Washington D.C. Endorses Atheism
Washington D.C.’s Metro Transit Authority has decided to allow the American Humanist Association to put billboards reading "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake" on its buses during the Christmas season. Sounds like an endorsement of a religious position to me. Odd how it’s A-OK to mock the faithful using public property while high school football announcers are forbidden to pray before a game. Where is the equality? Where is my due protection under the law?
Note that last is a bit of a snark; I think people need to develop thicker skins and remember that the Constitution does not grant any of us the right to never be offended by our fellow citizens. Still, something doesn’t seem quite right about the slap in the face the AHA will be delivering this Christmas.
Perhaps it’s the fact that serious consideration and legal resources are being given to lawsuits like the one filed on behalf of the Summum church that has found its way up to the Supreme Court. The Summum are unhappy because the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah had the temerity to honor the most fundamental legal precepts of all, the Ten Commandments, by placing a monument to God’s law in a park across from City Hall.
In 2003, the president of the Summum church wrote to the mayor here with a proposal: the church wanted to erect a monument inscribed with the Seven Aphorisms in the city park, “similar in size and nature” to the one devoted to the Ten Commandments.
The city declined, a lawsuit followed and a federal appeals court ruled that the First Amendment required the city to display the Summum monument.
Now, I can take a joke like the D.C. Metro’s with nothing more than a grimace of distaste. My atheistic bretheren certainly have the right to express themselves, after all. But when it comes to the courts mandating that localities must give equal time and space to crackpots like the Summum, I’m afraid not.
Admittedly I am biased against religions not embraced by the Founding Fathers of this country. And I’m immediately suspicious of faiths founded by construction workers named "Corky", to say nothing of the Summum’s practice of counting membership based on the number of individuals who buy their Soma nectar wine.
Discriminatory, perhaps. Wrong, hardly. There will never be an end to the debate over whether the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. Yet even those who maintain that the Founding Fathers were largely deists cannot deny the influence of the Ten Commandments as the country’s fundamental principles. If that makes some people uncomfortable, tough. I’m sure the seats on D.C.’s Metro buses are comfortable enough and the view, for such atheists, is amusing.
LMAO Marc, I’ll admit that I have a hard time distinguishing what parts of your post are snark and which aren’t. So promoting Christianity in every which way and form is just dandy, but suggest that being good is possible without believing in God (which it undeniably IS) is “a slap in the face”? I find it frankly astonishing that you would find it offensive for private funds to go towards such a mild message while thinking it’s perfectly ok to thrash the Constitution by having tax payer money used to endorse the rules of one religion over another.
Would you be ok with a town putting Muslim rules in front of city halls? How about Hindu? Oh no? Just Christian? Sorry, those aren’t the rules.
As far as this is concerned it doesn’t matter whether every single Founding Father was a bible-thumping fundamentalist Christian (quite the contrary was true, even many of those who were Christian were openly disdainful of the church or certain mythologies) the document that rules this nation is not “What we kinda think the founding fathers thought” but the Constitution of the United States, which expressly prohibits the official promotion of one religion over another. If we were to be guided by what the founding fathers thought, the only way Obama could have gotten to the White House would have been by being a gardener belonging/subservient to George Bush.
My only issue with the atheist sign would be if the transit authority is a government entity. If so then what ads it sells (be it from the atheist or the Mormon church) probably are “on the edge”
My only issue with the atheist sign would be if the transit authority is a government entity. If so then what ads it sells (be it from the atheist or the Mormon church) probably are “on the edge”
Hmmm I don’t really see it that way. Ad space is ad space. As long as the authority does not discriminate on it’s prices and availability, they are no more promoting religion (or not) as they are promoting Diet Coke. Of course it needs to be up to each authority what it’s guidelines for permissable ads are, and they could well decide that ads involving religion (or ads involving fatty foods) are inappropriate. Just as long as tax payer dollars are not funding the ad, I don’t think it should be a problem.
Claudia, I like your thinking! Religious people can kick and scream about the unfairness of the adds, the truth is wherever non-believers go, they are confronted by religion in one form or another. For example, the other day in my children’s school in a meeting, a parent suggested a book to be read to the class. And the title was ” Are you Hanukkah or Christmas?” I voiced my concern and said, “what if the kids were neither?” and… started the debate… By the way, this is a public school, where religion should not be allowed but somehow, parents still push their agenda on to others. My point is, religion is every where and if you are agnostic, you have to deal with it! Majority of the world is definitely religious, therefore, being the minority puts one at a disadvantage….
Wouldn’t the better way to honor God’s law be to actually observe it? I direct this question with particular force toward those holders of public office who want to put the 10 Commandments in courthouses and city hall parks while violating at least 5 of those commandments with regularity?
My personal feeling is that if we are going to put lists of divine commandments that so many people deliberately violate in their own lives, then we should certainly include others: Isaiah 57, for example, in which God condemns empty religious observance; or Isaiah 2:4, in which Isaiah calls for nations to give up war and make peace with their enemies?
The above passages aren’t observed by most world leaders, either, but at least we would have a more complete picture of the behaviors God requires of us that we continue to flout.
Sorry, I forgot to include a link for Isaiah 2:4. Here it is.
Claudia, this country’s legalism is much more annoying than some tawdry bus ads, which, frankly, Metro would have decline to run if they had any class. By legalism I mean the hair-splitting that leads people like Nevin to think that it’s perfectly OK to deny Christians the right to express themselves in the public square while atheists, Summums, and Hare Krishna are free to promote their agenda with impunity.
In the specific case of the Summums, let’s be generous and say that their membership is 100K. In a country of 200M Christians, that makes them a minority of about 2000 to 1. So give them they’re entitled to – a display that’s to scale, 1/2000th of the monument of the 10 Commandments.
As Nevin says, the majority of Americans are religious. Rather than allowing 1 atheist in a town to deny everyone else the pleasure of a Christmas display, the singleton should respect others in her community, accept the display, and go on with her life rather than forcing the issue. That’s just common sense, something that, as you point out, is lacking in the current interpretation of the Constitution on this issue.
They seem to be taking inspiration from that British humanist group who did the same thing.
The message is a bit more direct than the British one, but it’s not too bad.
