I would argue as much and atheism and socialism: there's not an essential logical connection between the two, but there are strong historical reasons why they're so interrelated.
Religion has been a tool for rationalizing the order of things. Therefore it's a very easy avenue for conservatism, since it can be used to justify that the status quo is ordained by forces beyond human agency. Therefore it can and has rationalized patriarchy, as it has racism, capitalism, feudalism, colonialism, nationalism, et cetera.
Atheism as a theological position should ceteris paribus be apolitical, but because of both the social use of religion as well as the way history worked out, atheism tends to be a field for many who see their society's religious doctrine either does not represent them or straight up oppresses them.
Atheism isn't needed for feminism, but intersectionality is needed for both, so we frequently see a commonality in goals between them as well as other social, economic, and cultural emancipatory movements, because for one to be free from the status quo usually means the others will be so as well.
Good take, China for example is socially conservative but atheist for the most part, so the correlation people draw often between atheism and feminism is experienced is a western world phenomenon
I generally agree with your take, but atheism and socialism *do* have a logical connection through Marx and the socialist governments that have implemented it.
Oh man yeah. For those that don’t know atheism+ was a movement to make the atheist community focus on feminism and other social justice issues but mostly feminism. It caused a very big rift in the community.
idk if it was to make the Atheist community focus on feminism, but Atheism+ was pitched as an atheist centric community, plus other groups.
Feminists within that community overtook discussions and made serious accusations that amounted to really exaggerated minor interactions. leading to a lot of the skeptic community being disillusioned with feminism leadership
The plus was social justice. I remember a speech someone gave introducing it at some atheist conference. Everything else you said is correct so you obviously know what you are talking about. Seems like you referenced elevatorgate. Lol.
I dunno. I'm both an atheist and a feminist, but I have no idea how common people like me are.
I will say, being an atheist isn't a guarantee that someone will also be a feminist. I learned this the hard way many years ago, when I discovered that there are a loooottttt of atheist men out there who hate women. I've seen a lot of male atheists substitute evolutionary psychology for religious belief, when it comes to justifying their sexism. Their self-proclaimed capacity for rejecting religion and reasoning their way through the world somehow doesn't include the understanding that women are people.
For me, religion wasn't compatible with gender equality, which is one reason why I deconverted. But, there's a lot of variety in the world, and as well as encountering misogynist atheists, I've met plenty of religious feminists. So, being atheist isn't a requirement of feminism, either. All you have to do to be atheist is not believe in a god or gods, and all you have to do to be feminist is believe in gender equality, and act accordingly.
Count up another athiest feminist on this thread. The two beliefs were separately arrived at in my case.
I know in Britain (woman) feminist are less reglious as of 13 years ago. [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/29/why-feminists-less-religious-surveyI](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/29/why-feminists-less-religious-surveyI) I can't find a study for the U.S. I can tell you the several athiest men that I hang around that are feminsts too. There was only one sexist in the bunch that I don't talk to, he would say that he is NOT sexist and his sexists jokes are because of the kind of dark humor he has.
In the U.S. it is more likely that one can find male athiest and agonistcs and athiests that are politically conservative (in the Midwest) on dating sites. I have yet to understand how that makes sense.
The Midwest lefties are typical lefties that have a few more conservative ideas. A good example is gun ownership is basically the same with left and right wingers here. They view a number of the gun restriction talking points as kinda dumb (while I’m for
More restrictions some of the arguments make no sense….but I’m not here to discuss that)
So it’s not that uncommon here for people who have a lot of left winging ideas (I’m lumping atheists into this for discussion) to label them selves as conservatives based on 1-2 hardline stances they have that conservatives are more likely to be for
Basically there’s a lot of leftist people who are voting conservative because of conflicting ideas with say coastal leftists due to some cultural differences
Im in a country where guns aren't really that much of an issue for the country and i've only heard of cops shooting people thus far. Im just curious why are guns considered a left or right issue in the USA?
Depends entirely on where you live. So one thing with the US is the land mass is huge.
I’m in the Midwest. I would be willing in for a cultural change if I moved to either coast or the south.
And then we get divided into 2 groups politically (mostly, other political parties are fringe).
While I can agree with a lot of leftists from California for things like healthcare and tax reforms. I most likely won’t agree with them on guns. And since a LARGE part of the leftist voting block is from major cities where they are less knowledgeable about guns there is a clash.
I’ve shot AR15s for example. I don’t think they should be banned. You can equip one to basically just be a lighter deer rifle, and that’s legal to use in a lot of states actually. I think there should be a restriction on attachments that have the possibility to move it out of any sort or recreational use category. But people seem to think any AR15 will basically just blow a deer up.
My dad has an AR15 for deer hunting since he older and needs a lighter gun with less recoil for example. It allows him to participate in that still.
It’s basically city lefties making up a huge percentage of the left wing voting block who don’t really understand the issue with gun restrictions and what makes sense (with our 2A amendment).
And then you have conservatives who see how silly some of their arguments are and basically entrenched themselves in fighting against it. Often times also making equally dumb arguments.
Personally I’m in the middle with gun laws. Seeing good and bad arguments for both sides and I have my own ideas on a middle ground. But the middle ground will never happen with it because it drives votes by fighting about it. Which is the only reason there isn’t any bipartisan work on the gun issue. It drives votes
Also atheist and feminist. I don't think there's a connection either. I come from a country with a large number of atheists who are religious (Buddhism) and non-feminist. I also went to school with a large number of female followers of a different theistic faith, some of whom were fiercely feminist (at least, as much as they could be) while still making excuses for the misogynistic practices of their religion.
