Atheists: Stop Trashing My Scene

Oh, I promised y'all it was coming, and it wasn't a lie.  As someone who travels in feminist/queer/polyamorous/anti-oppression circles, I run into a lot of angry atheist types, as I'm sure most of you do as well.  And what I want to say is this:

Athiests, get the fuck out of my scene.

Oh, I don't mean all atheists.  In the same way when you condemn Muslims (especially Muslims), Jews, or Christians, you don't mean all those people, just the "fanatical" and "intolerant" ones.  Well, the same goes for you.  I know it's cliche as hell to say that some athiests have become as fanatical as the religions they reject, but it's not wrong.  I have dealt with with so many obnoxious, wrong-headed athiests in progressive circles that I am ready to throw the gauntlet down and call this behavior for what it really is:

Cultural supremacy.

Please explain to me, progressive atheists, how your adherence to what we call "Western Humanism" or "Rationalism" is any less a product of imperalistic, racist views than anything else white westerners have come up with?

To be perfectly clear, I am not saying that non-belief in a deity is racist.  At all.  As a lifelong agnostic (Holy shit, how can one convert to Judaism while remaining an agnostic?  I don't know, ask a Jew, they'll explain it to you) I syampthize with your lack of belief.  And I understand that discourse in this country favors a Christian viewpoint. (Don't use the term "Judeo-Christian" or I'll cut you - there's nothing "Judeo" about it). 

But honestly?  The mocking, the pretension, and the derailing I see done by athiests in progressive spaces has little to do with a personal belief or lack thereof and a lot more to do with basic Western cultural supremacy.  I am rational, you are not.  I believe in logic, you believe in superstition.  Religion is the only reason why women/gays/people of color are oppressed and if you just came around to the obvious truth, you'd be liberated.

How fucking condescending and offensive is that?  What these western, mostly white athiests fail to realize is the incredible impact that religious movements have played with regard to the history of anti-oppression work.  I almost hate to invoke him, but the sainted Martin Luther King Jr. was, in, fact, a Reverend.  As in, a minster.  Of a Christian church. And his religion informed, not conflicted his work.  (And fuck you Hitchens for saying otherwise). Liberation theology has been the movement upon which pro-democracy forces have accomplished much in Latin America.  And even if Communism was first dreamed up by atheist Jews, you'd be ignorant if you didn't realize to what degree Jewish philosophy played a role in the idea that that movement.

And even without the credentials, the fact remains that if we, as white, western people committed to anti-oppression work, want to engage and support oppressed peoples, we must understand respect their cultural and religious beliefs.   When a Black woman speaks honestly about her conflicting feelings about her own faith, the response of white would-be allies should not be, "LOL SKY FAIRY" or some tale of woe about how oppressed you were because you had to go to church as a child.

Yes, religion has been and is still used as an oppressive force.  One can question it and be critical of it.  But writing it off is shallow and self-serving.  Intersecionality matters, and in many cases, whether it's Islam and feminism or even Israel and Palestine, you're not going to be able to even remotely approach the issue unless you have a basic grounding in the issues.  The militant, dismissive, obnoxious form of atheism I see all around the 'tubes makes no allowance for the complexities and gray areas inherent to them.

I'm happy to engage with atheists who are willing to acknowledge a basic or even grudging respect for faith and the wealth of philosophy that has resulted directly from religion (i.e. most of the values that we use in anti-oppression work).  I think the split between "rationality" and "religion/culture" is mostly a false one that wouldn't have to be an issue if progressive atheists didn't make it one by claiming the same kind of oppression that most of us actually face.  But I am sick and tired of privileged white kids using this label to derail and mock others in a culturally supremacist way.  So again: sit down, learn something, or get the fuck out of my scene.

I'm going to finish with quoting a religious oppressor:

"If I am not for myself, who will be?
And if I am for only  myself, what am 'I'?
And if not now, when?"

Oh, those silly religious folk.