Atheists in Fox Houses

| Fri 21 Dec 2012 | 4 Comments | 1465 Views

Author Emily Dietle

My focus is on state-church separation & social issues. I'm an avid reader, and feel that one of our most valuable tools is the free movement of information and ideas. | @emilyhasbooks

Imagine the following: You’re fifteen, bored and begrudgingly sitting with your family on the living room sofa, putzing around on MineCraft Pocket Edition while your folks watch Fox. For the past year, you’ve held your tongue, not commenting on their faith, their friends, or their frenzied fear mongering towards anyone “brown” or non-Christian. It was a while ago when you concluded that the religion you were raised in, and all the rest, are absurd relic lies.

“Atheists who call themselves Christians.” Your ears perk up. ‘What did I just hear?’ Eyes rise to the screen, and a raven-haired man is facing Hannity in clearly an unbalanced duel. Who is this brazen warrior wielding a level-80 sword of wit? Attempting to sound disinterested, you ask aloud what’s on. “Oh, that’s David Silverman. He’s President of the atheists.” Mom says.  Dad chimes in, “Sinners. They hate God and only love themselves.”

Glancing down, and in your hands Zombies have slaughtered your game doppleganger, and loot is scattered about. It doesn’t matter, you have to hear more from “the heathen.” He’s right, you don’t want to go to church, you aren’t a Christian, and you’re under a lot of pressure from your family to conform. It’s so hard to speak up in this house. Internally you wonder, “How many atheists are there? Maybe, I’m not alone.”

Some have questioned the value of outspoken atheists like American Atheists’ David Silverman appearing regularly on Fox programs, implying that it is a waste of his time, or that engaging with them besmirches the advancement of atheism or secularism. The importance of such appearances is this: there are atheists burrowed in Fox houses, and their ears are perked. It may be too soon for some to come out now, but once the pups are old enough to make their own nests, we’ll see them. If you’re out there, an atheist in a Fox house, know that we’re out here, building a place for you.

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  • http://twitter.com/TominousTone Thomas Lawson

    After a first-read, I want to plagiarize this.

  • http://northierthanthou.com/ northierthanthou

    It’s a good point. I do think it’s rough to watch anyone trying to communicate in the poisoned atmosphere of that channel. The Oreilley-Silverman exchange on christmas was absolutely painful to watch, not so much because of the Christianity isn’t a religion gambit, but because OReilley got by with a complex question fallacy and shut Silverman down by talking over him when Silverman tried to clarify. Damned hard to watch that.

    …oh yeah, and the opening seconds where O. damned S. with really faint praise.

    Pretty much every second of Fox News is painful to watch, so I can relate to that much at least.

    And I still think the worst part of that program is that it has killed the public’s ability to imagine a constructive conservative agenda. It’s bad enough to hear what they say about my own camp, but they have pretty much completely drowned out the responsible voices in conservatism. And now every bigot and flunky who can’t read or reason their way from 2 and 2 to 4 thinks there is a name for their willful ignorance and that name is ‘conservatism.’

    Damned travesty.

  • http://twitter.com/Data_Jack DataJack

    This is great!

  • http://www.facebook.com/kent.randi Kent Randi

    Perfect!

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Category: Atheism & Religion