Marc, the Constitution does not say that the state must not endorse any religion unless it is the overwhelming majority religion, it says it must not endorse a religion period. Many Christians feel very cocky today and full of righteous conviction that since they are the overwhelming majority everyone else should simply shut up. It’s very ironic considering that one of the reasons many colonists were driven here was because they were a small minority in Europe and the majority thought they had every right to impose their religious views on said minority.
It’s quite simple. Using tax payer money to pay for a religious display is an endorsement of one religion over another or no religion at all. Even if 100% of the town were Christian, it would still be unconstitutional, just as putting up a display explicitly rejecting the existence of a god or gods would be unconstitutional even if the entire town were atheist. The beauty of the thing is that the rules are made to protect you whether you are a majority of 99.99% or a minority of 1.
The Constitution requires the government to be both neutral on matters of religion and to protect individuals against the tyranny of the majority — 1 versus everyone else, exactly.
“Common sense” is not lacking here, especially since it seems to mean that anything that you disagree with is not common sense; what is not lacking is a thorough understanding of the legal principals of the Constitution, and your unfounded sense Christian victimhood. True, most Americans are religious, but there are hundreds of faiths, including atheism, which is a faith like all the rest. None has the right to be superior to the rest, regardless of what the Founding Fathers may or may not have believed. They are dead; the Constitution is a living document for a living country.
Remember, too, there are actually three separate lists of Ten Commandments. They vary according to faith. Which list is the “correct” list?
“Discriminatory, perhaps. Wrong, hardly.” Religious discrimination is illegal. Period. And always wrong.
mostly accurate – but in fullness it is.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Replace Christians for Atheists and your argument has the same meaning.
That is quite simply incorrect, it is a selective interpretation of the Constitution. And a wrong one at that – by definition.
meaning – there is no problem what so ever for spending tax dollars on religion – you just have to also allow for non-religious as well.
and more
Unless of course someone is going to attempt to argue that Congress in asking for God’s blessing in the Capitol, on taxpayers dollars – is not spending tax dollars.
Not to mention the whole – white cross thing you would see at Arlington.
I find the ad mildly annoying but I agree only with the snarky parts of marc’s article- one could react the way atheists/agnostics do to religious messages in society or one could take the intellectually honest approach and say it’s a free country.
And frankly, I think the ad is pretty dumb and ironically may have the opposite of its intended effect. Lots of quasi-religious people feel that the holidays have become so commercialized and we’ve lost the real meaning- so this just serves as a reminder of why we should in fact get back to our beliefs and focus on the birth of Christ as the reason for our celebration of Christmas.
I’ve never understood why anyone feels so persecuted by messaging or practices that surround them. If I went to a society that had a different majority religion, perhaps at times I’d miss the camraderie of having a lot of fellow Christians around me but as long as the government was allowing religious freedom I don’t feel I’d have the right to complain about it. The comment in the article by the guy from this organization saying that ‘lots of atheists and agnostics feel lonely around the holidays’ strikes me as thin-skinned and childish; he doesn’t impress me as someone who’s secure in his own belief or lack of belief.
I have watched a documentary the other day on the rice of Evangelical Christians in the United States in the last decades. Although I have never been in the bible belt part of the country, (and am not remotely curious to go) it seems to me from what I have read and seen on TV, there is no lack of Religious adds around the towns in that part of the country. With their HUGE crosses and billboards promoting Christianity and God. Why does one silly single add in DC annoy the author of this article? It seems to me that there are plenty of adds around the country to satisfy his “religious” needs and promote his believes…
C. Stanley, when you say it will have the “opposite effect” of the one desired, I think you are mistaking the desired effect. No reasonable atheist believes this is going to turn someone from a theist to an atheist. It’s a message of reasurrance to atheists and agnostics; you are not alone, other people think like you.
You say that feeling lonely in non-belief denotes a lack of security in that state. I’m sorry if this sounds a little blunt but I think that’s simply because you have no way of knowing what it’s really like in a country like the US.
Imagine growing up all your life in a society that says that the Hindi religion is the right religion. Every politician proclaims it, every holiday marks it, every single cultural signal around you says it. On the other hand Christians are unorganized and unrecognized. There are precious few places where Christians get together. You are allowed free practice of your religion yes, but a million things tell you you are less than welcome. Open disdain of Christians by Hindi leaders and even politicians is frequent and rarely condemned. You know that many Hindi are told that Christians are morally inferior, sinful or at the very least “lost”. Every thing that is simple for Hindi institutions is like pulling teeth for Christian ones, from getting tax-free status to organizing conferences to share your faith (whenever you do, you inevitably are told that sharing your Christian faith is by definition an attack on the Hindi faith). In many parts of the country you could lose your job or at the very least your standing in the community by disclosing that you are not a Hindi. Many community activities revolve around the dominant religion and therefore naturally enough do not include you. Every time you try a public demonstration of your Christianity You even have to engage in serious discussions with people on why it is in fact possible to be a Christian and still be as morally sound as a Hindi.
Such is the society many American atheists inhabit. Now, don’t get me wrong, in parts of the US, especially the big cities, it’s not like atheists and agnostics live in fear, and my guess is that most urban atheists go about their lives normally almost all the time. People of no religion of course also have friends and family (though many hide their non-belief out of fear of rejection), so being personally lonely is not really a problem. But yes it can feel a little lonely on the societal scale, and I’m sure plenty of atheists would very much appreciate some visible public demonstration that merely says “you are not alone”. Virtually all stories that explicitly involve atheists usually involve them fighting religious institutions, not reaching out to other atheists (there’s a reason for that, but it would make the comment even longer).
I would have one nitpick with the matter. I do agree that being lonely “during the holidays” is probably not the issue. The things that make non-believers isolated are the same year round, and I don’t see them changing much during the holidays. As you’ve rightly pointed out, Christmas is such a comercialized and secularized holiday that I hardly see why the non-religious would feel any more bothered by it than any other. I celebrated Christmas as a child, with a Christmas tree. My equally atheist jewish grandparents would send me chanukah gifs at around the same time. We’d have a special dinner on Christmas Eve. I never attached any religious meaning to the event.