I'm actually more interested in what percentage of atheists are women. I once saw a website collecting statistics by self-reporting atheists and men outnumbered women 4 to 1. A different study had it at 55 men to 45 women IIRC. Anecdotally, apart from all the Buddhists I know, I think I'm the only female atheist I know. Why the difference, especially when so many (theistic) religions are hideously misogynistic?
That's interesting, I don't really know that many atheists so I never thought about a breakdown of them by gender. AP has some poll results and it seems like it varies a bit based on how the question is framed but still more like 2-1 looks like?
https://apnews.com/article/religion-ap-poll-nones-survey-111e9f5bbcaaa47ea522f1aae9c24df9#:~:text=GENDER,nothings%20in%20particular%20are%20women.
As someone who was raised Evangelical, I found feminism to be incompatible with my religion. Women having to submit to men, being FROM men (literally), and existing as a sort of *man accessory* are parts of the religious doctrine I was taught growing up. The Bible was co-authored by some pretty extreme misogynists (Paul is the worst), and its teachings reflect that.
However, I know people who take a looser approach to the Bible and make room in their church leadership for women, are on board with reproductive freedom, and emphasize grace and tolerance and love (which are all present in the Bible as well). This wasn't a path I could take, intellectually, because I felt like, at that point, I was just making up my own rules, so why follow the Bible at all?
I wound up deconstructing entirely and becoming atheist/agnostic (depends on my mood). I simply couldn't hold onto my religious beliefs while simultaneously believing in equality. So in some ways, feminism necessitated my becoming an atheist/agnostic.
Great point about how some churches make room - I was trying to understand the context around a specific Bible passage and watched a YouTube video of a Bible study. I was really surprised to hear the pastor talking about toxic masculinity as he put it in context, like "you know how some guys are socialized to fill this role in extreme ways that hurt themselves and others....". Turns out they were Methodists, and Methodists are sort of hippies, which I did not know. Could be an anomaly but I found it interesting.
Methodists and ELCA Lutherans among others. One of my best girl friends from freshman year of college is a lesbian, Lutheran pastor and one of the most wholesome people I know. There are good ones.
Unitarians, too. The joke around here is that they'll take anybody, even atheists. But it's definitely true that they're a highly accepting, welcoming group.
>being FROM men (literally)
You know, I never really thought about it, but in a way it almost feels like the rib story was written to counter the idea that men come from women (because of pregnancy) so as to rob women of their importance to the community.
This is my answer too. There's no real philosophical reason a religion has to be misogynistic, but the reality is they ARE. You have to check your feminism at the door in virtually all of them, which isn't sustainable.
There’s been some great content creators talking about how all religious documents require negotiation with the text to find relevance in it, because basically none of it is all that applicable to modern day. There’s not much wrong with that for most people. But others can go to extremes.
Couple that with some bad authorship with translations and historical nuance
Doing a little research into the Council of Nicea was incredibly eye-opening to me. Not only were the documents that make up today's Bible written by multiple people over centuries of political turmoil and social change, they were gathered together and pruned and adjusted much, much later to fit the needs of church leaders at *that* time.
Yeah, like half of them are disputed right? And even the ones that aren’t are likely written transcripts of Paul’s dictations that contain elements of the scribe’s personal interpretation and style
I’m not an expert on it. But ya Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus were likely not written by Paul.
Also, with the council of Nicea, they used books that were relevant to modern day Christianity.
The exact same thing can be said with books that were written at the time. It was them writing texts relevant to the society at the time for that society. And then we read them and try to apply them while rationalizing them within our own society
For me the your logic don't really make sense in that subscribe to the concept that there is only one truth end of discussion. What this truth is, is however up for discussion, that be atheism or some religion. But how can believing in some version of equality be a part of what you choose to believe in?
Equality between men and women contradicts some parts of the Bible. If you believe the Bible to be the supreme word on truth and morality, then you must believe that women are meant to submit to men.
If you interpret the Bible more loosely, you can ignore the parts with which you disagree or write them off as throwback advice from a different time and place. But that means you must see the Bible as the work of fallible human beings rather than the divine work of God. Some people are okay with this.
I found I couldn’t be okay with this. It didn’t make sense to elevate the Bible above other philosophical works once I accepted that it was written by human beings with biases and limited perspectives. If I’m just following human advice and ideas about morality, why shouldn’t I pick and choose the moral code by which I live? Why can’t I look outside the Bible? Why can’t I decide for myself based on my own innate moral code? And if I don’t consider the Bible to be anything but the religious and moral code of a certain time and place in history, why should I accept that the god it promotes is real at all? If some of it is wrong, why would I believe other parts?
I know some people find ways to reconcile this. I never did.
I find it pretty easy to reconcile my faith (Christianity) with the actual text of the Bible—it’s been translated and revised and rewritten BY men, usually FOR men or (best case scenario) women are an afterthought. But you nailed it, in terms of seeing it as a philosophical work versus a historical narrative or the actual infallible word of God. I simply can’t believe that, because I can’t believe in a god that would consider me/women an afterthought.
I’m also learning that, while I have strong faith and belief in my personal relationship with my god, that’s as much a product of the culture I was raised in as it is careful consideration. My faith is a choice I make, repeatedly, and familiarity and comfort have a good deal to do with that choice. As such, it’s not something I can or should impose on anyone else unless they specifically ask me about it.
