Your being offensive.
I happen to embrace a lot of conservative concepts and values. That has nothing to do with my lack of religion, and everything to do with my perspective that generally things go better with government out of people's lives, that generally strong, stable families are a positive and something that all should strive to achieve, that the issue of abortion, although I accept it as a reality and that it should be legal, I also think it should not be allowed past the first semester unless the mother's life is endangered, that options should be presented to the woman before the abortion procedure is done, and that it is better to discourage the practice as opposed to using it as a method of birth control (and yes, I can document that last statement). Don't assume all conservatives are against science, especially the science of climate change.
It really does not serve the cause of getting religion out of the public sphere by pulling in unrelated issues, and stereotyping individuals other viewpoints. We can discuss other social and political issues without casting adherents to a particular philosophy as being inclined to be religious or not just because a majority of that subset likely are.
Stop and think. Start dealing with the problem of religious influence in the public sphere, but do not assume that all who agree with you on the anti-theist perspective have the same political one as you do. Isn't it better to win some of those others over?
My own experience (meaning this is anecdotal and nothing I can back up with references) is that atheists are disproportionately liberal first, libertarian second. I know very few moderates or neo-conservatives (which is what most politicians Americans consider "conservative" are) who are atheists.
The common ground for liberals and libertarians is their desire to keep church separate from state. Again, my experience as a liberal whose dating history and social circles have a fair number of libertarians. Seems to me I really only part ways with them with respect to government involvement in regulating commerce and things like gun ownership. I've yet to meet a libertarian who didn't gnash his or her teeth when listening to some politician talk about God, or become incensed at religious people brandishing bibles outside of abortion clinics.
As some of you know, I have no belief at all in any entity that many religions call a god. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .I'm trying to do my part.
I'd never assume such a thing. Why couldn't an atheist get into bed with Ayn Rand? Seems to some degree they were made for each other. On the other hand I always imagine agnostics to have a more nuanced political ideology but maybe even that's presumptuous?
Fundamentalist Christians view non-Christians as "slaves to sin" and thus filled with the desire to "rebel" against any and all authority. Remember, according to fundamentalist Christianity, it was Adam and Eve's disobedience that caused Everything Bad in the Universe to happen. Hence the stereotype that atheists are far-left radicals or anarchists who hate everything Good and Decent.
Atheists are more likely to be liberal. But liberals are not necessarily more likely to be atheists. Conservatives are more likely to be religious (in this particular country, Christian), but religious people aren't necessarily more likely to be conservative.
Well, depending on how religious they are. Generally, the more 'serious' they are about their religion, the more conservative they are. But I use the term serious lovely. Plenty of liberals are firm believers in the moral philosophy their faith teaches. But more literalist views tend to coincide with conservatives.
Atheists are usually so because they disagree with the dogmatic nature of religion. Conservatives are more religious because conservative tend to hold a lot of value in traditional family value, religion usually being a family based thing. So it makes sense. But plenty of liberals are still religious, though are more likely to disagree with certain teachings within the church. I know liberal Christians who support gay marriage; I even know a Catholic who is pro-choice (it's a crazy world).
People like to draw assumptions about the opposite political party. I do it too sometimes; I try not to though. People should all make a point not to do that. Open mindedness is important.
I believe this is the way thinking goes if God -input is taken out of human life and thought. If you base your views on the Bible (never mind Church theology) you are likely to end up with a stricter morality, based on a lot of thou shalt nots. This is quite apart from any tendency to equate state religion with patriotism and a skepticism about science, which will keep making so -called 'discoveries' that require some nifty apologetics footwork to get around apparent challenges to Bible - veracity.
Take God out of the equation and you are obliged to start thinking things out for yourself. The first thing to go is Church -based dogmatic morality with Bible -based morals going with it. The next thing is traditional morality, because if there is no good (or bad) reason to do something, why do it?
A liberalized view of things is almost guaranteed and, without God -given morality, people do seem to come to the same conclusions.
Racial inequality, gender inequality and making sex look like something the cat dragged in goes in the bin, right away. Almost immediately the principle of reciprocity (Golden Rule) becomes the touchstone for social relationships, with 'who is it hurting?' becoming the rule for social behaviour rather than 'is the Bible against it?' Without God, Church and Bible as a first source of wisdom, logical reasoning and the validated findings of science become necessarily the first and indeed the only reliable source of information (as the golden rule and its wellspring becomes the basic rule for social and moral matters - which science has little to do with).