Nevin, my point though is that there’s nothing wrong with ANY of that. I’m one to favor more free expression, not less- and fewer complaints about all of it. Instead of religious people saying that someone’s expression of an atheistic or agnostic viewpoint is harmful to them in some way, they should celebrate the fact that living an a land with First Amendment rights means that EVERYONE can express their views. Anyone who feels that a scene of a manger endangers the ability of individuals to choose to venerate it or not, or who feels alternately that a silly photo of a woman in a Santa suit asking us to abandon belief in God is somehow going to influence people’s beliefs, has a pretty shallow opinion about the ability of the human mind to process information.
C. Stanley, when you say it will have the “opposite effect” of the one desired, I think you are mistaking the desired effect. No reasonable atheist believes this is going to turn someone from a theist to an atheist. It’s a message of reasurrance to atheists and agnostics; you are not alone, other people think like you.
I think what I meant was more along these lines, Claudia- aside from that purpose you describe for this ad (you’re probably right about that) I’ve also heard atheists express a desire for their views to become more normalized and accepted in our society. When you use methods like this though, it turns people off because it’s rather ‘in your face’. Perhaps a better ad campaign would have expressed solidarity with the secular view of the holidays while also showing respect for those who are celebrating the religious holidays. It could even be tongue in cheek, like thanking Christians for originating a holiday where both religious and non-religious could have fun.
On your other comments in response to mine, Claudia, I think you’re missing my point. I’m not trying to make light of how difficult it would be to be in the minority. But the point is that NO ONE has any right to expect differently. If you are in the minority then by definition you are different than the majority and will feel isolated at times. There are plenty of avenues available to you to deal with that, but you can’t supress the rights of the majority to freely practice their religion in the public square in order to assuage your own feelings about your isolation.
One of the parts of all of this that’s galling to Christians is that our history is being overlooked by those who claim that we aren’t really a Christian nation etc. That’s just patently false- and if atheists and agnostics would acknowledge the good contributions of Christianity instead of looking at every fault of organized religion and ignoring the good, then they’d have a lot better chance of having their own views become more accepted. Respect breeds respect.
This conversation is very circular. “respect breeds respect” can be said for all parties. It seems to me, neither the believer or the non-believer can be persuaded to change their minds on their beliefs. Both sides have their opinions and can not be changed by adds, billboards or commercials. In fact, it can make one even more stubborn in thinking, “I am right”. But the fact is if one analysis organized religion in the historical context, one can find lots wars, blood shed, hangings and atrocities committed in the name of GOD! I am not saying religion is at fault, but I am saying those who use religion is at fault. You don’t find agnostics or atheists hanging a believer for befriending God.
One have to see the humor in all this. The only thing that I can say is, I am teaching my children to be good and kind to others, they don’t need God for that….
Claudia;
I know it’s easy to say that but do you have any stats regarding what Christians belief so that we have a denominator to your “many Christians” numerator. I do think you have a skewed view of Christians. Please don’t rely upon James Dobson or John Hagee as the example of what an “every day American Christian” is.
If you do go to the Bible Belt, make sure you bring a gun…its a dangerous place!
On a more serious note I beleive the discussion (which hasn’t been particularly heated) is whether an ad on the government run mass transit said something about state endorsement of a particular religious view. That’s decidedly different than a private individual putting up an ad.
C Stanley, I’d go so far as to say that part of Claudia’s last analogy is extreme and simply not true. An Atheists PERCEPTION may be that Christians announce that theirs is the “right” religion, but I for one don’t, nor do most of the people that I know that are Christians. “To each his own”, I say, “whatever floats your boat”. A minorities perception of a majority group’s thoughts does not necessarily reflect reality. One could just as fairly argue that the minority is covetous of what they want for their own group. One again, there are excetions to this, (and a good exception may be the bible belt area) But for the rest of the country, I just don’t see. I’ve said it before, we should not wordsmith our arguments to make the exception the rule, that “house of cards” of an argument just doesn’t work. If I was in the analogy she painted, and changed Hindi for Chiristian, and Christian for Atheist, that seems like parts of the extreme South. Not Boston, or New York, or LA, or Chicago, etc, etc… You get the drill.
Of course, Nevin, in terms of the respect needing to be bilateral. I probably didn’t make that clear since I was talking about one side- but if it’s not obvious I’ll go ahead and state that intolerance and hatred toward nonbelievers is completely unacceptable.
I appreciate that you’re making the distinction between those who’ve coapted religion for nefarious purposes, but that’s often overlooked and instead religious believers who worship a rational and consistent God who doesn’t support violence are lumped in with fanatics. It’s also often overlooked that for all of those wars and negative effects throughout history (which were just as often truly tribal wars, where religion was used but was not the instigator), there have also been remarkable progressive effects on our legal system and social services (how many people are aware, for instance, of how much the Catholic Church has done to provide healthcare in the history of the US? And how many homeless or poor have been helped by shelters and soup kitchens sponsored by churches?) I don’t think it’s fair to point out the negative effects without acknowledging the good- because once one does look at it objectively it’s reasonable to conclude that religion is a force that is positive when true believers are involved (just as you are a believer in teaching your kids to be good and kind) and negative when people who aren’t true believers pretend that they are and influence others to lead a movement based on evil instead of good.
Shall we discuss Josef Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot? Hitler did not seem to have any particular religious world view. Yet his regime seems to have great difficulty with religious people who disagreed with him on “religious” grounds.
Martin Luther King regularly used biblical passages to exhort his fellow civil rights campaigners, many who came from the churches in the South. Shall I go on?
It is entirely consistent with a Christian world view to expect many who claim Jesus as they’re inspiration to do “un-christian” acts.
c3: Good point (though I expect someone will chime in to take exception to your inclusion of Hitler because he ostensibly embraced Christianity, although even a cursory knowledge of that shows that he was coapting the culture’s embedded religious tradition and not truly claiming that God supported the extermination policies he implemented.)
Anyway- I wans’t even thinking in those terms until you brought it up, but now that you mention it I’ll also point out that China is CURRENTLY engaging in a reign of terror against all religious practice, claiming it’s a threat to the state.