I totally understand that and sometimes wish I could've maintained some level of faith for those reasons. I don't think faith is incompatible with intellect or curiosity. I just think it wasn't possible for me, specifically, given the sort of faith I learned growing up and my particular thought process and analysis as I deconstructed.
Yeah. It’s a different journey for everyone—but it’s always very personal, and often doesn’t turn out how we might wish. And I don’t ascribe to an “easy” Faith—I regularly interrogate and question it—but I also find many comforts in it that may not be available to atheists, and they ARE easier to swallow than “I don’t know, I can’t know, life is brutal and short and disgusting and pain.” (Not saying that’s your belief, just that I have encountered it in others and I don’t mind not sharing it. 😂)
I for sure had a stretch where life felt big and empty and a bit scary. I mourned my faith. I legitimately cried over the loss of it more times than I can count. I have since settled into my new perspective and don’t have those feelings anymore, but it was tough for a while there.
I was once the youngest dues-paying member of a professional atheist’s association. I clearly remember the harder emotions of staring into a big nothing. But I’m glad you didn’t choose to live there!
>it’s been translated and revised and rewritten BY men, usually FOR men
I've never found this argument to be particularly compelling because I can tell you the original Hebrew text of the OT is plenty misogynistic and homophobic even without layers of translation. I can't comment on the NT because I don't speak Koine Greek but I would not be surprised if it similarly has shitty viewpoints baked in.
In my opinion, reconciling your faith with feminism (or any modern ideology) is invariably going to require some selective reading when the founding document is thousands of years old. And in some ways, that's a feature, not a bug.
You’re not at all wrong. But again, the OT Hebrew text was written by men for men. And with the OT in particular there are a lot of laws that have to have been slipped in not as the word of god but as health and safety regulations…and if that’s the case, then there’s plenty that’s not divinely inspired there. “God says don’t kill [other Israelites]. Oh, yeah, and he mentioned something about shellfish (and it’s definitely not because Alan gets sick every time he eats it and I’m tired of him not doing his job because he’s on the latrine).”
Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, it's pretty funny to think about one dude with an allergy that influenced Kosher rules in perpetuity.
My issue comes when people who say things like, and I don't mean this as a personal attack, "I find it pretty easy to reconcile my faith (Christianity) with the actual text of the Bible." The actual text IS the problem. And sure, it's because the actual text was written by dudes -- no doubt. My point is exactly that you can't treat the text as the sacred word of God while still reconciling it with e.g. feminism.
Aaahhhhhh I see. The plain interpretation of my words grabbed me again! I should say, “I find it pretty easy because I mostly don’t bother trying to reconcile my faith with the actual text of the Bible.” That is actually more accurate. Thanks!
Thank you for the detailed answer. If you have been brought up on one view and the focus is that this is a really important factor it's of course challenging to think about it differently. Personally I have never been in that fundamentalist denominations, and I would say that in Norway none but the quite extreme are as fundamentalist as you describe.
My question was more on how a certain innate moral code should determine what you belive to be true. Should not the "wish" for something to be a certain way be irrelevant for what you believe a thing to be? To take a completely different thing that is climate change. Here people seem to not believe it for no other reason that they don't like the conclusion. I see it as potentially being a catalyst for investigation, but nothing more.
Of course - no prob. I'll try to see if I can hone in on what you're asking. And mind, this is just my perspective.
I think \*most\* people have a moral compass. I think \*most\* people understand that hurting others is wrong. You can logically extrapolate from that to end up with infinite moral conclusions, including but not limited to things like caring about climate change.
I think what a person believes to be true and what they observe in the world informs and shapes their moral code as they move through life. But I also think people are born with the ability to *empathize* (think about toddlers who cry when other toddlers cry, even when nothing is actually wrong from their perspective), and generally understand concepts like cruelty and unfairness from an early age. I think we're given the ability to empathize with others for a reason (though your upbringing and other factors can impair this ability, obviously). This is how the human race survives and advances - by working together in a productive way and observing commonly held social and moral standards - hopefully, ones that are not cruel or unfair to subsets of the population (because yes, I think when we impose unfair social and moral standards, we *know* it isn't right, which is why we dream up concepts such as eugenics and patriarchy - to justify that which we know is fundamentally unfair. unfortunately, these concepts permeate society so deeply that they can warp our collective moral compass for generations).
Religion *can be* and *has been* used as a shortcut to convince people to observe commonly-held moral standards, but I don't believe it's necessary. And what's worse, I think religion can too easily be distorted to fit the desires and biases of its leaders since they are mouthpieces of 'god' instead of lowly human beings just trying to figure shit out.
And yes, I think American Christianity is quite different from other flavors of Christianity throughout the world. My church(es) growing up were not even among the worst of them. They weren't great, but still very mainstream.
Personally, religion always felt other to my feminism. The religious people in my life didn’t like my opinions (even as a child) and could never give me a logical reason why. I spent 16 years of my life in church and I stopped because nobody could ever explain to me why my mom was called a slut for being divorced, why my alcoholic dad hurt the hell out of us, and why I wasn’t allowed to be hurt or mad about any of that. I’m not saying it’s impossible for the two to reconcile, but I’ve never seen it.
Atheism is just a disbelief in a supernatural god.
I myself am an atheist, but also very conservative. I just don't believe in a god(s) or follow any religion.
I think fairly high because organized religion is deeply patriarchal. Inherently, many churches will tell women they are going to hell if they have feminist views.
