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Quote:If you haven’t seen ABC’s show What Would You Do? — and you won’t want to after this — the premise is pretty self-explanatory. As the show’s website states, it “establishes everyday scenarios and then captures people’s reactions.” So you might see a segment in which an actor clearly steals an item from a store… and the cameras zoom in on the other customers to see how they react: Do they tell someone or do they ignore it? You get the idea.
[snip]
The setup featured a family (of actors) in a restaurant praying before a meal.
Another actor, portraying an atheist, freaked out and started yelling at them to keep their religion to themselves. (“I have a right to eat without you forcing your religion down my throat!”)
The show wanted to see how the other diners would respond.
But that’s irrelevant. Let’s step back and admit that’s an awful scenario to begin with because it’s completely implausible. It’s as if the producers asked themselves how they could portray atheists in the worst way possible and then ran with it.
With some select comments (Many, many more have been posted, I'm cherry-picking the names people might recognize):
Jerry DeWitt Wrote:I've never met an atheist who would do this..not one. Thank You for making a difficult situation in this country even harder. How about learning a little more about us first?
Tracie Harris Wrote:I have a community group page for atheists on Facebook (with nearly 3,000 members), and we're discussing this right now. It's defamation. I've met one atheist ever in my work as an activist who actually took action to stop religious people from free expression in their personal lives. And we stood up to condemn his actions publicly on The Atheist Experience.
Meanwhile, secular groups like FFRF and Citizens United for Separation of Church and State (headed by a Christian minister), work extremely hard to fight against religious oppression and ensure religious freedom. Ironically it's right wing religious folks--the most zealous and ardent believers--who most often want to impose their beliefs in inappropriate, and even illegal ways, on the rest of society. They generally have to be reminded by the courts that they have to respect the rights of others and not use the state as a bludgeon to force their own religious beliefs upon others.
But the idea that atheists would stand in the way of someone's personal, private expression, in a space where such expression is quite legal (such as this example)--is part of a defamatory (and very inaccurate) portrayal of atheists we seem to always have to defend and explain.
In short, as a general rule, atheists DO NOT do this, and would more likely defend not only the Christian, but the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, or any other religious person's right to express themselves in spaces where it is legally allowed.
Thanks to this show for maligning us and setting us back AGAIN as people who would strip religious freedoms, rather than those who would defend them (which we do more than most religious folks by keeping the state as neutral as possible so that everyone can have a right to practice and express equally when such activity is within a citizen's legal rights).
Seth Andrews Wrote:I'm an atheist activist, and I've never seen an atheist act this way. Not once.
This is a surprise to many, but while non-believers have no absence of passion in the God debate, most are also fierce champions for the individual right to believe (or not believe) in a deity. A family prayer at a restaurant might cause us to sigh quietly (especially when someone thanks God but ignores the cook and the wait staff), but we certainly aren't shouting over the tables and attempting to shut down the free expression of individual religious belief.
Many of us do take issue with mandatory prayers to a specific deity in taxpayer-funded institutions, the charges that the USA belongs to any specific religion/God, and that non-believers should be treated as sub-citizens. We seek proof for religious claims and embrace our own Constitutionally-protected right to live our own lives without being culturally vilified.
But we're not shouting families down in public restaurants when they thank Jesus for the mashed potatoes and chicken.
I frequently enjoy WWYD's content, but building this particular straw man (in Texas, no less) in no way helps the much-needed discussions on a sensitive issue.
Nathan Phelps Wrote:This is disappointing. Sustaining a false stereotype for ratings. The simple truth is that an atheist would be one of the first to defend the right of that family to pray. You blew this one ABC.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
