WHY ATHEISM AS AN IDENTITY NEEDS POLITICAL AFFIRMATION AND LEGAL PROTECTION

In identity politics, what you are biologically or in your inner sense of self, needs protecting and those who harass or discriminate against you need punitive treatment at worst or sensitivity training at best.

You have a characteristic that you and others demand must be socially and legally protected and your individual character and personal qualities do not matter much or are just irrelevant.  If somebody who does not share this protected characteristic, they have no right to speak for you or have an opinion on what should be done with you.   For example, whites have no right to decide what the experience of black people under white oppression is like.  The believer has no right to have an opinion on what rights the atheist must have.

We know that our brains are programmed to allow us to create inner forces and programs to be good or bad.  The dangerous side of us is inbuilt.

 

 

 

Whatever race you are is a protected characteristic.

Whatever sex/gender you are is a protected characteristic.

Your sexuality is a protected characteristic.

As religion is a body of opinion and claims to give an identity to its members it will get a level of legal protection.  But that cannot be made as important a race and sex/gender.  Opinion cannon matter as much as what a person naturally is. To protect a person of a particular faith, must not mean reducing them to their religious opinions.  Religious rights should give way to human rights. 

Religions disagree on what a spiritual identity means and entails.  In Christianity your identity is to become a home for God and for you to become like God.  In Buddhism is it for you to escape reincarnation.  In Sadducee Judaism, it is go out of existence at death.

So pragmatically speaking, the state cannot cater for all these identities.

The atheist makes a very simple and biological claim that the state can cater for.

Can an atheist come under the same right to protection as a person of a race, gender or sexuality?

Identity as an atheist can be innate. You may come to atheism and realise that you were always in some way an atheist. It explains why you felt out of place and unsettled. It may make you suffer from a realism that hurts you and which might need medical intervention.

If there is no God then believer or not, your identity is an animal of an advanced kind not a child of God or a spirit body combination or anything but an animal. 

Secularism has to be neutral on the existence of God.  So how can a secularist affirm and protect the atheist as having a special characteristic?  But being neutral on God which by definition is the source of all that is best for us and all that is wise for us and all that matters is really just euphemistic atheism.  Secularism will not support blunt atheism but does support this tacit atheism.

An animal without God sums up what the atheist identity is.  The atheist will internalise all that even if she or he does not realise it. It is that simple.

Labels open doors and that is only fair if they are true and verified.  If Jesus was a fraud then the Christian label is just a word and Christianity is just a social construct.  There is no real validity.

People will exaggerate what a label means for them or misappropriate it. A label may be nonsense but it has real power in a community or culture. The people let it have power and you can take advantage. A label empowers you when you portray it as a cultural identifier to those who are that superficial that they think calling yourself something is enough. What you call yourself may not even be significant and yet it will be treated as such.

Critics of identity say I make too much of what I want to think I am. It excludes others. Neither of these matter. Why? Identity is not religious or moral for it is formed by choice and by what nature has made me. Choice is not about morality just as the knife is not about cutting turnips.  Thus the atheist identity is recognising the truth about yourself.  No God gave you the power to choose sin or holiness.  The power to choose is just about choosing.  The atheists know they are not made to serve the will of God.

Atheism is a valid identity.  An atheist is simply a word for a human being who knows what he or she truly is.  The atheist is in everybody but they just need the light to shine on them and they will see it.

If religion is a hospital or school for the damaged spirit or soul, then atheism is not a religion or a spirituality. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any alleged spiritual or theological malady.  If religion is a kind of hospital it can be a manmade one or a divine one.  Atheism is neither.

We conclude that atheism is an identity matter and is not comparable to religion and its ideas about identity.  It is scientific and concentrates on the data instead of data + metaphysical speculation