Today Richard Dawkins’s website published a mostly thorough pushback piece I wrote about why I am tired of atheists routinely being told by other atheists not that we’re wrong or just that we should be civil, but that we should basically shut up and stop our attacks on theism for one reason or another. Check it out.After that post, I followed up also with one answering those who worry that I am demanding that they argue with theists even if they loathe the idea of doing so.

I left out one key reason we in relatively cushy places to be atheists have to not shut up about atheism–solidarity with those millions living in places where their atheism is persecuted and driven into the shadows. One such atheist, A.N., responded to my piece privately with his reasons to not be silent:

You make this point at the end of your article, I want to say it in a different way: I’m an atheist who lives in Iran. Iran is not only a theocracy, but also a very deeply religious country. Most people, when it comes to atheists, simply say “you don’t exist”. Atheists are a minority that not only face discrimination (we are simply not recognized as citizens and have zero rights), and violence (atheism can be punished by death, and also, if some religious person even SUSPECTS you’re an atheist and murders you, he won’t be punished for it), not only they are completely ignored and censored, their very existence is under question. It’s not enough for them to claim that we are immoral, stupid, and sub-human, also we don’t exist. There are no atheists in Iran. I’m openly atheist. When I say it, the reaction is usually “no you’re not”. Or “you only think you are”. And you never hear about us in public discourse, NEVER.



To me, being vocal about my atheism is not only about finding the truth or convincing others. It’s primarily about survival, it’s about not giving in to painful and endless pressure. It’s about making sure that I remain who I am, that intimidation doesn’t silence me. Otherwise, I will disappear, I will be a nothing that no one ever takes notice of, and I treat the truth that I have found like a shameful guilty secret. They don’t want to hear us. But I won’t let them.



I won’t shut up about atheism. I don’t have money, guns, an army, a political lobby, I have absolutely zero power. The only thing I have in this world is my voice, and I will not forsake my only property and my only footprint in this world solely because my existence is an inconvenience that people like to ignore. If their religion is so fragile that my weak voice can threaten it – if their armies of executioners and their cacophony of media and their forests can suddenly be threatened by a meager voice in an insignificant corner, that says more about them than it says about me.

I’m more than a little embarrassed I forgot to mention those in such situations as these in my litany of reasons not to shut up about atheism.

Gayle Jordan has also passed on to me a really good post she wrote on the same theme (i.e., why she won’t stfu about religion). In it she lists a lot more specifically the values problems in religions that I mostly assumed in my post. Check it out!

On the subject of writing I’m doing for outlets other than Camels With Hammers, here are my posts so far in my series boiling down my views on ethics over at Empowerment Ethics blog, in case you’ve missed any or would like to see how I answer one of the particular common questions that I have already addressed there:

Introducing Empowerment Ethics

“Who Is Anyone To Tell Others What To Do?”



Your Thoughts?