Atheist ❝Activism❞ (from Richard Dawkins to Jaclyn Glenn, Rationality Rules, Rachel Oates, on down)

part of what's going on in atheist
activism is a hundred percent ego it's a hundred percent people chasing Fame it's good-looking young women who want to be the next Jaclyn Glenn period there are young men who want to be the next what's the guy's name rationality rules they're these cats they they want to be famous and they want to be admired and some of them there's the further ego trip of wanting to make ostentatious use of their book learning of presenting themselves as an expert in philosophy and logic and science that's a really toxic really not just future but I do get it there are people who are way more emotionally damaged than you are you're really not emotionally messed up by this at all there are people who are emotionally damaged by the transition they made from believing in God to atheism and for whom they have that touchstone they remember they remember the crucial importance of some YouTube video or of some personality on YouTube talking about their own experience talking about their own loss of faith these kinds of things and then that has become the dominant assumption of what activism is supposed to be of what's supposed to mean you know you know what nobody ever says nobody ever says that tolerance and progress are fundamentally incompatible it was like I mean the tolerance sounds like such an easy virtue to preach what what's what's actually gonna change about circumcision when is that gonna end right like even the baby steps towards ending it even if you don't make it illegal overnight it's gonna be intolerant it's gonna be confronting tradition and saying no we're not going to tolerate this or we don't want to tolerate this tradition we want progress watching I'm really asking how does this story end this story that's been going on for 2,000 years how is it gonna end I do not think it's gonna end with YouTube channels and Facebook posts seeing in a kind of smarmy self-righteous way oh well isn't it Queen that the legislators in Canada still say prayers and in some cases still have Christian crosses on the walls it's gonna be activism of a very very active kind it's it's not gonna be what the Richard Dawkins foundation is doing with its money and prestige and fame which is nothing what they're doing is nothing I'm an unusual person I've lived in different countries all over the world and everywhere I lived I read the Constitution I got my girlfriend on the phone so Melissa you used to live with me in British Columbia Canada right that's right I take it you have never read the constitution of Canada well it must have occurred to you that life in Canada it's very very similar to life in the United States right Canadians watch American TV and Canadians go around kind of thinking oh well on American television you have the right to remain silent so here in Canada you know you probably have the right to remain silent too and in America you have the separation of church and state so here in Canada we must have the separation of church and state - right and I assume I look a little fast and open in a way do you feel like religion played more or less of a role in public life in Canada versus the estate's where do you think religion was more of a dominant influence Canada versus the United States well for my personal experience I would say that my life was more influenced by religion in the United States nurses when I lived in British Columbia but I know that bounine you were voting in the church that's right that's right I cast I cast my ballot the vote literally took place inside a church the place where I went to vote was a church go on just just making that clear for the audience yeah the church but anyway yeah the main point is that you were born in church yes that was a little that was a little reminder so in the United States where have you voted but when you voted like City Hall or something right some kind of governmental school right I was in your community center okay yeah so in the United States you have this principle of separation of church and state Oh would it surprise you if I told you that the first sentence of the Canadian Constitution is quote Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God close call now what what year do you think that was written it I mean the United States you guys are really used to worshipping your your Constitution as this kind of ancient moth-eaten relic of a but I think most Americans you imagine that the the Constitution was written almost in a different world by men of a very different intellectual character from anyone is alive today what do you think what do you think Canada set their own in stone this principle that were a Christian nation based on the supremacy of God I actually don't know it's funny I know I know that's what the truth is I'm not doing this to you my girlfriend it's it's to get at the fact that these principles they kind of they surround us and they pervade our daily lives but most of us are completely unaware of them all the time we don't you know if you if you don't make it a point most people go to Cambodia don't read the constitution of Cambodia I did most people live in Thailand or even go on vacation don't take an interest in the you know legal underpinnings of the heat of what we experienced politically here and now but i okay I Got News for you constitution of Canada was written in 1982 okay so long before you were born long before you were born 1982 I think that was when like dudes having neon pink shoelaces was briefly in style guys wearing guys wearing converse with pink shoelaces you