cultural-identity, activism-promotion, usa, atheist-outreachConsidering some of the questions attempting to understand and categorize atheism around anything, and a lack of success in this regard; it seems that even in belonging to an atheist in-group, we are still observing ourselves as part of our own out-group.
Insofar as religion and the religious marginalize and ostracize apostates and infidels, it seems that cultural identity and atheist outreach are two areas where the atheist community has no defenses. Although the Four Horsemen man not be your idea of the best representatives of Atheism at large as a community, religious communities also have extremists, polemicists, and apologists whose rhetoric is defensively absorbed and streamlined as part of the community’s standing narrative. However, religion has an embedded cultural context where this can happen; atheism is at a disadvantage in this regard.
Looking at Social Psychology and cognitive biases, this situation leaves atheism very vulnerable to antipathy (particularly from people who otherwise would have no opinion, as opposed to people who outright dislike atheism absolutely). Atheism is very contrary to many subconscious biases, first off false consensus: where the result can be that, “when confronted with evidence that a consensus does not exist, people often assume that the others who do not agree with them are defective in some way.” Atheism is in direct conflict with theistic Locuses of control: which means that where the atheist believes she is highly in control of her own actions and the world around her, the theist may generally be assumed to presume God has had a pretty big hand in that.
But the essential point comes down to the Ultimate Attribution Error:
Specifically, [persons heavily influenced by this bias] view negative acts committed by outgroup members as a stable trait of the outgroup, and view positive acts committed by outgroup members as exceptions to normal behavior… Ultimate Attribution Error is attributing behaviors of entire groups to their stereotypes. In Psychology, the Ultimate Attribution Error is considered one of the roots of prejudice.
Many of these things are consequences of atheists being part of an out-group, which is how we define ourselves culturally. Atheism is by definition the out-group to the in-group of the Generally Religious.
What actual steps can atheist individuals or groups take to improve the situation? What kind of outreach and examples of activism are effective in your community for insufficiently known groups? Have you been particularly influenced by an unknown group (perhaps ideological, political, etc), that you knew very little about, perhaps had misconceptions about, but came to find out a good deal about them?
A counter example to this might be Jehovah’s witnesses and Mormons. Although they soldier on for their converts, most people are not engaged by their tactics, nor are they inclined to find out more about them. People may allow them into their house for a polite chat, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to sympathy from anti-pathy.
How can we effectively address our public brand, that is to say, how can we build one?
The answer to your question is “wait.”
The problem isn’t that atheism suffers from bad branding, per se, but that religion still plays a major role in your country. If you lived in a country where religion plays a minor role like Canada, that question would have never occurred to you. When your countrymen realize that religion is irrelevant, and they will eventually, then being an atheist will cease to be a brand (i.e. no one will care).
Now, if you want to speed up that process, be open about your atheism and don’t be a jerk. If enough atheists do that, people will eventually realize that atheists are just like everyone else.
That’s really all you can do.
Lot of the phenomena you reference are most commonly associated with Existentialism. Rejection of the groupthink. Independence of thought. Add to that the whole “God is Dead” anti-theism commonly associated with Existentialism, and the comparison with mainstream atheism is pretty clear.
All those things being the case for most of us, it’s hard to come up with a group of people who would be less likely to form a groupthink, or a more uniform group of iconoclastic assholes. The very idea of a group that purports to speak for me on my beliefs is abhorrent. I don’t believe in god. Any other belief you think you can attribute to me based on that one belief is very likely wrong.
Seems highly unlikely that we’d ever compromise on our own opinions enough to form a group that would all pull in the same direction. Most atheist groups I’ve looked into have been wholly uninteresting to me.
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