I was listening to NPR (as is my habit of a morning) and happened to hear this little news piece. The jist of it is that there is a “schism” between the old guard atheists and the new ones (not that there is anything particularly new or old about either). Basically on the one hand (the article says) you have atheists who are “okay” with religious folk and and atheists who think we’re all a bunch of morons, or have some sort of mental disease or defect, or that we’re dangerous. I know a few atheists in the former category and have met online or in person a few that fall into the latter category. The reporter paints this as a “bitter divide”. Does it exist?

Now I know a little about human nature or so I like to think. A good deal of that comes from just watching myself interact with others. So when I read a reaction to the interview by PZ Myers (one of the people interviewed) where he said that that was not the message he gave when he talked to her, I wasn’t surprised. What wasn’t surprising exactly? Well I’m not surprised when someone hears an interview that they took part in and regrets the way they come across (a little of what happened here) and I’m not surprised (though I am saddened)when a reporter actually does “quote mine” looking for nuggets of gold that match up with their agenda (apparently much of what happened here).

I don’t dispute that there is some matter of disagreement in the atheist/agnostic community on how they should treat us and on how they view religion. I know first hand that there are non-believers that think we are sheep-le. I might even be so bold as to say that most of them think that. Some decide to sugar coat the message. Some don’t. There are atheists who believe on some level, based on evidence and rationality naturally, that religion serves some evolutionary good or is at least a by-product of an evolutionary process where the process itself does good and the religion part is a side-effect not unlike bad gas or possibly toxic shock syndrome. Then there are those that believe there is nothing good in religion, not even a little. PZ doesn’t dispute that any of those differences exist. He argues that this is actually a strength. They are free to question one another freely.

Getting back to the NPR story, it’s fun to paint atheism as a sort of religion. Ask Sid, I do it all the time. I argue that some of them meet regularly, have “saints”, merchandise,read from the same books. I mean all they’re lacking is a belief in a supernatural being. That’s pretty important though. So my comparison is tongue in cheek. For some it’s not though and the NPR story plays to that. They tout it as some sort of argument against atheism, saying that if we can just point out how close atheism is to being a religion we can… what exactly? Accuse them of being hypocrites? I don’t think that’s right. It’s not fun when they do it to us and it’s not fun when we do it to them.

The one unifying belief that they do have is a non-belief and one that they view as positive. Based on that, expecting them to be some sort of monolithic organization is silly. They do have organizations of course, but even those can’t agree on what being an atheist means exactly, much less agree on how they should treat us. In order to have a schism I think you need something like a central statement of belief. They simply don’t have that.

So, what we have here at most is a difference of opinion. Should atheists be “accomadationists” or hard core “evangelicals”? There are heated debates and arguments, but no one I’m aware of is getting ostracized (or at least not burned at the stake). That some of us feel this is similar to a religion is telling since our in family squabbles can get far more ugly. As for the question itself, if it’s only one way or the other naturally I’d say that I prefer they choose the former.

Whatever they “should” be though and whether or not they are like a religion, all that really matters is what they are. They are human beings trying to deal with the universe and what they are handed as best they can. They’re missing a piece that I believe is vital, but even with that piece I don’t always deal with life in the most Christ-like manner. How can I expect any more from them? So when we are dealing with one another I would hope that we can be respectful, but that hope is tempered with understanding that there is a lot of baggage that we all carry as a result of what we believe on this one issue.