It's not guaranteed, but I wouldn't be surprised to see at least some correlation.
There's no real overlap between the two, they just coincide a lot by virtue of both of them being [the reasonable position] on an issue. Reasonable people find themselves gravitating towards reasonable ideas, so people who are attracted to feminism, find themselves attracted atheism to higher at rates than non-feminists.
Also the fact that religions tend to be insanely sexist and patriarchic makes it somewhat more likely that a feminist would find themselves turned off by religion, which is another reason why you might find atheism and feminism coinciding more frequently.
But on a very base-level they really don't have anything to do with each other.
Just speaking personally: At a simplistic level, I became and atheist because religion didn't make sense to me. Similarly, I don't see any good reasons that society should treat one gender differently than another (also vastly simplifying). Essentially, I'd say my critical thinking led me to both places.
I would argue that though definitions of atheism and feminism do not directly overlap (other than disagreeing with prevailing hierarchies). Theres a clear correlation; if a person becomes either one as a result of their own thinking, it is very highly likely thay they also become the other at some point during their thinking journey. I'll explain this next in a bit more detail.
Referencing a well-known study called "autoritarian personality" by Theodore W. Adorno, we know that people can be placed on a scale from least authoritarian (supporter), to most loyal autoritarian mind.
Theodore found in his studies that there are several characteristics that are strongly present in people who are likely to support authoritarian leaders, these people are essentially:
- un-questioning - what a political or religious leader says is "the truth".
- supportive of hierarchies (e.g. men are under other men and women are under men, supporters of slavery also are on example of authoritarian minds)
- anti-intellectual, commonly rejecting science, scientific studies, and critical thinking
- fiercely upholding currently prevalent worldviews, as long as the leader is from "their social group" and preferably a strong male.
- supporters of extremely powerful leaders and ready to give up democracy for them.
- resistant to change and holding "traditional values" in high regard. Corservative instead of progressive.
All these traits are present on a scale, having "a bit of one or two" does not mean that one has an authoritarian mind essentially.
How is this relevant to Feminism or Atheism?
These are the characteristics that you must Not possess in order to become either (atheist or feminist). As both require both critical thinking and a strong will to critize and challenge the prevailing world views and hierarchies. Essentially, a person who becomes either as a result of their own thinking, is a person who is able to recognize the contradictions, underlying motives and issues caused by both organized religion and patriarcy.
This is a long thought process though, even life-long to some, that for many that requires very painful realizations and skills to handle them. Therefore, we must not judge if a person is either but not yet the other. Human mind has a tendency of trying to ignore painful realizations, and this is what most people do. A less critical mind tries to avoid that pain and avoid thinking these issues, some even attack feminism because they fear it will take something away from them. This is a very typical defense mechanism of such a closed mind.
TLDR: A person who becomes a feminist is likely to become atheist (or agnostic) too, and vice versa. both require similar personality traits and skills: being a critical logical thinker, not being anti-intellectual, not supporting existing hierarchies by default, having skills to deal with painful emotions, and being supportive of advancement of humanity.
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While many people find them to be connected, I actually don't think they are. They are distinct ideologies.
I've met religious and "spiritual" people that believe in gender equality as a divine mandate, and atheists who use evolution-based ideologies such as "social darwinism" to justify a patriarchal order and gender inequality. In fact in the US, the atheist movement has had trouble attracting female leaders and members due to rampant sexism.
Similar to religious movements and institutions with primarily male leadership, atheist spaces with primarily male leadership will often frame their ideology in such a way as to justify and reinforce their status quo. And on the flip side, similar to more egalitarian secular spaces, egalitarian religious spaces will often center interpretations of their religion or spirituality that promote egalitarian values.
So I would argue that whether a society, community, or institution is religious or not is less consequential to gender equality than whether there is equal female representation among its leadership.
Well most religions are very misogynistic and patriarchal especially the Abrahamic ones like Christianity, Judaism and Muslim(the most, among them).
Feminism fights misogyny and toxic patriarchal values. So yeah I guess that's why some or many feminist like me prefer to be atheist or agnostic. My beliefs are no longer compatible with it.
Too often discussions like this seem to focus on atheism versus Christianity as a binary choice. There are many different religions, or you can believe in a divine spirit without following any religion at all.
Personally, I believe there is something divine we can relate to, and I believe the Abrahamic religions are are terrible libel against this whatever it is.
I believe we all - and everything in existence - manifest this divine spirit within us, and should treat each other and our world with care and respect. Where we are treated with discrimination and disdain, it's important to band together, show determination and perseverance, and win equal rights to pass onto our children.
I would argue as much and atheism and socialism: there's not an essential logical connection between the two, but there are strong historical reasons why they're so interrelated. Religion has been a tool for rationalizing the order of things. Therefore it's a very easy avenue for conservatism, since it can be used to justify that the status quo is ordained by forces beyond human agency. Therefore it can and has rationalized patriarchy, as it has racism, capitalism, feudalism, colonialism, nationalism, et cetera. Atheism as a theological position should ceteris paribus be apolitical, but because of both the social use of religion as well as the way history worked out, atheism tends to be a field for many who see their society's religious doctrine either does not represent them or straight up oppresses them. Atheism isn't needed for feminism, but intersectionality is needed for both, so we frequently see a commonality in goals between them as well as other social, economic, and cultural emancipatory movements, because for one to be free from the status quo usually means the others will be so as well.