Certain (not so kind) individuals who wish to round up masses of people to support their causes can either use religion or an ideology. It is easier to corral the masses if you give them one thing to believe in whether it is God or an ideology such as Communism… Let me make myself clear…. I do not say religion is the cause of evil but religion is used systematically through out history for evil. Of course, there are plenty of individuals who have used it for good but you must all see where this conversation is going. Religion is an ideology of some sort and can be used for all sorts of things. Does it really have anything to do with “reality”? It can be seen as a political movement or an ideology which I reject! And most of you do not, it seems… Let’s all agree to disagree…
Does it really have anything to do with “reality”?
I say yes (and Pope Benedict has written and spoken eloquently on our theology’s belief that God= Logos or ‘reason’) and you say no. And you’re right, that’s where we have to respectfully agree to disagree.
“Where is the equality? Where is my due protection under the law?”
Right here.
Advertising on the DC Metro is handled by CBS Outdoor and they accept religious advertising of all sorts. This is hardly surprising since I have seen religious advertising on buses in every place I have lived. If they accept explicitly religious advertising then shouldn’t they accept explicitly agnostic or atheist advertising as well?
“Yet even those who maintain that the Founding Fathers were largely deists cannot deny the influence of the Ten Commandments as the country’s fundamental principles.”
You shall not steal.
Really? Let’s take a moment and look at all ten. (from the New American Standard – I think one of the better English translations)
1) You shall have no other gods before Me.
2) You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
3) You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
4) Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
5) Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
6) You shall not murder.
7) You shall not commit adultery.
9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
1-4 are purely JudeoChristian practice in nature. Given the language of the 1st amendment, I don’t believe that the founders intended to enshrine these as fundamental principles for this country.
Commandments 1-3 are prohibited from being laws by the 1st amendment.
4 as well if explicitly for the purpose stated, but blue laws are still around where I grew up.
5, 7, and 10 are good rules to live by but are not enshrined anywhere in the Constitution or current law. 7 is grounds for divorce though.
That leaves 6, 8, and 9. Murdering, stealing, and bearing false witness. Does anyone really think that Exodus is the first expression of these principles?
6, 8, and in some specific instances 9 are currently mirrored in US law. That’s 30% at best and probably closer to 20%.
Hammurabi’s Code comes much closer. I think the founders were familiar with it as well.
“I expect someone will chime in to take exception to your inclusion of Hitler because he ostensibly embraced Christianity, although even a cursory knowledge of that shows that he was coapting the culture’s embedded religious tradition”
True enough. Hitler used religion to motivate masses but did not likely have deeply held religious convictions and the killings were not in the name of God.
Similarly Stalin and Mao’s purges were not in the name of atheism. They were in the name of Communism, because they wanted no competing ideology (religious or otherwise).
I think it can be fairly said that at least some of Mao’s repression was explicitly in the name of promoting official atheism. It can certainly be said fairly about Pol Pot as well as the rulers of newly unified Vietnam after 1975 who engaged in an orgy of violence and coercion against Catholics. It is also simply fact that some modern atheists — Elton John springs to mind — have explicitly called for the use of state power to “ban” religion, though it is doubtful that they would actually endorse killing as the method. I suspect they would prefer mandatory re-education sessions or punitive taxation instead.
It is true that not all persecution of religion is explicitly atheist. It is not true that there is no history of persecuting religion in atheism at all.
“I think it can be fairly said that at least some of Mao’s repression was explicitly in the name of promoting official atheism.”
More accurately it was in the name of promoting Communism and statism. Any and all opposing ideologies were to be crushed. The same is true of other Communist regimes. This is a large part of why state Communism is a terrible system in practice. It cannot handle free expression and so must suppress all opposing views or fail sooner rather than later.
“It is not true that there is no history of persecuting religion in atheism at all.”
Certainly atheists have persecuted the religious when they had the power to do so, just as the religious have persecuted atheists and other religions when they had the power to do so. People are people and some of them do very bad things.
On an unrelated topic, what tags are used here to set aside quotes?
At other sites I am able to use
, but that does not seem to work here.
Re: the unrelated topic
Nevermind.
The repressive tradition among some atheists is very prominent in state Communism, but it is not limited to that environment. There are some militant atheists in the liberal West who have explicitly endorsed the use of coercion and repression to shut down religion that they perceive as socially harmful.
An example can be seen in the way that atheism is sometimes imposed in schools. While atheists are correct that public schools cannot and should not endorse religion, there have been repeated incidents where the campaign against religious expression by individuals in schools has been taken to a ridiculous level, including firing teachers for merely possessing a Bible while on public school grounds and suspending students for merely wearing a cross. The second clause of the religious freedom guarantee in the First Amendment is deployed by atheists to effectively abolish the first clause.
And as we have graphically seen in California in the last week, some atheists in the liberal West are even capable of becoming violent in their desire to confront and counter expressions of religious belief that they don’t like or find personally offensive. Noting that some Christians have historically or contemporaneously committed acts that are equally bad or worse is not relevant nor is it an excuse (though it seems to be invoked reflexively and ritualistically whenever the subject of militant atheism comes up).
I don’t believe that the advert on the trains in DC is an expression of militant atheism or of repression. I’m only responding to the sweeping implication that atheism is somehow less likely to be repressive or intolerant than religious belief is. (It is, of course, interesting to note that the message from the American Humanist Association is reflexively negative — it is premised explicitly on opposing a belief in God while its vague positive message is relegated to secondary status — this is further evidence of my overall critique of atheism as an intrinsically “anti-ist” ideology rather than a positive advocacy FOR anything. It remains an ideology of contempt towards those who believe in God. And yes, I am aware that you have an understanding of the word “ideology” that you use to change the subject here, but I still think it is the appropriate term and a valid criticism of the loosely constituted “atheist movement”.)
Jason, you have used this “militant atheist” terminology many times… Give me examples of militant atheists? I mean concrete examples in history, not scattered opinion???
I am not sure how “concrete examples” are distinguishable from “scattered opinion” except as an ad hoc excuse to wave off whatever examples I might provide.
The examples I have in mind when I refer to “militant atheists” are those who advocate extreme intolerance or contempt towards religious believers rather than merely expressing their own non-belief. Such figures include Richard Dawkins, Madelaine Murray O’Hare, and Christopher Hitchens. It also refers to those that advocate using the power of the state to impose their non-belief on others as mandatory, such as Elton John.