know oh yeah the ghazal sunglasses you know that this is not this is not ancient history I think that died in the 70s but hey we could check 1982 were there still roller rinks when the Canadian Constitution was written so this is a this is a modern contemporary problem that's still that's still really ongoing now the side of this you don't know melissap you'll be able to relate to by allegory well one of your attention to is the weakness of the discourse about activism within atheist activism so of course I can sympathize of course I can but it's it's really depressing in a really hopeless to behold the Richard Dawkins foundation they just put up an article on their website about the fact that in Canada basically we still have prayer inside our houses of parliament houses the Parliament plural we basically have one parliament for each province plus one and Ottawa not worth describing prayer and even crosses hanging on the wall Christian cross the wall it's common in the parliaments of Canada including specifically the Parliament for for British Columbia Wow what are you going to do about it what are you gonna do about what would be the form of activism to challenge this because it's a fundamentally different challenge from what you guys are used to the United States the United States every so often you have these controversies of you know somebody has displayed the 10 commandments in front of a court house someone at City Hall or state legislature has a monument to Moses and the Ten Commandments and then atheist activists or secular activists or even the American Satanist Party they get out and say no no no in the Constitution we're supposed to have separation of church and state right well what kind of activism are you gonna have when the Constitution is not on your side when the Constitution says is quote Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God that is right so so activism requires action like to an unbelievable extent the standards or what will be required that would be involved here it's really really high so the problem is in my opinion the indirect influence of Richard Dawkins himself Richard Dawkins had a hit book in 2006 that was called The God Delusion you you would have been around to remember that no were you in university or what when did you I mean do you remember some ripples do you remember that being discussed on the radio or Oprah or whatever or no okay you were playing diddy kong racing or something you were playing [Laughter] that was the face that was the phase when you were still in choir you were still singing religious songs but I assumed you were you were not you were not a believer you were not praying or anything at that age yet I was going to church Wow but I was kind of seeing through it at that point Wow okay so you were still on the fence isn't that interesting well when The God Delusion came out it was a big deal in the mainstream media you know it got talked about on crappy TV new shows and radio shows a lot it was a it was a hit book and I think most people the main thing that impacted them was just the title just that here was a kind of respectable scientist publishing a book that really directly challenged you know Christian religion of course it also challenges Judaism and Islam to some extent and saying no you know this is all wrong this is a delusion and that became a major talking point my problem is here talking is not activism I think what this ended up enshrining was exactly the assumption that people making YouTube videos you know and just fetching on YouTube that that is activism even that that's like the ultimate format here you can imagine this from a parallel life for you well oh come at us I don't know I mean I don't know if you have a moment where emotionally you feel that's when your faith started to crack that's when you parted ways with the church the YouTube obsession and the idea of talking as activism talking replacing activism it's partly ego it's partly people wanting to get famous sure but I think there's also a really sincere emotional connection people have to that memory of how they once saw a YouTube video maybe back when they were in high school playing diddy kong racing on the n64 whatever you know back when they were that age they saw maybe Richard Dawkins himself maybe another one of these YouTube personalities talking about the Bible and faith than atheism and that was for them personally and emotionally significant touched on a turning point and they may be on some level they want to do that for others or they imagine that's the way forward for atheist activism quite quite unexamined for you is there a moment like that is there is there I'm an emotionally significant touch no no no I was able to become more comfortable comfortable questioning it after I left my parents house once I went to university yeah I took a philosophy class philosophy of religion after that point I decided that I didn't but I don't have a just coming back to the class was the professor kind of trying to make people more Christian or no and what was the professor's kind of basic approach because I've had professors have known professors who were like legitimately dogmatic Christians Joe Mack dogmatic Jews also really we're trying to use their class as a way to make the students more religious go on no I don't I did not get that sense from the professor I more remember of the smaller classes so the we had a large lecture hall yeah for setting and then discussion class that was once a week and I remember more the person who led that discussion class just because it was a smaller classroom well make you a believer Christian so