Village Atheist
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[edit] Definition
Village Atheist refers to a person who is one of a few atheists, or even the sole atheist, in a community of religious believers. Sometimes used as a pejorative.
[edit] Origins
The actual origins are somewhat obscure. From the "The Village Atheist Syndrome," Humanism Today, Vol. 10, 1996.:
- The term village atheist is not a new one and has often been used in the past in both fictional and non-fictional works to describe the non‑believer who manages to proclaim his atheism in small communities made up of devoted and unquestioning believers.
When used as an insult, of course it is obviously a take-off on the phrase "village idiot."
[edit] Discussion
The term often carries the implication that the village atheist either is already regarded as vaguely disreputable by most of the community or would be regarded as such if it became commonly known what his or her views are. When one refers to oneself as a "village atheist" in this sense, it is usually self-deprecating.
Another usage, which is more clearly derogatory, refers to an atheist whose demeanor appears to resemble that of religious fundamentalists, especially with respect to their rigidity, shrillness, and intellectual carelessness. Synonyms for "village atheist" in this latter sense include "fundamentalist atheist" and "dogmatic atheist."
[edit] Example usages of "village atheist" and its synonyms
- As a rule, my standard sentence "I'm the Village Atheist." suffices, esp with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
- —abe smith in the Internet Infidels Discussion Forum, on rebuffing attempts to proselytize him
- Often I’ve said I'm Village Atheist. But my partner had to point out that it has an element of self-deprecating humor. I’ve always meant to mean that I'd rather laugh at you than, ahem, discuss your crazed half-baked ideas about the universe.
- —Richard Evans Lee, in a blog entry on Gullibility isn't in the dictionary
- If a person of faith troubles to think of Voltaire (1694–1778) at all these days, it is most likely as the village atheist: shoveling scorn in Candide on Leibniz’s sunny theodicy that proclaims this the best of all possible worlds, flinging verbal abuse and perhaps the occasional dead cat at passing clerics, making sport of biblical literalists and indeed of believers in any religion of the revealed word. To many English-speaking readers, the definitive gibe at Voltaire comes from William Blake, who consigns the reasoning wizards of the Enlightenment to everlasting darkness: "Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau: / Mock on, Mock on, 'tis all in vain! / You throw the sand against the wind, / And the wind blows it back again."
- —Algis Valiunas, in a review of the book Voltaire in Exile by Ian Davidson
- I detest the puerile effusions of all village atheists. "Me so smart! Believers so dumb! Me so brave! Believers moral cowards needing crutches!" Well, I'd say you a leetle bit smarter than the fathead fundies who apparently inhabit the intellectual stratum into which your natural gifts have delivered you, is my usual mental response.
- —Moira Breen, an atheist herself, in a blog entry on the ex-blog inappropriate response
- It is a notorious hazard of the village atheist's vocation to mimic many of the worst features of the dogma he obsessively denounces. That certainly is the case with The End of Faith. Harris wishes to convict religious belief of mulish literalism, while attacking its tenets in the most bluntly prosaic and anachronistic terms he can muster. Harris attacks the believing world’s maudlin wish fulfillments and faulty logic--and winds up exploiting lurid imagined scenarios of the final moments of 9/11 victims as an argument-stilling tactic. Harris excoriates the religious worldview’s foreshortened use of fact and evidence, and produces ahistorical, misleading summaries of the most basic features of Muslim belief, geopolitical conflict, and religious thinking generally.
- —Chris Lehmann, in a review of the book, The End of Faith by Sam Harris
- I'm almost always at odds with religious dogmatists, but what they're doing makes sense in its own terms.
- I find dogmatic atheism harder to parse. The notion that religious people, as such, are enemies of humankind seems to me at least as silly as the analogous notion about atheists. And if you're an atheist, you don't even have the bad excuse that God told you to believe it.
- —Mark A. R. Kleiman in a blog entry
- . . . every once in a while someone responds to atheist critiques of religion or theism by labeling the person as a "fundamentalist" atheist. . . . When it's used, it seems to be some sort of short-hand for unreflective, unquestioning dogmatism. It is possible to be a dogmatic atheist who doesn't reason well, doesn't listen to others' arguments, and doesn’t adjust their ideas as new data comes in. If this is what people mean, though, then why not simply say "dogmatic atheist" instead of "fundamentalist atheist"? It’s as if they are trying to draw an inappropriate parallel with religion.
- —Austin Cline, in the blog entry from atheism.about.com
[edit] Related Topics
[edit] References
- "The Village Atheist Syndrome," Humanism Today, Vol. 10, 1996.
