Although this video of activist Greta Christina is primarily about atheism, this post is not really about atheism. She gets the “Why are you so angry?” question from religious people all the time. It’s a trick question, really, because it’s not like she’s a raving lunatic jumping up and down screaming about the religious right’s war on Solstice or anything. It’s more like *anything* that remotely in the teeny tiniest way calls into question the believer’s faith in the existence of god is deliberately misinterpreted as an aggressive act.
But what I like about Greta Christina’s talk the most is that what she says about how to use anger can- and MUST- be adopted by the reawakened feminist movement.
Smart lady. The best moment comes at about the 20:50 minute mark. Priceless.
Filed under: General | Tagged: anger, atheism, Feminists, Greta Christina, skepticon |
The Confluence 
hmmnn, interesting, not a single comment on this diary. So I will leave one. She spends several minutes talking about the religious imagining that atheists are always angry, Then she makes a joke about digging Jesus up again and crucifying him again, says it would be “awesome”. Everyone laughed. ……I listened a few more minuted, It all sounded kind of angry and petulant to me.
This is the experience I have has with my family. People who go to church mostly mind their own business and spend zero time converting people. The atheists feel they alone have stepped in to the scientific light and must burst everyone’s bubble.
Check out M. Scott Peck. and his explanation of the four stages of spiritual development.
http://tinyurl.com/77dfkc8
Atheism exists mostly in the third stage. Your pantheism would seem to be more of a 4th stage position. In other words atheism would be a step backwards not forwards. But that is just my opinion. And yes, that woman seems, well not angry, but rather high on her own brilliance. (ppppssstt….don’t tell her she is stuck in stage three and still has a lot to learn)
Edited for Teresa’s protection.
Did you see the entire video all the way to the end? I don’t think you watched the whole thing or REALLY listened to what she was saying. You heard her sarcastic remark about Jesus (who if he were alive today would probably be an atheist) and you didn’t actually listen to what she was saying. So, before you write another word, go back and watch this video all the way to the end and while you do, substitute the word “atheist” with the word “Martian”. Imagine a Martian came to earth to observe for awhile and this is his report.
I think you are stuck on the word “atheist” and the feelings that you have connected to this word has made it very difficult to understand that there are real, honest problems with believers and they are making the lives of other humans very miserable.
After you’ve made that mental switch to the word martian, and you have seen the entire video to the end, then you can comment on it.
As for the comments being empty, it was posted late at night, it was a video that people have to be in the mood for and if you read other blogs like Correntewire or Susie Madrak, you will find that comment threads for just plain videos are frequently empty. It is indicative of nothing. I think this is a great speech but if other people don’t, that’s ok. It doesn’t mean my world is falling apart.
BTW, you should check out the poll on Dawkins Belief Scale. It got over 100 respondents and the agnostics/atheists are beating the pants off of the religious. Around here, you are definitely in the minority.
I watched the whole talk. Thank you RD for pointing me to it.
Greta presented her points very clearly with, to my liking, a few nicely placed salty words. I particularly like how she highlighted that non-believers are angry mostly about the awful things that befall, not atheists but believers!
Horrible crimes against humanity happen because of religiosity, cover-ups by religious organizations, theocracies, religious groups inserting dogma into the commons and on and on and on.
Non-believers are angry because they are compassionate!!
Her other point I particularly liked was that the “angry” epithet is always tossed at movements for social justice. Yep. Remember all those “angry” Hillary supporters 🙂
She’s going to be at the Reason Rally in Washington, DC on March 24. I’m going to try to scrape the funds together to go.
I think the Reason Rally is going to exceed all expectations. And give conniptions to the good ole boys ie beanie boys et al.
I am too far away to make it but hope you will blog your experience, RD.
I didn’t watch the video, but the first thing I thought of when I saw this post was another group that is often called “angry,” vegans, which RD is NOT sympathetic to. The irony is that the majority of vegans that I’ve come across are atheists. I remember a board I was on for years having exactly 3 openly religious people on it. All women. One was a black Republican and another a doctor, so outliers, you could say.
There was a study done many years ago about the percentage of vegetarians who were atheists, and the number was astonishingly high. But the number of vegans appears to be even higher.
Btw, Vegans are angry because they’re compassionate! 😉
They’re also considered terrorists, after the AETA passed. Kucinich was the lone dissenter, and a vegan. Too far left for the current Dems. I will miss his outspokenness on a lot of different issues.
I have no problem with vegans. I just don’t happen to think people who eat meat are immoral. It’s when people apply a moral label to their choices that I have a problem. Like if you think abortion is immoral, don’t have one. That doesn’t give you the right to tell someone else they’re bad because circumstances aren’t propitious for babies at a certain point in their lives.
Same with religion. If you are a believer, go ahead and worship God as much as you like. Just don’t make other people do it or make them into second class citizens because they refuse to jump on your bandwagon.
I’ve never understood veganism. I kinda get the meat thing from a health and economic point of view. But no honey? No milk or cheese? I don’t *get* that. Honey is just a liquid sugar. You don’t even need to kill any bees to get it. And cows are going to lactate even when their calves are already weaned so where’s the harm in collecting their milk? Actually, by that logic, anything yeasty should be forbidden too. So, does that mean beer and wine are off limits? The logic escapes me.
I never thought of the yeast thing but, of course you’re right. Weird
Well, if it takes comments to validate the video, here’s mine. I thought it was great, but I didn’t feel my comments would add anything. I sent it to my like-minded daughter and sister and posted it on my FB page to stir the pot a little among the pious Mormons in my extended family, all of whom dismiss me but just can’t seem to stay away. I guess to them it must feel like staring at a train wreck. So thanks, RD.
I feel your pain. If you don’t think exactly like they do, somehow that’s threatening to their entire universe. I blame religious leaders for getting believers so worked up and anxious about their eternal salvation that they simply can not function without the constant reassurance of the reality of God.
If the thoughts of non-believers are so disturbing to them, why bring it up? As long as everyone keeps their thoughts to themselves, nobody gets hurt.