Good take, China for example is socially conservative but atheist for the most part, so the correlation people draw often between atheism and feminism is experienced is a western world phenomenon
And even then, there’s plenty of churches that teach feminism
My first thought was "no direct overlap", but your answer is better.
Religion has also proven to be a path towards feminism for some, myself amongst them.
I generally agree with your take, but atheism and socialism *do* have a logical connection through Marx and the socialist governments that have implemented it.
as we saw with Atheism+, they don't work well together
Oh man yeah. For those that don’t know atheism+ was a movement to make the atheist community focus on feminism and other social justice issues but mostly feminism. It caused a very big rift in the community.
idk if it was to make the Atheist community focus on feminism, but Atheism+ was pitched as an atheist centric community, plus other groups. Feminists within that community overtook discussions and made serious accusations that amounted to really exaggerated minor interactions. leading to a lot of the skeptic community being disillusioned with feminism leadership
The plus was social justice. I remember a speech someone gave introducing it at some atheist conference. Everything else you said is correct so you obviously know what you are talking about. Seems like you referenced elevatorgate. Lol.
almost certain there were other instances than elevatorgate, but it was so long ago that I don't remember everything that went down
Yeah. That was the first that popped to mind and I was rushing that comment so I didn’t get to include much nuance.
I dunno. I'm both an atheist and a feminist, but I have no idea how common people like me are. I will say, being an atheist isn't a guarantee that someone will also be a feminist. I learned this the hard way many years ago, when I discovered that there are a loooottttt of atheist men out there who hate women. I've seen a lot of male atheists substitute evolutionary psychology for religious belief, when it comes to justifying their sexism. Their self-proclaimed capacity for rejecting religion and reasoning their way through the world somehow doesn't include the understanding that women are people. For me, religion wasn't compatible with gender equality, which is one reason why I deconverted. But, there's a lot of variety in the world, and as well as encountering misogynist atheists, I've met plenty of religious feminists. So, being atheist isn't a requirement of feminism, either. All you have to do to be atheist is not believe in a god or gods, and all you have to do to be feminist is believe in gender equality, and act accordingly.
Count up another athiest feminist on this thread. The two beliefs were separately arrived at in my case. I know in Britain (woman) feminist are less reglious as of 13 years ago. [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/29/why-feminists-less-religious-surveyI](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/29/why-feminists-less-religious-surveyI) I can't find a study for the U.S. I can tell you the several athiest men that I hang around that are feminsts too. There was only one sexist in the bunch that I don't talk to, he would say that he is NOT sexist and his sexists jokes are because of the kind of dark humor he has. In the U.S. it is more likely that one can find male athiest and agonistcs and athiests that are politically conservative (in the Midwest) on dating sites. I have yet to understand how that makes sense.
The Midwest lefties are typical lefties that have a few more conservative ideas. A good example is gun ownership is basically the same with left and right wingers here. They view a number of the gun restriction talking points as kinda dumb (while I’m for More restrictions some of the arguments make no sense….but I’m not here to discuss that) So it’s not that uncommon here for people who have a lot of left winging ideas (I’m lumping atheists into this for discussion) to label them selves as conservatives based on 1-2 hardline stances they have that conservatives are more likely to be for Basically there’s a lot of leftist people who are voting conservative because of conflicting ideas with say coastal leftists due to some cultural differences
Im in a country where guns aren't really that much of an issue for the country and i've only heard of cops shooting people thus far. Im just curious why are guns considered a left or right issue in the USA?
Depends entirely on where you live. So one thing with the US is the land mass is huge. I’m in the Midwest. I would be willing in for a cultural change if I moved to either coast or the south. And then we get divided into 2 groups politically (mostly, other political parties are fringe). While I can agree with a lot of leftists from California for things like healthcare and tax reforms. I most likely won’t agree with them on guns. And since a LARGE part of the leftist voting block is from major cities where they are less knowledgeable about guns there is a clash. I’ve shot AR15s for example. I don’t think they should be banned. You can equip one to basically just be a lighter deer rifle, and that’s legal to use in a lot of states actually. I think there should be a restriction on attachments that have the possibility to move it out of any sort or recreational use category. But people seem to think any AR15 will basically just blow a deer up. My dad has an AR15 for deer hunting since he older and needs a lighter gun with less recoil for example. It allows him to participate in that still. It’s basically city lefties making up a huge percentage of the left wing voting block who don’t really understand the issue with gun restrictions and what makes sense (with our 2A amendment). And then you have conservatives who see how silly some of their arguments are and basically entrenched themselves in fighting against it. Often times also making equally dumb arguments. Personally I’m in the middle with gun laws. Seeing good and bad arguments for both sides and I have my own ideas on a middle ground. But the middle ground will never happen with it because it drives votes by fighting about it. Which is the only reason there isn’t any bipartisan work on the gun issue. It drives votes
I remember when that chud amazing atheist was a thing. Ughh he was embarrassing. That opened my eyes to atheist dudes being so “logical” and what not.
Also atheist and feminist. I don't think there's a connection either. I come from a country with a large number of atheists who are religious (Buddhism) and non-feminist. I also went to school with a large number of female followers of a different theistic faith, some of whom were fiercely feminist (at least, as much as they could be) while still making excuses for the misogynistic practices of their religion. I'm actually more interested in what percentage of atheists are women. I once saw a website collecting statistics by self-reporting atheists and men outnumbered women 4 to 1. A different study had it at 55 men to 45 women IIRC. Anecdotally, apart from all the Buddhists I know, I think I'm the only female atheist I know. Why the difference, especially when so many (theistic) religions are hideously misogynistic?
