Brent Rasmussen: Not An "Atheist Blogger"

Brent Rasmussen gets it- while commenting on the recent rumor that Karl Rove is an atheist, he attacks the idea of an "atheist movement," an idea which has also received little support on this blog:

I think what is happening in the "atheist blogosphere" is that we are loosely tying together a collection of nominally "atheist blogs" (which really makes no sense at all), and giving the rest of the world the false impression that we are all a monolithic political/religious group with a single set of core values and a defined group identity.

We don't. Karl Rove fucking proves it.

We need to STOP identifying ourselves as "atheist bloggers". That's a stupid way to identify a blog. I am an atheist who happens to blog. My reasons are my reasons. I do not agree with all of the other atheists out there who also happen to blog - and it frustrates the heck out of me when I am called to task for something some other wackjob said - just because they also identified themselves as an "atheist blogger".

I'm just sick to death of it.

This doesn't mean that I am not an atheist - I am. What it means is that I am going to stop trying to fit myself into what the rest of the world considers an atheist to be.

I agree with Brent- if there is any take-home message from the "rise" of atheism in the blogosphere, it's that people from all walks of life, with vastly different cultural, social, and political views, can all find cause to reject god-belief. We're not all Snidely Whiplashes; we're not even a group that's cut from the same cloth. Our (usually) harmonious criticism of theism has resulted in most believers lumping us all together conceptually as the 'barbarians at the gates,' perhaps because it's thought that a focused defense is easier given a united adversary.

In this sense, I feel sympathetic for the many Christian apologists out there- as I might for a tower full of Romans besieged concurrently by Franks, Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, and Anglo-Saxons. The modern Christian apologist has to be an expert of theology, philosophy, many branches of science, particularly evolutionary theory, astronomy, and geology, ethical theory, ancient and modern history, archaeology, and the law. And to accomplish all these tasks, he or she has only one official textbook- the Bible.

Those who lack a god-belief, on the other hand, are as diverse and disparate a group of people as could be imagined, and I for one am happy to promote this diversity because it affords us the greatest advantage in accomplishing the one objective most of us would agree to- lessening the influence of theism in the world.