I can remember a time in my own lifetime when freedom of religion was frequently interpreted to mean you could be whatever flavor of Christian you wanted to be. In time, the language of religious freedom generally started to include non-Christian religions. It was still more time before the notion of religious freedom began to include the notion of freedom from religion altogether. Atheism used to be a much more fringe viewpoint, so much so that many people didn’t even fully understand what it meant. Atheists with the courage to speak up back when it was still a largely fringe viewpoint played a significant role in promoting freedom of religion. This applies even to those who, while not atheists themselves, held minority and perhaps unpopular religious views.
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I see many similarities now in the emergence of anarchy as a personal view. It still appears to be a fringe viewpoint. However, just as I suspect there are and were a number of atheists who didn’t label themselves or desire to speak up and subject themselves to ridicule by a theist majority, there may now be many closet anarchists. The word “anarchy” still means chaos to the general public largely ignorant of the subject...
Go and read the rest of this excellent essay.
5 comments:
Anarchy has a long history of its own. As far as I know, it's still the only recognized and stated exception to the free speech laws in Britain. I'm not quite sure what he means by, "I see many similarities now in the emergence of anarchy as a personal view." This really has been going on for quite some time now.
Well anarchy has been around for awhile, but its been so small until recently that it wasnt even a blip on the radar so to speak.
Now that atheism has begun achieving mainstream acceptance, and anarchy, while increasing in popularity, has not yet achieved mainstream acceptance, anarchy is accordingly the new atheism, just like atheism was the "new gay."
Have you guys seen "Sons of Anarchy" the new FX show about motorcycle gangs? The hero's father has written a whole manuscript about the philosophy of anarchy, and they refer to it constantly during the show.
My reply got to long, so I posted it.
Gays, atheists, and anarchists are still fringe groups and somewhat crazy. They are just more outspoken and annoying these days.
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