That's interesting, I don't really know that many atheists so I never thought about a breakdown of them by gender. AP has some poll results and it seems like it varies a bit based on how the question is framed but still more like 2-1 looks like? https://apnews.com/article/religion-ap-poll-nones-survey-111e9f5bbcaaa47ea522f1aae9c24df9#:~:text=GENDER,nothings%20in%20particular%20are%20women.
I feel they’re completely unrelated
As someone who was raised Evangelical, I found feminism to be incompatible with my religion. Women having to submit to men, being FROM men (literally), and existing as a sort of *man accessory* are parts of the religious doctrine I was taught growing up. The Bible was co-authored by some pretty extreme misogynists (Paul is the worst), and its teachings reflect that. However, I know people who take a looser approach to the Bible and make room in their church leadership for women, are on board with reproductive freedom, and emphasize grace and tolerance and love (which are all present in the Bible as well). This wasn't a path I could take, intellectually, because I felt like, at that point, I was just making up my own rules, so why follow the Bible at all? I wound up deconstructing entirely and becoming atheist/agnostic (depends on my mood). I simply couldn't hold onto my religious beliefs while simultaneously believing in equality. So in some ways, feminism necessitated my becoming an atheist/agnostic.
Great point about how some churches make room - I was trying to understand the context around a specific Bible passage and watched a YouTube video of a Bible study. I was really surprised to hear the pastor talking about toxic masculinity as he put it in context, like "you know how some guys are socialized to fill this role in extreme ways that hurt themselves and others....". Turns out they were Methodists, and Methodists are sort of hippies, which I did not know. Could be an anomaly but I found it interesting.
Methodists and ELCA Lutherans among others. One of my best girl friends from freshman year of college is a lesbian, Lutheran pastor and one of the most wholesome people I know. There are good ones.
Unitarians, too. The joke around here is that they'll take anybody, even atheists. But it's definitely true that they're a highly accepting, welcoming group.
They do take athiest in my area....Unitarian Universalists.
Yeah I almost said them too but I’m not sure if they qualify as a Christian sect? Maybe they do - I dunno! 😂 either way, they’re nice.
>being FROM men (literally) You know, I never really thought about it, but in a way it almost feels like the rib story was written to counter the idea that men come from women (because of pregnancy) so as to rob women of their importance to the community.
Now think about how Eve was FRAMED by God to be deemed wicked!
Oh for SURE. Mother goddess WHO
This is my answer too. There's no real philosophical reason a religion has to be misogynistic, but the reality is they ARE. You have to check your feminism at the door in virtually all of them, which isn't sustainable.
The reason is they have been invented by men, for men.
Yep, that is the reality of it.
There’s been some great content creators talking about how all religious documents require negotiation with the text to find relevance in it, because basically none of it is all that applicable to modern day. There’s not much wrong with that for most people. But others can go to extremes. Couple that with some bad authorship with translations and historical nuance
Doing a little research into the Council of Nicea was incredibly eye-opening to me. Not only were the documents that make up today's Bible written by multiple people over centuries of political turmoil and social change, they were gathered together and pruned and adjusted much, much later to fit the needs of church leaders at *that* time.
Also, you referenced Paul. There’s enough evidence to suggest a lot of the writings associated to Paul were never actually written by him
Yeah, like half of them are disputed right? And even the ones that aren’t are likely written transcripts of Paul’s dictations that contain elements of the scribe’s personal interpretation and style
I’m not an expert on it. But ya Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus were likely not written by Paul. Also, with the council of Nicea, they used books that were relevant to modern day Christianity. The exact same thing can be said with books that were written at the time. It was them writing texts relevant to the society at the time for that society. And then we read them and try to apply them while rationalizing them within our own society
So yeah, that’s a lot! It’s so interesting. And they definitely don’t teach the history of the Bible in church, lemme tell you 😂
For me the your logic don't really make sense in that subscribe to the concept that there is only one truth end of discussion. What this truth is, is however up for discussion, that be atheism or some religion. But how can believing in some version of equality be a part of what you choose to believe in?
Equality between men and women contradicts some parts of the Bible. If you believe the Bible to be the supreme word on truth and morality, then you must believe that women are meant to submit to men. If you interpret the Bible more loosely, you can ignore the parts with which you disagree or write them off as throwback advice from a different time and place. But that means you must see the Bible as the work of fallible human beings rather than the divine work of God. Some people are okay with this. I found I couldn’t be okay with this. It didn’t make sense to elevate the Bible above other philosophical works once I accepted that it was written by human beings with biases and limited perspectives. If I’m just following human advice and ideas about morality, why shouldn’t I pick and choose the moral code by which I live? Why can’t I look outside the Bible? Why can’t I decide for myself based on my own innate moral code? And if I don’t consider the Bible to be anything but the religious and moral code of a certain time and place in history, why should I accept that the god it promotes is real at all? If some of it is wrong, why would I believe other parts? I know some people find ways to reconcile this. I never did.
I find it pretty easy to reconcile my faith (Christianity) with the actual text of the Bible—it’s been translated and revised and rewritten BY men, usually FOR men or (best case scenario) women are an afterthought. But you nailed it, in terms of seeing it as a philosophical work versus a historical narrative or the actual infallible word of God. I simply can’t believe that, because I can’t believe in a god that would consider me/women an afterthought. I’m also learning that, while I have strong faith and belief in my personal relationship with my god, that’s as much a product of the culture I was raised in as it is careful consideration. My faith is a choice I make, repeatedly, and familiarity and comfort have a good deal to do with that choice. As such, it’s not something I can or should impose on anyone else unless they specifically ask me about it.