III totally appreciate that just asking this sometimes that's that's the effect as you go to a class where people are making the argument for the Bible and that turns you away no I just know without insulting you or insulting your professor you and I have done a lot of talk about the Bible what's actually in the text of the Bible just lately and it does not seem that you walked away from that class with a lot of knowledge of obscure you didn't so it wasn't it wasn't the course that was really based on reading and confronting what's in the Bible as opposed to your expectations I think of anything you've had that experience just now just in the last couple of weeks you've been reading the Bible and whoa there was a huge gap between what people say about the Bible and what's actually in the text it did not inspire me to read the Bible right so what until recently because you know like I like I said I was finally living out of the house and not having to answer to my parents and it's only been recently like that I've been spending time with them again that they've been asking me like they've been asking me about it and the reason why I've gotten more interested in it it's just because I want to be able to say why and defend it or you know yeah so yeah I mean to get back to your point about talking it's not activism I said like the general the field that I get in in the United States and in terms of talking about religion I think it's become more open to be atheist or to be questioning here but generally like I think people still believe in God like all right as like they they're they're theus but a lot of like it's becoming more and more popular to be agnostic yep well you see just to give an example you know the percentage of people in the American military who are Christian is lower than the percentage in the general population and of course the fundamental reason for that is that people in the military are younger than the general population but you know the type of guys you sign up to join the army they're probably more conservative so they're an interesting cross-section but even a very simple system it represents an overall generational drift yes yes absolutely so yeah I think you know my parents had become more open to that I think with like the the thing that I've been talking about with you is that you know I tell you have extremist views on things like so once I start learning more about something I think wow I can't believe that this is still common in society it's or like we're still having a society so the people that are saying that the Bible should be relevant at this point is and this is her shock just to be clear guys this is your shock having just gone back and started reading the Bible like really because you know the Bible just wasn't much of a part of your life for 10 years or something you know so no I just just there's no more sympathetic for the audience it's reading the Bible and realizing wow this is such a mess and this is you know it's just intellectually not respectable basically would lead somebody to not read the Bible that's you know for my experience yep you're raised with these certain stories from the Bible that you hear growing up as a child but it's not like what they inspire you to go in revival in church either like the the culture of pious ignorance includes being piously ignorant about what the Bible actually says or problems in the text right yes the other contrast you got sewing Melissa you you don't just have the contrast between having been raised Christian and being atheist now the other contrast you got is between the obsession with activism that goes on within the vegan movement and then this assumption about YouTube and radio talk shows and other you know talking as activism which again for me it's really is centered around symbolically someone like Richard Dawkins you know in in atheist activism so that I'd say I think that's another that's another contrast now both both can be criticized both are blameworthy in various ways like you might say there's almost a fetish in vegan activism for the street rebel it accomplishes nothing but rebellion on the street is valorized by summer but that's the realest most meaningful form of activism you know and there's a whole discourse surrounding that but then so this is a total contrast I'm really asking how does this story end this story that's been going on for 2,000 years how is it gonna end I do not think it's gonna end with YouTube channels and Facebook posts seeing in a kind of smarmy self-righteous way oh well isn't it quaint that the legislators in Canada still say prayers and in some cases still have Christian crosses on the walls yes your school both are deeply flawed but I mean how do you actually change the legal the fundamental basis of the education in your society of attitudes in your society of sure the conduct of government in your society it's this it's this huge challenge even in a place that says ostensibly mild as Canada I mean Canada is not Egypt Egypt's a fascinating case study Egypt is very far from being the most fundamentalist Muslim country in the world if anything Egypt is quite moderate compared to Saudi Arabia but a huge huge huge huge challenge to secularize Egyptian society but even looking at at British Columbia okay you say you're an atheist activist you know what what is what is the goal you're pursuing and then how are you gonna actually pursue it don't we have to fundamentally move past this emotive and emotional sharing of our problems on on YouTube and sorry I'm a size in that because that's that's the most sympathetic element to me part of what's going on