Are Atheists a Persecuted Minority?

In recent days I have been engaging in some of the public forums debating the validity of the Federally funded National School Chaplaincy Program. This has mainly been in relation to a discussion on the Atheist Federation of Australia's forum about School Chaplaincy, and a discussion page on the Get Up web-site.

As a general rule, both of these forums were dominated by opponents of School Chaplaincy and the few supporters who ventured to make a contribution to the discussion were ridiculed, derided and insulted to such an extent that few were willing to contribute for more than a few days - myself included. I concluded that they simply wished to hear from others who reinforced their views of reality rather than inviting them to consider the possibility that there are multiple realities that need to be considered.

I don't like to generalise, because there seemed to be a generalised view that all Christians were on a God-given mission to convert the whole world to Christianity, and even if examples were offered demonstrating this not to be the case, they were dismissed as being fundamentally deceptive - "they really want to, even if they say they don't".

I wondered why these self-appointed advocates of a religion-free public space should feel the need to respond to Christians with such derision. This response is similar to the response of oppressed or marginalised groups in society - they resent the power/influence of the dominant group and the only resort left is insult and an attempt to respond to exclusion with exclusion. We see this on a multi-cultural level, and in the areas of gender and sexuality.

Secular atheists have a world view. In this world view the scientific method relegates religion to the realm of fairy tails because the religious cannot be validated scientifically. It also challenges the divine as no self-evident logically, so therefore it is non-existent. Logic and the scientific method are the only two realms in which truth and reality can be found.

While this world-view may not be a religion, many who hold it do so with a zeal and fundamentalism that is akin to those associated with various religious traditions. In a sense it is true that for the religious and secular atheists "right" and "truth" are held in their hands alone and all others are living in some form of error or delusion.

The fundamentalists of both the secular and religious domains need to realise that modern society requires them both to have an authentic regard for each other that allows us each to have an equal place in society, not a marginalised one. I know this is hard for the dominant group - the religious - but there is already such plurality within the religious domain that making a place for the irreligious is not conceding much ground.

In the world of ideas there must always be room for alternatives as well as willingness to engage in debate about those ideas without feeling coerced to abandon your own views.

What do you think?