Crackergate: What was the point, anyway?

7/17/2008 | 3:00 PM | Evolved Rationalist

A few days ago, I posted about how I was going to support PZ in the Crackergate (Theistarded, Butthurt and Whiny Catholics) fiasco by indulging in a little sacrilege of my own:

For once in my life, I am really excited about waking up early on a Sunday to attend church. I am more than excited to be able to show my support to PZ my engaging in a little cracker desecration. Most importantly, unlike the student that the theistards harassed into returning the cracker, I will laugh at their faces if death threats start coming in; happy in the knowledge that I have caused a serious case of butthurt among some bigoted theistards.

I received the predictable ~~BAWWWWW~~ responses:

1. Why are you so rude? You should respect religion!
2. Do you think this would convince religious people about atheism?
3. What is the point? What are you trying to accomplish?
4. Why are you deliberately pissing people off?
5. Why don't you let them believe what they want to believe?

Meanwhile, over at the Friendly Atheist site, I noticed this false dichotomy:

Ask yourself: Are you in this to change religious minds or to make religious people angry?

As I don't have the time to respond to every e-mail about this issue, I am going to respond to the above questions in this post, hopefully without it becoming tl;dr. Rest assured that this will be my last post about the Crackergate fiasco unless Donahue...turns into an atheist after realizing that his communion cracker remained a cracker. One can dream, right?

First of all, let it be known that I don't have even an ounce of respect for the theistarded belief that a cracker can magically transform into the flesh of a dead savior god. Atheists who hide behind the mask of 'respecting' this belief are simply doing so because it is religion, and this because a lot of atheists have bought into this stupid notion that religion has to be respected simply by virtue of it being religion. If you still doubt that this is the case, imagine what would happen if someone were to claim that a blade of grass would magically turn into the flesh of a brain-eating sea monster from outer space after a few 'magic' words are muttered in front of it. Such a person would be sent to a psychiatric ward, and rightfully so! Why should something be given a free pass just because the label 'religion' is slapped on it? If this is the case, where are we to draw the line? Who is going to decide what exactly is 'religion' and what is not? If we shut up and avoid addressing religious claims, pretty soon there will be no more lines to draw, and everything, no matter how stupid or harmful, would be acceptable just because someone believes it and we should respect it. When that happens, welcome (back) to the Dark Ages.

The whole point of Crackergate does not have to be an either/or choice between pissing people off and trying to change religious minds. The main purpose of doing publicly visible things is to show Catholics/the religious that atheism is an option, and it would perhaps make moderate Catholics rethink their faith. It is no secret that many religious people have not thought their faiths through and aren't aware that not believing is an option. These people may stop and think "Wait, do I really believe that?" after the fiasco and the BAWWWWW response from their own side, and those are the people we could reach. We may not change religious people who have decided that their faith would trump reason, but it would start people thinking about their beliefs; and even if it does not automatically lead to atheism, getting people to think is always a good thing.

I am all for allowing people to believe whatever the hell they want to believe, as stupid as those beliefs may be. However, that doesn't mean we should simply shut up and avoid questioning and pointing out the fallacies of such beliefs. If they have a right to believe something, why shouldn't we have the right to disagree with their beliefs and make our voices heard? I am perfectly free to call them theistards for believing in absurdly stupid ideas, and they are perfectly free to believe whatever they want.

Notice that the Catholics are making a claim that can be tested with what we know from modern science. They are claiming that the cracker will become the body of Jesus, not in some vague wishy-washy spiritual sense but in an actual physical sense. Such a claim is easily tested; the Catholics have a right to believe in it despite evidence to the contrary, and we have the right to disbelieve in it and demand evidence instead. Why should the religious be given a free pass to believe in something while we are labelled rude, angry and militant just for taking the opposite stand and demanding evidence? Something doesn't seem right here.

Crackergate was not about merely pissing people off or as a way to convince the religious that their beliefs are false. It was a way to make the very important but often neglected point that religious ideas should not and will not be given a free pass in society, and that atheists are not going to be content with sitting quietly while religious people bash us and force us to go on the defensive. We are taking our ideas to the public square, and being loud and visible is the only way to stand up and be counted among the credulous, religious masses. It does our side no favors to shut up about our views, and worst of all, for appeasers to tell non-appeasers to shut up because we are 'making atheists look bad'. Appeasers should of course be allowed to appease all they want, but they have no right to tell us to shut up and follow whatever they say and do because they claim to know what is best for atheism. If I wanted to be told to shut up and follow other people who supposedly know 'what is beast for the cause', I would have gone looking for a religion.

Leave the dogma to the other side. We reasonable people have a job to do and we are not shutting up any longer.