atheist activism is a hundred percent ego it's a hundred percent people chasing Fame it's good-looking young women who want to be the next Jaclyn Glenn period and and some of those women are not that young either they're good-looking middle-aged women there are young men who want to be the next what's the guy's name rationality rules they're these cats they want to be famous and they want to be admired and some of them there's the further ego trip of wanting to make ostentatious use of their book learning of presenting themselves as an expert in philosophy and logic and science and region reason that's a really toxic really not just future but I do get it there are people who are way more emotionally damaged than you are you're really not emotionally messed up by this at all there are people who are emotionally damaged by the transition they made from believing in God to atheism and for whom they have that touchstone they remember they remember the crucial importance of some YouTube video or of some personality on YouTube talking about their own experience talking about their own loss of faith these kinds of things and then that has become the dominant assumption of what activism is supposed to be at what it supposed to mean yeah I mean it's it's hard to say what to do you know the question is how is it going to end this thousand years of Christianity major religion or just you know how are we going to actually live a secular society I'm circumcised I am circumcised both of my parents were atheists at the time of my birth I think it takes accepting that great people just want to preach tolerance and say you know tolerance or all different religion ism right it's obviously not true I mean the mine is done what men every day in like with baby is every day genital mutilation on a massive scale it's you know you know what nobody ever says nobody ever says that tolerance and progress are fundamentally incompatible it was like I mean the tolerance sounds like such an easy virtue to preach what what's what's actually gonna change about circumcision when is that gonna end right like even the baby steps towards ending it even if you don't make it illegal overnight it's gonna be intolerant it's gonna be confronting tradition and saying no we're not going to tolerate this or we don't want to tolerate this tradition we want progress from watching oh go go but you know but it's gonna be activism of a very very active kind it's it's not gonna be what the Richard Dawkins foundation is doing with its money and prestige and fame which is nothing what they're doing is nothing before making this video I went and reread their charter or and you know I looked at what it is they define themselves as as doing you know I mean so the term they like to use is advancing secularism it's a little it's a little bit vague it's a little bit vague right I mean how are you gonna do that a lot of this - it's really easy to pick on the kind of low-hanging fruit it's really easy to look at something like the anti-vaccine controversy right and say oh well we represent enlightenment and science and modernity whereas these people who are against vaccinations want to drag us back into the Stone Age that's that's a little bit too easy for me that's a little bit that's a little bit ideologically convenient right you know you know what's it can what's inconvenient is saying to the people of British Columbia Canada oh you have this tradition of prayer at the start of every session at the legislature oh well guess what we want to take that away from you there are people who will fight back there are people whose people will say no no no we have a you know we have this tradition going back however many centuries of doing prayer here at the you know this is their tradition this is their religion there are chapels there were religious you know buildings within our Parliament Buildings in candid I know there were I know there are in Ottawa at least thinking both Ottawa and Quebec and Ontario you know the idea of having a chaplain or something employed by the government to say these prayers at the start of legislative sessions and so on this is this is a British Empire tradition and say oh well guess what we want to take away your tradition we want to end that you know for our own reasons and we're a minority we're not the majority in this society that wants wants the second set babe sorry good point I don't want to change this habit too much but having lived in China and Taiwan right you know in Taiwan you walk around and see Taoist temples you see a society that is secular and people that that stuff about that was you know about I that's you know that's why I wanted to make videos of a thousand I want you to keep going but one of the reasons I wanted to make videos talking about Taoism is that most Westerners cannot imagine how fundamentally different it is to be in a society where Taoism is the dominant religious tradition religion right well I would say where the meaning of religion itself is fundamentally different because it's a Taoist set of assumptions going yeah yeah it's a huge huge difference yeah and having went in China where you know living really in a secular society all right you know I think it's not the disaster there are ways to study different places in the world that are actually you know secular so yeah a terrible thing to and even a even aggressively secular I mean sir let's just pause right now China is in the act of forcing Muslims to either adopt moderate Islam or get out you know it's they can either become atheists or they can become moderate by the definition the government set down for them and there is