Those who merely believe that God does not exist and who might even seek to persuade others of that belief are not “militant atheists”. Only when their belief is willfully expressed as contempt, abuse, or coercion towards those that hold different beliefs do I think the pejorative designation is appropriate. The advert on the DC train is mildly contemptuous towards believers, or at least condescending towards them, but it is not militant in its content or mode of expression. The guys ripping crosses out of the hands of believers in California and stomping on them are. The people vandalizing churches are. The people who banned religion, burned churches, and killed, jailed, or “reeducated” religious believers in Vietnam and Cambodia were. The people who advocate that anyone who is a religious believer should be barred from public office or even from all forms of public political expression are. And the people who filed suit to require a cross built on private land to honor war dead be torn down merely because it could be SEEN from public land were definitely “militant atheists”.
hmmmm…. let’s see… one is a singer, the other a scientist, another a journalist (who also supported Bush who happens to be an Evangelical Christian). They are hardly “Militants”… Are there any violence in their actions? NO! In that case, I may see you as a militant religious advocate… Disprove me!
Nevin, you seem to be unaware that militant does not equal violent. Although one definition (and presumably the root of the word) has that connotation as in ‘military’, there’s another completely acceptable definition which relates to aggressive advocacy:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/militant
Main Entry: mil·i·tant
Pronunciation: \-tənt\
Function: adjective
Date: 15th century
1 : engaged in warfare or combat : fighting
2 : aggressively active (as in a cause) : combative
The end of that second definition didn’t show up; the examples given were “militant conservationists” and “militant attitude.”
Then everyone is militant. Doesn’t that kind of kill the argument! We have the draw the line somewhere, right? I draw it in violence. If yours is singing, writing and speaking out, then we have different views in “Militancy”…. According to your argument, anyone who voices their opinion against yours, is a militant… In mine, anyone who engages in violence is a militant… Let’s face it, there are no militant Atheists in history, this terminology is a joke and you know it!
I do agree that being lonely “during the holidays” is probably not the issue. The things that make non-believers isolated are the same year round, and I don’t see them changing much during the holidays.
You know, I think it needs to be pointed out that feeling lonely during the holidays is extremely common and has very little to do with belief in god or adherence to a specific religious tradition. It has to do with the strength and meaningfulness of family connections and a whole lot of other things, but really, religiosity or lack of same does not play a significant part.
How has Elton John advocated using the power of the state to enforce his and others’ non-belief? I’m clear on the other two examples (which doesn’t mean I agree; just that I know what’s being referred to), but Elton John I have no clue.
First, let me get the semantic portion argument out of the way. In order to have a reasoned debate definitions must be agreed upon. I think the following are reasonable (most come from Websters).
Atheist: one who believes that there is no deity
Theist: belief in the existence of a god or gods ; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world
Agnostic: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable ; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
Antitheist: active opposition to theism. Generally believing that religion is a negative force in the world and so should be opposed. An active antitheist seems to be what jason means when he says ‘militant atheist’. Sorry I can’t let it go. Words mean things.
Ideology: a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture b: a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture c: the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program
Militant: aggressively active (as in a cause) : combative
Neither theism or atheism are ideologies. Nor is agnosticism. They are broad categories based on the answer to one and only one question, “Is there a god(s)?”. That is it there is no more.
Under those broad categories there are many ideologies. We are all familiar with many of the theist ideologies (Southern Baptist, Wahabist, Jain, etc.). To attempt to create an equivalence that conflates all of these into the single ‘ideology’ of theism is plainly silly. The same is true of trying to call all atheistic ideologies as one single ‘ideology’.
And they are a tiny fringe within a relatively small minority. Tarring atheism with Elton John’s silly views is akin to tarring all of religion (not just Christianity) with the views of Dobson or Phelps. Most religious people are reasonable as are most atheists.
It is entirely uncontroversial in the US for theists of various stripes to publicly post statements of their belief and to attempt to convert others to their faith in the public square. Unfortunately it is still quite controversial for atheists to make analogous bold statements in the public square. When they have the temerity to do so, they are swiftly condemned for it.
Atheism is not imposed in American schools. Neither is it imposed in Western European schools that I am aware of. What has been imposed are bans on evangelizing and in some cases religious (or antireligious) displays.
Here I assume that you are speaking about the actions of No on 8 supporters, am I correct?
If so, do you have any evidence that these acts were committed in whole or primarily by atheists? I could find no such evidence.
It is only relevant if atheists are being portrayed as morally inferior to Christians because of the acts of a few atheists. In that case though it is entirely relevant, though the bad acts of neither are excused by it.
The message again, “Why believe in God? Just be good for goodness’ sake.”
One simple question followed immediately by good advice. Where is the negativity?
Would you label the admonition to question authority as reflexively negative? Even if so, does that make it bad or bad advice?
Again, atheism is not an ideology of any stripe. Aside from that does our (assumed) lack of belief in ghosts, goblins, unicorns, etc make us intrinsically “anti-ist”?
Once again, it is not an ideology. As for contempt, only in the narrowest possible definition (lack of reverence for something). If we use the common definition (the act of despising something); that is only the position of antitheists, not atheists in general.
As an analogy, Christians believe that those who do not accept Jesus as their lord and savior are doomed to hell (or purgatory). To represent this as the view of all theists, or even all monotheists, is not only wrong but silly.
Then you are indeed talking about a Dobsian minority.
As to your examples:
Those three are/were antitheist and do/did show open contempt for religious belief, but have/did not to my knowledge advocated coercive tactics be used against believers.
O’Hair’s lawsuit regarding her son being coerced into bible readings in a public school was both ethically and constitutionally sound.
They were militant (in the primary – violent – sense of the word) Communists. It was their statist Communist ideology that drove them to that action rather than their lack of belief in god.
Tarring existentialists with these violent actions is akin to tarring Jains for the Crusades.
Who are these people? I have never met one.
Which case are you talking about>
Does anyone know why my comment turned blue after the first blockquote?
You have hyperlink code in there, Grewgills. And the ending tag is missing, which is why the entire section is hyperlinked.
Sir Elton John has said he would like to see all organised religion banned and accused it of trying to “turn hatred towards gay people”.
– BBC News, 12 Dec 2006
Tell me, Kathy, who would be banning all organized religion if not the state?