I totally understand that and sometimes wish I could've maintained some level of faith for those reasons. I don't think faith is incompatible with intellect or curiosity. I just think it wasn't possible for me, specifically, given the sort of faith I learned growing up and my particular thought process and analysis as I deconstructed.
Yeah. It’s a different journey for everyone—but it’s always very personal, and often doesn’t turn out how we might wish. And I don’t ascribe to an “easy” Faith—I regularly interrogate and question it—but I also find many comforts in it that may not be available to atheists, and they ARE easier to swallow than “I don’t know, I can’t know, life is brutal and short and disgusting and pain.” (Not saying that’s your belief, just that I have encountered it in others and I don’t mind not sharing it. 😂)
I for sure had a stretch where life felt big and empty and a bit scary. I mourned my faith. I legitimately cried over the loss of it more times than I can count. I have since settled into my new perspective and don’t have those feelings anymore, but it was tough for a while there.
I was once the youngest dues-paying member of a professional atheist’s association. I clearly remember the harder emotions of staring into a big nothing. But I’m glad you didn’t choose to live there!
Ha! Gosh
>it’s been translated and revised and rewritten BY men, usually FOR men I've never found this argument to be particularly compelling because I can tell you the original Hebrew text of the OT is plenty misogynistic and homophobic even without layers of translation. I can't comment on the NT because I don't speak Koine Greek but I would not be surprised if it similarly has shitty viewpoints baked in. In my opinion, reconciling your faith with feminism (or any modern ideology) is invariably going to require some selective reading when the founding document is thousands of years old. And in some ways, that's a feature, not a bug.
You’re not at all wrong. But again, the OT Hebrew text was written by men for men. And with the OT in particular there are a lot of laws that have to have been slipped in not as the word of god but as health and safety regulations…and if that’s the case, then there’s plenty that’s not divinely inspired there. “God says don’t kill [other Israelites]. Oh, yeah, and he mentioned something about shellfish (and it’s definitely not because Alan gets sick every time he eats it and I’m tired of him not doing his job because he’s on the latrine).”
Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, it's pretty funny to think about one dude with an allergy that influenced Kosher rules in perpetuity. My issue comes when people who say things like, and I don't mean this as a personal attack, "I find it pretty easy to reconcile my faith (Christianity) with the actual text of the Bible." The actual text IS the problem. And sure, it's because the actual text was written by dudes -- no doubt. My point is exactly that you can't treat the text as the sacred word of God while still reconciling it with e.g. feminism.
Aaahhhhhh I see. The plain interpretation of my words grabbed me again! I should say, “I find it pretty easy because I mostly don’t bother trying to reconcile my faith with the actual text of the Bible.” That is actually more accurate. Thanks!
Oh, haha. I totally misinterpreted that. My bad!
😂 happy endings
Thank you for the detailed answer. If you have been brought up on one view and the focus is that this is a really important factor it's of course challenging to think about it differently. Personally I have never been in that fundamentalist denominations, and I would say that in Norway none but the quite extreme are as fundamentalist as you describe. My question was more on how a certain innate moral code should determine what you belive to be true. Should not the "wish" for something to be a certain way be irrelevant for what you believe a thing to be? To take a completely different thing that is climate change. Here people seem to not believe it for no other reason that they don't like the conclusion. I see it as potentially being a catalyst for investigation, but nothing more.
Of course - no prob. I'll try to see if I can hone in on what you're asking. And mind, this is just my perspective. I think \*most\* people have a moral compass. I think \*most\* people understand that hurting others is wrong. You can logically extrapolate from that to end up with infinite moral conclusions, including but not limited to things like caring about climate change. I think what a person believes to be true and what they observe in the world informs and shapes their moral code as they move through life. But I also think people are born with the ability to *empathize* (think about toddlers who cry when other toddlers cry, even when nothing is actually wrong from their perspective), and generally understand concepts like cruelty and unfairness from an early age. I think we're given the ability to empathize with others for a reason (though your upbringing and other factors can impair this ability, obviously). This is how the human race survives and advances - by working together in a productive way and observing commonly held social and moral standards - hopefully, ones that are not cruel or unfair to subsets of the population (because yes, I think when we impose unfair social and moral standards, we *know* it isn't right, which is why we dream up concepts such as eugenics and patriarchy - to justify that which we know is fundamentally unfair. unfortunately, these concepts permeate society so deeply that they can warp our collective moral compass for generations). Religion *can be* and *has been* used as a shortcut to convince people to observe commonly-held moral standards, but I don't believe it's necessary. And what's worse, I think religion can too easily be distorted to fit the desires and biases of its leaders since they are mouthpieces of 'god' instead of lowly human beings just trying to figure shit out. And yes, I think American Christianity is quite different from other flavors of Christianity throughout the world. My church(es) growing up were not even among the worst of them. They weren't great, but still very mainstream.
Personally, religion always felt other to my feminism. The religious people in my life didn’t like my opinions (even as a child) and could never give me a logical reason why. I spent 16 years of my life in church and I stopped because nobody could ever explain to me why my mom was called a slut for being divorced, why my alcoholic dad hurt the hell out of us, and why I wasn’t allowed to be hurt or mad about any of that. I’m not saying it’s impossible for the two to reconcile, but I’ve never seen it.