there's no tolerance there it's the end of tolerance for for fundamentalist Islam for authentic Islam I would say that's no longer being tolerated in communist China that's and that's a huge fundamental turning point in their history obviously I could no digress into a long lecture about the history but I'm not going to but yeah I just say the example of China is not a passively atheist or passively secular society it's a very active muscular and even oppressive model of atheism that we're gonna have to write as a chapter in the history books we're gonna have to learn from that example the good and the bad of it yeah sorry about going people that will fight back against atheist activists saying you don't have the right to pray before you know legislature was horn you know proceedings happen in court and bring you know in a sense I just see it as kind of phony like phony tradition yeah compared to the this tradition of Taoism compared in other religions and the Panthers because you know if you're actually thinking about the place bridge Claudia the tradition of the people like the Native people that were there is totally different you know you're bringing your culture you're a long way from you're a long way from Jerusalem you're a long way from Damascus [Laughter] the new players can't I really can't we just say yeah please because it's a whole new thing you know look babe you know look in North America's the site of the worst genocide yeah worse Constitution the competition for worst genocide is pretty intense look I was gonna tell you Manta this is an any thought you never you've never heard for me before back when I was in Toronto I just finished at University of Toronto was in the brief period when I collected my university diploma but I was still kind of on campus and I went in to talk to an advisor and it turned out the advisor was the president of that division of the University not worth describing a lot of big universities in Canada or have multiple divisions so who wasn't the president of the whole thing but he was a very very powerful person in the university and I recognized them because he was the guy who said the prayer at the ceremony where they gave me my my diploma so I wasn't expecting that I just knew I made a booking to see an advisor I didn't really know was and it turned out it was this guy and the first thing I said to him and you know you can be offensive without using a single swear word but I said this in the most jarring and offensive way possible I said when you delivered that prayer you know at the at the graduation ceremony you know I didn't know if I should leave the room or if I should scream out to interrupt you if I should shut up I was so offended I was so hurt I was disgusted but whole ceremony of what you did and again I mean you you know me I'm capable of being very intimidating I want to be see if there was no there was no course language involved and you know he was oh he was a fully grown man I would guess he was in his late 40s he you know he was shaken up by my saying this to him and obviously it was also totally unexpected in the context for me to it was unexpected but I kind of recognized whoa this is a brief window of opportunity where I can really confront this guy about about secularism or religion versus atheism in this and this context and I really let him know how how disgusted I was and what he said back to me was a hundred percent sincere he said that he had worked really hard on the prayer and he thought he made a prayer that included all of the world religions and I said yeah what about Hinduism what about Buddhism what about the native people whose land this university was built on whether they're a jib way or mohawk or you know what happened in terms of including in terms of who he survives today and we all know I mean again religions are not all equal if he had done a Taoist prayer it wouldn't fit offensive if he had if he had actually had someone in from say the curry or a jib way community or even whatever the last remnants of a you know some kind of Iroquois you know community to do a prayer it's a little bit different I would rather have none of those religions represented it's you know it's not the same as the conquering Christian faith celebrating itself this way and he sat there his reaction to me he sat there actually oh I guess you're right I guess it's just Christianity Judaism and Islam like it was basically a prayer to Jesus but I didn't specify Jesus did may not have you know he really thought he was he was woke in delivering that that prayer but look this is my conclusion with that that meeting with someone in an elite position of power I did not feel like I'd accomplished anything I didn't feel like this was effective activism for me it was a reminder of how powerless we are in the face of that kind of tradition I would bet money that the next year they did the same ceremony he you know III don't think anything changed that challenge I mean I think it probably for him probably that guy is watching this video I think he remembered that meeting for the rest of his life because he was not used to students being that aggressive the warden so hey hey guys keep keep it legal but I mean I really managed to ruffle the feathers of an authority figure on that in that meeting but I came away from that with an even deeper appreciation of how powerless I am and we are even in Canada Canada is not Egypt but in Canada religion is is written in the Constitution okay babe the video is past 30 minutes so I'm just gonna wrap it up there we can keep talking offline you guys know what it is hit the subscribe button Abell SEO [Music]