Grewgills,
I did no such thing. I made clear repeatedly that I was talking about a subset of atheism, not all of it. Your continuing dishonesty in characterizing what I actually do or do not say in addition to your continuing attempt to impose redefinitions to divert and distract any criticism of atheist excesses reinforces my prior decision not to engage in detailed discussions with you until such time as you alter that pattern. My experiences with you up to this point indicate to me that you are not an intellectually honest interlocutor and I have no time to waste with you now.
This is a complete misrepresentation of what I specifically said. You join Grewgills in the liar’s hall of shame, Nevin.
Then what exactly is the point of bringing it up in this context?
To simply state that some atheists are excessive adds exactly what to the conversation about this particular advertisement?
Some atheists are excessive in their criticism of religion. Some religious people are excessive in their criticism of people of other religions and of atheists. So what? How is that relevant? Both of the recent times the topic of atheists publicly expressing their views about the nonexistence of god in a fairly benign manner has come up you point out the excesses of a few outspoken atheists. What is the point of this if not to tar them with the implied association?
As pointed out in the post with the definitions no honest debate on a topic is possible without agreed upon definitions. The definitions provided came from Webster’s and theology.com. These are not definitions that I made up. They are general agreed upon definitions. You may feel that it is pointless semantics, but it is the basis of reasoned discourse.
Finding a position silly or uninformed does not equal dishonesty.
This is where the fun really starts, since Dawkins, for example, does nothing of the kind. You are indulging in a classic redefinition of terms to support your point, and your position is indeed rather silly. no intolerance implied. As grewgills has noted, “finding a position silly or uninformed does not equal dishonesty”. neither does it equal a desire to prevent you from speaking your mind.
If you are willing to blow up a building or yourself for your cause, I think you qualify as being “militant”. For instance, I personally would like high heels to be banned from all society. I’m serious about this. It’s unhealthy and dangerous and makes women unable to respond in the appropriate manner if they are faced with unexpected violence. Now does that make me a militant feminist? I don’t think so. It only dilutes the meaning of what a militant is truly capable of.
And, what I do get from the ad is the idea that morality is not and should not be dependent upon organized religion of any kind. We should not be “good” just because we are afraid that God will punish us otherwise. We should be good for the sake of being good.
There IS right or wrong even in the absence of religion. THAT’s the beauty of morality and what makes moral and good acts even more valuable. You are being good not because a higher being is telling you to be so but because of your free will and inherent altruism.
Also a book like “Are you Hannukah or Christmas” is by definition excluding and even alienating kids who don’t subscribe to either religion. These are little kids we’re talking about. If it was an “adult” book I would understand. I don’t believe that God intended for little children to feel alienated in their classroom or in society in general…
I am asking you kindly, AGAIN, please prove to me with specific examples in history of “Militant Atheists”. If you wish not to continue this discussion, I fully understand and except your silence as an answer. But It will also prove to me that your argument has no basis…
Given that my attempt to respond to your previous asking of this question resulted in you completely 180 degrees misrepresenting my answer, making personal attacks, and otherwise violating the long-published comments policy, I will NOT be engaging in further attempts, Nevin. There is no point in providing answers to someone who will only appears inclined to lie about what those answers were if it doesn’t fit their preconceived notions.
P.S. It is standard practice to delete ALL comments that make personal attacks, blatantly misrepresent the statements of another person, and/or attempt to argue publicly about the comments policy. If you had been someone with a worse track record before this series of incidents, you would have been banned already. You should take your complaints about the comments policy to email ONLY.
We should not be “good” just because we are afraid that God will punish us otherwise. We should be good for the sake of being good.
I feel you have a basic misunderstanding of what most religious people believe. Perhaps a minority of them base their beliefs on fear, but for my own Church and most others that I’m somewhat familiar with, we feel the same as you do about being good for the sake of being good (although we augment that with the belief that this is in essence, aligning our will with God’s because He=Good, and that doing so is in our interest because he designed us to do these good works for the benefit of all creation.)
If you are going to criticize religious belief, wouldn’t it make sense to become more informed about what it is we actually believe? Just as religious people ought to feel comfortable finding common ground with nonbelievers in the interest of good works, it ought to work the other way as well IMO.
And as to the militancy issue, that’s pretty much where I draw the line. People who won’t be bothered to take the time to learn the positive side of religion through the ages, and won’t take the time to even gain a cursory knowledge of what most religions believe (and why the followers adhere to the religion), but find time to criticize and speak out against every negative action that has been related to religion, are militant and intolerant activists IMO. Again, note that the definition of militancy is distinct from the definition of ‘violent’. It speaks to an aggressiveness which seeks to defeat an opponent rather than an intellectually honest movement to gain credibility for an alternative belief system or philosophy which espouses lack of belief.
I have NOT criticized religious belief. Merely affirming the fact that morality does NOT depend on religion is NOT a criticism of religion or religious belief. I am merely stating the fact that organized religions do NOT have a monopoly on morality. And THIS is what I get out of the advertisement on the bus.
Christine, please tell me how you infer from this statement that I am either critical of religious belief or not religious at all, as you are suggesting that I learn more about what it is that “religious people” believe.
Also, what makes you think that I’m not religious? I think I have a right to ask this question.
Jason, the word “militant” is a misrepresentation in and of itself unless it refers to people who are either threatening with violence or otherwise engaging in physical actions. This word is the only misrepresentation that I’m seeing in this thread so far.
I do not agree that “militant” refers only to violence. Militancy can also refer to an aggressive, obstreperous attitude that is intolerant towards all those that disagree. This variety of militancy seems to me somewhat common among the atheists who are the public face of their movement in the media and on the blogosphere. Perhaps instead of just trying to nit-pick the terminology and thus hope to evade all criticism by rendering it impossible to find an acceptable language to express any criticism of atheism (notably using standards that they do not use themselves with regards to militant Christians), the defenders of militant atheists should engage with the substance of the criticisms.
Jason, I dealt with the substance of what was on the bus. As much as atheism bothers and offends people and inspires “militant” responses from them, the ad makes merely makes the point that religion is not a condition or basis for morality. And for that, I was understood as someone who did not understand religons or religious people. Also Nevin was not greeted in a warm and fuzzy fashion either. I assume your definition of “militancy” would apply to how the “opposition’s” opinions have been received in this thread?
