Something, Atheism: The Black anti-gay Atheists of Atlanta, popped up in my newsfeed today on the social networks. It is not new, nor is this sort of thing new to me, but it reminded me of a conversation I had a while back with a friend of mine. We were talking about the various atheist meetups we have been to, and he reminded me of one in particular.
My friend is gay, and we’re both regulars at atheists meetups. He was actually sitting beside me on the occasion in question. Anyway, as meetups go, I was talking in one direction and he was talking in a another, so we were in separate conversations. Honestly, I can’t remember what I was talking about. In any case, he was talking to one of the ‘new people’. And as he tells it, all of a sudden the conversation took a strange turn.
New atheist guy was anti-gay and had no problem voicing his opinion to my friend. My gay friend was left a bit speechless, as you might imagine.
But how, but why?
In this case, like in many others, dude was ignorant and misinformed and too confident in his own self-righteousness to get past it. Atheism, doesn’t imply science, it doesn’t imply critical thinking, nor does it imply a superior morality. It means, hopefully, we have taken one step in the direction of critical thinking. But it is a long path, an ongoing struggle, and being right about one thing doesn’t make us superior.
And like the minister or the priest, its really hard for human beings to preach and think at the same time. We all need to remember that.