On the face of it, there is no reason why an atheist shouldn't have a pro -life, pro death -sentence view even as an atheist or why a Bible -believer shouldn't also be a campaigner for race and gender equality. I imagine many Bible -believers are.
I am just suggesting one of the reasons why disbelief in God and bible may lead to a liberalizing tendency in worldview.
Fundamentalist Christians view non-Christians as "slaves to sin" and thus filled with the desire to "rebel" against any and all authority. Remember, according to fundamentalist Christianity, it was Adam and Eve's disobedience that caused Everything Bad in the Universe to happen. Hence the stereotype that atheists are far-left radicals or anarchists who hate everything Good and Decent.
I often wonder how fundamentalist Christians, especially the US kind who equate material riches with God's blessing, manage to digest St Mathew Ch:19.V:24.
Conservative and liberal-leaning people --whether we're talking about politics, religion, or really anything -- are often wired differently. My stepdaughter for example cannot stand moral ambiguity or leave room for any kind of nuance in any matter. She decides that something or someone is either good or evil and -- wham -- that's it, from then on, she expects to never revisit the matter, even to consider evidence contrary to her position -- especially when it implies that there's a defensible position that's in the middle somewhere or reminds her that change is always happening. Her general emotional reaction when reality is inconvenient to her snap judgments, is anger. This in turn is really just a defensive cover for her insecurity and anxiety -- she's trying to render the world comprehensible and tie it up in a nice bow and it's not holding together. This embodies, perhaps in a somewhat extreme form, the conservative mindset to me.
I have pretty consistently found self-identified conservatives as very resistant to the world as it is. If a person is idealistic it will also manifest differently for conservatives vs liberals. An idealistic liberal will tend to be an activist, trying to change the world to be more like the ideal. An idealistic conservative will tend to be a traditionalist, trying to live out an ideal in a vacuum without actually trying to change the world by, say, raising awareness or persuasion, but by simply demanding that it behave in accord with the ideal. To the conservative, the world WAS fine until it got messed up by sin or liberal thinking or lack of discipline. They want it to stop changing and be what they fancy it was originally (and which, for the most part, it never actually was). To a liberal, hidebound tradition is the problem; to the conservative, change is the problem.
Given all this it is entirely unsurprising that freethinkers and humanists are going to tend to be of a liberal mindset. At present, freethought is still a minority position in most societies. In a future where it becomes predominant, it's quite possible that it will be championed mostly by conservatives whereas theism might be championed mostly by liberals.
All that said, the OP is right, one should not assume that all unbelievers / freethinkers / humanists are liberals, nor that all theists / traditionalists are conservative. Or even that any one person is in some binary state one way or the other on all issues.
I come from a conservative background and whether because of that or because of coincidence (a little of both, really) many of my social and moral positions align with conservative ideology such that my conduct in the world would be entirely acceptable to most traditionalists. But since I became a freethinker, my reasons for holding such positions have greatly clarified and I have completely different motivations for them compared to most conservatives. I don't believe that democracy, monogamy, etc. are decreed from on high and I don't practice them because they are axiomatic, because I might be punished or disapproved of it I don't, or because I necessarily expect to derive direct personal benefit from such actions. I don't refrain from things I refrain from because of taboos or out of blind obedience to authority.
I often wonder how fundamentalist Christians, especially the US kind who equate material riches with God's blessing, manage to digest St Mathew Ch:19.V:24.
They simply ignore passages they don't like. Of course, the liberal / mainline Christians do the same thing when they ignore all the fire and brimstone stuff. But that's a whole different topic.
Yes. There is a general thrust of liberals trying to change the world for the better while the Conservatives tend towards what I call 'Golden ageism' -an idea that it was all wonderful in the good Old Days, when in fact it wasn't so bloody wonderful at all and I see a rather lone voice against the all too common 'well everybody -knows..' view that everything is getting worse.
I see this in various binds about CCTV (the objections are invariably fatheaded) plastic taking over from Real Money (a view which is fatheaded) and the frequently heard view that it has all gone to pot because on the Internet. Just like TV, a lot of rubbish, but the amount of information and education we get is a great improvement over what we had when only books were the source of education.
I have a theory... ...that the main snarling at the Internet is from those who liked it better when people could be kept in the dark, isolated from common discussion and didn't have to start looking for ways of making rational judgements about the information offered.
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...that the main snarling at the Internet is from those who liked it better when people could be kept in the dark, isolated from common discussion and didn't have to start looking for ways of making rational judgements about the information offered.
