Why don’t atheists protest?
Against religion, I mean. Plenty of atheists attend protests, but we’re not marching for the atheist cause itself. Hemant Mehta raised this question yesterday over at Friendly Atheist. Several interesting points have been raised in the comments, but I thought I’d expand upon my own answer here.
Obviously, there are many components to this answer, so I’ll first nod to the ones noted in those comments that I think are particularly relevant. First, writerdd says, “I don’t think atheists are discriminated against to any degree that is near what African Americans had to suffer.” Religious bigotry against atheists is certainly annoying and unfair, but it doesn’t rise to the level of mistreatment that most other major protests are about. Later, Jeff says, “You can’t tell if a person is an atheist by looking at them or observing their behavior.” We aren’t a discrete minority; we’re spread out and undetectable. It’s difficult to feel strong, visceral unity with a group that you never see and can’t identify on sight. Finally, Aj points out that “some atheists tend to like their individualism, and fear anything ‘collective,’ like mobs and rallies, we like discussion and democracy….” I think that’s really central: underlying the beliefs of most atheists is an inclination towards rational consideration and deliberation. Convincing people by shouting at them and appearing in large numbers seems antithetical.
Those issues are certainly important, but I think the main reason is something else entirely. Let’s begin with an example case. When Christians protest, their goal isn’t simply to get more people to believe in Jesus Christ as their savior. They’re trying to get Christian policies enacted or supposedly un-Christian policies repealed. These are things that have to do with topics like abortion, or gay rights (or lack thereof), or “creation science.” There are plenty of controversial issues that have a Christian side, even if not every Christian swings that way. The important thing is, the vast majority of people who do take that side are Christian.
That’s not the case for atheists. We come from a wide spectrum of political views and support a large variety of policies. The only “atheist issue” I can think of has to do with church-state separation, but atheists are far from the only people out there advocating for that viewpoint. Notably, there are Jews and Unitarian Universalists, along with many other religious voices. There are organizations like Americans United and the ACLU. Atheists would likely be a minority at any protest for religious freedom, given all these other groups involved. It wouldn’t be an “atheist protest.”
Unless we really want to march in the streets to tell people to stop believing in the supernatural — which I think sounds unnecessarily confrontational and callous — I don’t think there will be an “atheist protest” happening any time soon. Really, I don’t care what crazy things other people want to believe, as long as they don’t try to force those beliefs (or their crazy implications) on me or others. I also don’t want to try to make people become atheists under some sort of threat; critical examination of one’s religious beliefs has to come from within to be real and effective. At the end of the day, protesting doesn’t really promote the cause of atheism, and the things we would protest about aren’t solely “atheist” as such.