Selin, I apologize if I overstepped in my assumptions but my statement there was in reference to your own quote. You wrote that we shouldn’t be good just for fear of punishment by God, and I’m pointing out that this is a common misunderstanding that many nonreligious people have about the motivations of religious people. If you aren’t a nonreligious person, well, then you and I just disagree on what motivates religious belief and practice I guess. I don’t believe the vast majority of religious people choose their actions based on a belief that they will be rewarded or punished- any more than any person chooses, say. not to steal or murder based just on whether or not they’ll get caught.
Personally I don’t think the bus advertisement is an example of militancy, and I’m not sure Jason’s claiming that either. But it does veer toward, as I referenced earlier, an ‘in your face’ approach because instead of advertising about the shared values (the type of campaign I think would be more likely to result in increased acceptance of atheism/agnosticism), the ad instead chooses to focuses on appealing to the atheists without regard for how it plays to religious people.
And the only thing I really find annoying about it is that it’s an attempt to put the final nail in the coffin of spirituality in our celebration of Christmas. The holidays have already been stripped of most religious meaning by our overly commercialized culture, so it’s a bit ridiculous for atheists to still feel the need to push for stronger secularization (without even acknowledging that the holiday itself wouldn’t exist if not for the religious traditions of our culture.) It’s in that regard that I feel the ad probably has more blowback than positive effect, but that’s just my opinion and again, I don’t think the ad itself is an example of militancy (just tone deafness toward the feelings of others- which generally isn’t a good approach if one feels that others are tone deaf toward you.)
Not a problem at all, Christine. I just feel everyone is way overreacting to everything nowadays, including the ad on the bus, the opposition to the ad on the bus, the supporters of gay marriage, the supporters of opponents of gay marriage, and so on. These are not hot-button issues for me, although I have other issues that I may be “militant” about.
I explicitly said that it was not and example of militancy. The ad seemed quite mild, especially compared to other things that have become the dominant public face of atheism. The only objection I have to it is that, in spite of its mildness, it still expresses the inherent negativity and contempt/condescension lying at the core of atheist ideology.
And Selin, yes, I am “militant” about confronting people who lie about what other people did and did not actually say. Such behavior makes me very angry and hostile towards the person doing it. That is the reason that I react differently to Grewgills/Nevin than I do to, say, Claudia. All those people disagree with me wrt this issue, but GG/Nevin have been dishonest in their characterizations of what I did or didn’t say while Claudia has not.
So holding you to actual dictionary definitions is evasion?
Wrong again, I am precise there as well, though I don’t recall criticizing Christians at this venue. The only commentary I believe I have made here that could be construed as criticism of Christians here is that if one were to hold Christians or theists in general to the same standards that some want to hold atheists to then they would be found wanting as well. I have argued for a single standard and precision in language. And once again with out some precision in language and agreed upon definitions rational argument is not productive.
Read my comments. They engage both the substance and semantics of your and others arguments. To imply otherwise is not honest.
Two points here aside from the improper use of ideology:
1) You say that you are only criticizing a subset of atheists and then you bust out with this. Do you actually believe that at the core of all atheist ideologies (not a single ideology) lies negativity, contempt, and condescension? Where is it in existentialism for instance?
2) Where is the contempt or condescension?
How do you express your lack of belief in a deity(s) without being labeled negative by you? I see no way using your apparent standard for atheists to avoid this criticism. Does our unified lack of belief in unicorns make us inherently negative in our ideologies?
I respond to both the explicit and implicit messages in comments. When I respond to the implicit message you point out that it was not the explicit message and call me a liar. That is not conducive to reasoned debate.
I will also point out that I have exclusively addressed arguments and have refrained until the following phrase from ad hominem, unlike some here.
Holding me to selected, partial dictionary definitions that are only interpreted according to your self-serving standards while you refuse to even respond to my counter-interpretations and while you ignore the substantive content of my criticisms to focus exclusively on your semantic obsessions is, in my opinion, evasion.
You call it “implicit messages”. I call it reading into my statements things that are not actually there and, on at least two occasions, things that I had explicitly disavowed. For example, I have repeatedly made clear that I don’t think that the subway ad is “militant” anyway, but you and Nevin keep bringing us back to the accusation that I am citing this as some kind of example of “militant” atheism, no doubt as some kind of perception of an “implicit” argument from me. It is ridiculous to find implicit that which has been disavowed explicitly. If you don’t like being called on it, don’t do it.
And I don’t think you get to legitimately complain about the absence of “reasoned debate” when you are the one that keeps hijacking threads with your attempts to impose your very narrow definitions and interpretations as mandatory and since you are the one that refuses to address substance until you gain concession of your claim of exclusive authority to definitively determine what terms everyone is allowed to use.
Perhaps we could just agree to disagree about whether the words “militant” or “ideology” are correct and just focus on the substantive issues? Do you think you could tolerate that? Or must you “win” that discussion before you will condescend to address minor and lesser issues like people losing their jobs and having their churches vandalized as a result of nothing more than their status as religious believers?
P.S. No ad hom attack has been made on you. In fact, none is possible since you do not disclose any details about who you are. The things you have actually said have provoked criticism for their lack of honesty, but that is criticism of behavior, not personal identity. I would have expected that someone with such a fixation on dictionary definitions would have known the difference without my having to point it out to you.
Tell me, Kathy, who would be banning all organized religion if not the state?
I don’t agree that all organized religion should be banned — by the state or any other entity. Banning all organized religion would not eliminate homophobia or hatred grounded in or justified by religious doctrine anyway, for the simple reason that human beings create religions, and hatred is a human character trait. The hatred doesn’t come from religion; it comes from humans, who use religion to try to normalize their hatred.
Having said that, I think it’s possible to see Elton John’s statement as hyperbolic. He’s gay (as we all know) and religiously based anti-gay legislation is not just a topic of political debate for him; it’s an existential issue. At the same time, he strikes me as an intelligent man, and I doubt he really believes homophobic feeling and writing discrimination against gays and lesbians into the law would end merely by making organized religion illegal.