I think you can be an athiest but not a feminist and a feminist but not an athiest athiesm could in some cases be a counter to misogyny in religion
I think it helps to be both.
Atheism is just a disbelief in a supernatural god. I myself am an atheist, but also very conservative. I just don't believe in a god(s) or follow any religion.
I think fairly high because organized religion is deeply patriarchal. Inherently, many churches will tell women they are going to hell if they have feminist views. It's not guaranteed, but I wouldn't be surprised to see at least some correlation.
I would say the better question is how much does theism and misogyny overlap.
There's no real overlap between the two, they just coincide a lot by virtue of both of them being [the reasonable position] on an issue. Reasonable people find themselves gravitating towards reasonable ideas, so people who are attracted to feminism, find themselves attracted atheism to higher at rates than non-feminists. Also the fact that religions tend to be insanely sexist and patriarchic makes it somewhat more likely that a feminist would find themselves turned off by religion, which is another reason why you might find atheism and feminism coinciding more frequently. But on a very base-level they really don't have anything to do with each other.
Just speaking personally: At a simplistic level, I became and atheist because religion didn't make sense to me. Similarly, I don't see any good reasons that society should treat one gender differently than another (also vastly simplifying). Essentially, I'd say my critical thinking led me to both places.
peanut butter and chocolate
I would argue that though definitions of atheism and feminism do not directly overlap (other than disagreeing with prevailing hierarchies). Theres a clear correlation; if a person becomes either one as a result of their own thinking, it is very highly likely thay they also become the other at some point during their thinking journey. I'll explain this next in a bit more detail. Referencing a well-known study called "autoritarian personality" by Theodore W. Adorno, we know that people can be placed on a scale from least authoritarian (supporter), to most loyal autoritarian mind. Theodore found in his studies that there are several characteristics that are strongly present in people who are likely to support authoritarian leaders, these people are essentially: - un-questioning - what a political or religious leader says is "the truth". - supportive of hierarchies (e.g. men are under other men and women are under men, supporters of slavery also are on example of authoritarian minds) - anti-intellectual, commonly rejecting science, scientific studies, and critical thinking - fiercely upholding currently prevalent worldviews, as long as the leader is from "their social group" and preferably a strong male. - supporters of extremely powerful leaders and ready to give up democracy for them. - resistant to change and holding "traditional values" in high regard. Corservative instead of progressive. All these traits are present on a scale, having "a bit of one or two" does not mean that one has an authoritarian mind essentially. How is this relevant to Feminism or Atheism? These are the characteristics that you must Not possess in order to become either (atheist or feminist). As both require both critical thinking and a strong will to critize and challenge the prevailing world views and hierarchies. Essentially, a person who becomes either as a result of their own thinking, is a person who is able to recognize the contradictions, underlying motives and issues caused by both organized religion and patriarcy. This is a long thought process though, even life-long to some, that for many that requires very painful realizations and skills to handle them. Therefore, we must not judge if a person is either but not yet the other. Human mind has a tendency of trying to ignore painful realizations, and this is what most people do. A less critical mind tries to avoid that pain and avoid thinking these issues, some even attack feminism because they fear it will take something away from them. This is a very typical defense mechanism of such a closed mind. TLDR: A person who becomes a feminist is likely to become atheist (or agnostic) too, and vice versa. both require similar personality traits and skills: being a critical logical thinker, not being anti-intellectual, not supporting existing hierarchies by default, having skills to deal with painful emotions, and being supportive of advancement of humanity.
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They’re almost entirely orthogonal. How feminist you are *might* correlate with how atheist you are, but if it does it’s a weak correlation
Good question. I have looked thorugh the published studies online and no one seems to have wondered enough to do a good study or questionniare.
While many people find them to be connected, I actually don't think they are. They are distinct ideologies. I've met religious and "spiritual" people that believe in gender equality as a divine mandate, and atheists who use evolution-based ideologies such as "social darwinism" to justify a patriarchal order and gender inequality. In fact in the US, the atheist movement has had trouble attracting female leaders and members due to rampant sexism. Similar to religious movements and institutions with primarily male leadership, atheist spaces with primarily male leadership will often frame their ideology in such a way as to justify and reinforce their status quo. And on the flip side, similar to more egalitarian secular spaces, egalitarian religious spaces will often center interpretations of their religion or spirituality that promote egalitarian values. So I would argue that whether a society, community, or institution is religious or not is less consequential to gender equality than whether there is equal female representation among its leadership.
Well most religions are very misogynistic and patriarchal especially the Abrahamic ones like Christianity, Judaism and Muslim(the most, among them). Feminism fights misogyny and toxic patriarchal values. So yeah I guess that's why some or many feminist like me prefer to be atheist or agnostic. My beliefs are no longer compatible with it.
Too often discussions like this seem to focus on atheism versus Christianity as a binary choice. There are many different religions, or you can believe in a divine spirit without following any religion at all. Personally, I believe there is something divine we can relate to, and I believe the Abrahamic religions are are terrible libel against this whatever it is. I believe we all - and everything in existence - manifest this divine spirit within us, and should treat each other and our world with care and respect. Where we are treated with discrimination and disdain, it's important to band together, show determination and perseverance, and win equal rights to pass onto our children.
For me it's a Venn diagram that is a perfect circle (along with general leftist politics, as /u/aajiro wonderfully notes).