#am760

I am furious right now. Literally angry to the point of shaking.

In my house we like to listen to AM760, a progressive talk station. I love Ed Schultz and Thom Hartmann. I have never liked Gloria Neal much, but lately I've actively gotten to detest her. Today just cemented it.

In what she purports is a discussion about atheism in general, and attitudes towards atheism in America today, and do atheists belong in professional occupations like doctor, teacher, or President, it's come out that... no, she doesn't think we do. It's okay for atheists to be bus drivers (and, by extension, any other menial labor job like janitor or ditch digger), but she outright said she doesn't want a doctor laying their hands on her -- even if they're the best doctor in the world -- if they don't believe in some form of God.

An atheist doctor (or teacher or politician or whatever) isn't good enough for her simply because of their lack of belief in a higher power. She wouldn't trust an atheist doctor.

People like her are why it will be a long, long time before we see things like an atheist President. Something like 90% of Amerians believe in a higher power, be it God or Allah or Buddha or whatever... How many of those believe that the 10% who don't are somehow lacking because we don't? How many of those believe that atheists can't be good people because we don't believe in God (very often a Christian God)? How many of those believe, as Gloria seems to, that we flatout aren't as good as believers?

Not only that, but more than once now she's very strongly implied that atheists really do believe in "a higher power", we just don't know it yet. After all, how could we possibly find the strength to keep going through depression, and tragedy, and heartbreak without God? How could we possibly be able to keep getting up after getting knocked down over and over again? Oh sure, we think we're doing it on our own, or with the help of corporeal friends and family and loved ones, but have you ever thought that it might be God after all?

No, Gloria, I have never thought that, and it is monumentally insulting to trivialize my beliefs (or lack thereof) that way. Would you pose the same question to a Muslim or a Buddhist? Would you tell them it's not really Allah or Buddha that's giving them strength, it's the Judeo-Christian God? I'm willing to bet you wouldn't. You'd be appalled that I'd even think you'd be so callous and disrespectful. So why is it okay to ask that sort of thing of an atheist?

I'm not going to stand up here and try to make this another social justice issue. This is just something that has constantly infuriated me ever since I was a teenager. This isn't the first time I've been told I shouldn't be an atheist or I'm not really an atheist. This isn't the first time part of my identity has been trivialized. This isn't the first time I've been told I'm wrong because I don't follow someone else's ideas of what being a good or normal person is.

Spoiler alert: any time you trivialize or brush aside part of someone's identity just because you don't agree with it? You're being an insulting douchebag.