It's Not Prejudice if Most People Say it's Okay, Right?

Originally posted on 03/02/07

I just read an opinion piece by syndicated columnist Paul C. Campos that just made me cringe. Here is the URL for the article: http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion/8998903624125906943

This article is entitled "There are Few Genuine Atheists". Right away, I have a problem with this title. Who is to judge what is and isn't genuine when it comes to someone else's belief system. For every belief system, outside of a few core tenets, there have been multiple definitions. In fact, I would be willing to bet that there are almost as many definitions for various belief systems as there are people who hold them. How many of them are not "genuine"? And more importantly, who's definition do we use to define what is "genuine" and what is not? His? Mine? The preacher screaming fire and brimstone down from the pulpit? That emo kid down the street who cuts on himself? Whose opinion do we pretend is fact?

How about Mr. Campos? He is a law professor and presumably and intelligent man (those two things don't always go together. There are a lot of educated idiots out there). He seems to think it is just fine that in various opinion polls a large percentage of the American public would not vote for a candidate for president simply because he/she was an Atheist. Ok, I seemed to have missed something. If it is bigotry not to vote for someone because they are a Jew (a particular belief system), why is it not bigotry not to vote for someone because they are an Atheist (another particular belief system)? Why is it ok to discriminate against one and not the other? Isn't discrimination discrimination no matter who it's aimed at?

Mr. Campos concludes his article with this statement:

"Conversely, when one presses a purported atheist, one almost always finds that the person believes in various propositions that simply don't make sense without a belief in some source of an ultimate moral order, i.e., what most people would call "God." For instance, almost everyone who claims to be an atheist still makes lots of "ought" statements, as in "we ought to preserve biological diversity," or what have you.

The latter view is that of the famed biologist Edward O. Wilson, in his new book "The Creation." Written in the form of a letter to a pastor of the Southern Baptist faith in which Wilson was brought up, Wilson argues that atheists like him and religious believers ought to agree that preserving biological diversity, and therefore in the long run humanity, is a profound moral imperative.

Wilson is a brilliant man, but this kind of thing has always seemed to me nonsensical on its face. After all, the human race has existed for an eye-blink of cosmological time and will certainly cease to exist in another eye-blink or two.

The only response a genuine atheist would have to that fact is, so what? Which helps explain why there are almost no genuine atheists."

Apparently, Mr. Campos was absent that day in law school when the covered the topic of "research" and the concept of "false assumption". I have to question whether or not he has even met an Atheist. In truth, this is not the first time I have heard this assumption. Also, his conclusion that a religious person would be more concerned about the ending of the species than an Atheist is completely ridiculous. How many times have you heard this phrase when bad things happen: "It's all part of God's plan". Wouldn't the end of the species also be viewed as "part of God's plan"? If you think not, allow me to remind you that most religions do have myths that tell of the end of the world in accordance with "God's plan".

The notion that a Human being is incapable of moral decision and position without some sort of outside agency has always struck me as very sad. Most humans, excluding of course sociopaths, have a conscience that allows them to discern right and wrong in addition to also being a product of the environment in which they were raised. "Morality", at least in my opinion, at least in its conception, is a society's or individual's attempt to do what is best for the species at least on a subconscious level. Survival of the species is an inborn instinctual imperative, not something we have because we were told to do by some guy with a book of supposedly divine origin.

I was of the opinion that bigotry was unacceptable under any circumstances. The going against someone simply for their belief system while not examining their specific beliefs and how they would impact the job they want to do is bigotry no matter how many degrees one possesses. If you don't vote for someone simply because they are of one belief system or another think carefully the next time you bitch about bigotry in this world, you are could be talking about yourself.

Rant over... for now