Kathy, you seem to have a double standard in how you interpret bigoted statements and hateful behavior. When they come from fundamentalist Christians like James Dobson, you interpret them as indicative of genuine malevolence that is dangerous. You further interpret them as accurate indications of the beliefs of the entire group they claim to represent. When they come from anti-Christians like Elton John, however, you interpret them as merely hyperbolic and harmless and not indicative of anything except the statements of an isolated individual. Those you agree with in principle seem incapable in your eyes of anything more than mere hyperbole, while those you disagree with have all their statements and actions interpreted in the worst possible light.
I don’t think that is a pattern of fairness on your part or the part of some of the other defenders of atheism that have been posting here lately as well as those gay rights advocates who have been targeting Mormons for harassment, intimidation, and vandalism over the last couple of weeks. Either bigoted statements and actions are wrong or they are not, there should not be a special set of excuses for liberals and leftists and atheists alone to escape accountability for their statements while conservatives, rightists, and religious believers have to be accountability for anything and everything they said or that is said allegedly on their behalf.
I cut and pasted from Websters and theology.com and I used the definitions appropriate for the context. For instance when providing the definition for ideology I did not include:
because it was not relevant to the discussion, not out of some supposed self serving standard. I will note that atheism does not fit this definition of ideology either. That is both of Websters full definitions of ideology and neither fits. Try again.
I have repeatedly made comments that dealt with virtually point you put forward, while you cherry pick my comments for excuses not to engage with the substance of the rest of my argument. You then accuse me of evasion.
Then what is the purpose of bringing up Elton John in the context of this argument? Indeed what it the point of bringing up militant antitheists in both threads that I have seen you comment on atheists publicly stating their views on god?
I can frankly see no point in it other than an attempt to tar the one group with the views of the other. If you have another valid reason please state it explicitly.
Please provide the quote where I said or implied any such thing. If you cannot please hold yourself to the same standard that you hold me to.
Once again they are not my definitions. They are Websters. If you have another authoritative source that defines these terms in the way you are attempting to use them provide it as a counter. And one more time, reasoned debate is not possible when people are using different definitions for the same terms. The honest and reasonable thing to do is to use accepted definitions (Websters, OED, and the like). How exactly is this an unreasonable request?
I think any reasonable reading of my comments will show that I addressed both the substance and the semantics of your arguments (and those of other participants). I welcome mediation or arbitration on this point from other editors and/or commenters.
If you look back you will see that the definition of militant I provided (from Websters) comfortably holds your usage.
Re: ideology your use of the term amounts to a substantive issue in this debate as it creates a unity that is not present.
Calling me a liar or saying I belong in a liars hall of fame is attacking me rather than my argument and therefor is ad hominem. Attacking points of my argument you think are false is not. There is a difference.
Re: Elton John
As Kathy pointed out I would think that his comments stem more from his sexuality and his feelings of persecution on that front than his religious belief or lack thereof. What he said remains foolish and not representative of the atheist or homosexual community at large.
You have ignored well over half of the specific points I have made in rebuttal to your arguments. I would appreciate if you would attempt to address the rest.
Grewgills,
I maintain that the term “ideology” is appropriate because of the key continuity between atheist arguments — specifically, the interconnecting and intrinsic claims of the definitive non-existence of God and the intellectual and moral inferiority of believers.
I you cannot tolerate a discussion where I maintain that position as a premise for other remarks I might make, that’s your prerogative. But I think I have the right to reject your demands that I alter my words as a precondition, especially since I have no doubt that you would reject any reciprocal demands.
The intellectual and moral inferiority of believers is not an intrinsic claim of atheism or of atheists in general. Just because a variety of theist dogmas assert the moral inferiority of non-believers does not mean the reciprocal is true.
I can tolerate it, but I will also argue that you are basing your arguments on a false premise.
That would depend entirely on the demand and the support provided.
A question for you, is theism an ideology?
And again I request that you address the many other rebuttal points I have made.
Kathy, you seem to have a double standard in how you interpret bigoted statements and hateful behavior. When they come from fundamentalist Christians like James Dobson, you interpret them as indicative of genuine malevolence that is dangerous. You further interpret them as accurate indications of the beliefs of the entire group they claim to represent. When they come from anti-Christians like Elton John, however, you interpret them as merely hyperbolic and harmless and not indicative of anything except the statements of an isolated individual.
Whoa nelly, Jason — that is an awesomely sweeping conclusion to take from what I wrote about Elton John.
First off, I did not know Elton John had made this statement (or more to the point held the view) until it came up here. I don’t have any larger context of past behavior, statements, or practice that would indicate to me that he seriously believes organized religion should be banned by law and is working to make that happen.
James Dobson, on the other hand (and others of his ilk) have a very long history of holding deplorably hateful and bigoted attitudes toward gays and lesbians, feminists, pro-choice advocates, atheists and agnostics, Muslims, wiccans, and anyone else who doesn’t share their narrow Christianist worldview. He also is an influential figure in a politically and financially powerful movement that not only advocates taking away people’s rights, but actually has participated in efforts to do so.
Second, James Dobson has not been harmed by any of the people and groups he hates so much and reviles at every opportunity. Even granting for the sake of argument that his views are sincerely held and not opportunistic or hypocritical, he has experienced no injury (in the broadest sense of that word) from feminists, abortion providers, homosexuals, etc. Therefore, his biases are much less easy to understand as anything other than unreasoning hatred of people whose views or lives don’t conform with his own extreme right-wing religious beliefs.
Elton John, by contrast, is a gay man who for much of his life had to lie about and hide a central part of who he is because of other people’s prejudices. He, like all people who are attracted to and fall in love with others of their same gender, has experienced discrimination sanctioned by law; has had to pretend to laugh at homophobic jokes; has had to deny himself the simple joy of holding the hand of the man he loves when they are in public (not as much now but for much of his life), or of being open about who his partner is when talking to others. It hurts to keep feelings inside, as one of the lines in a Gerry Goffin/Louise Goffin song goes. And some people have had a lifetime of keeping really strong and important feelings inside, feelings essential to who they are as a person.
Given these things — that, for me, Elton John’s comment really might have been an offhand comment because I never heard him advocate that before, as opposed to Dobson, who makes millions saying what he says ad nauseum; and that Dobson has no reason to feel angry or wounded by someone like Elton John (in the sense of who he is, setting aside the specific comment) whereas John has ample reason to feel angry and wounded by the entire M.O. of Dobson’s career, I think the charge of a double standard is a bit overblown.