Violence against atheists
With the popularity of recent publications by atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennet, I get hopeful that atheism will become a more acceptable philosophical position now and in the future. However, there is still a lot of hatred in the world for those who promote a rational world-view, in lieu of mysticism and superstition. Though I must admit, Canada isn’t the first place I think of when I hear about violence towards atheists.
While hanging posters promoting a lecture by Victor Stenger, author of God: The Failed Hypothesis, two atheists were attacked.
One of the men hit him in the face twice, and butted him on his face, causing his nose to bleed, Mr. Trottier said.He said the two men looked like they were in their early 20s. He didn’t know if they attended the university. “If the incident had been reversed and it had been an atheist that had physically assaulted a theist for postering for a theist event . . . that would easily be considered a hate crime — and it frequently is. This is the exact reverse scenario,” Mr. Trottier said. “This assault should be taken just as seriously.”
Janet Mowat, a spokeswoman for Ryerson, said security has gone through its files and “they are treating it not as a hate crime, but as a dispute that arose and led to an altercation.”
Toronto police say they are investigating the incident. But Detective Dave Alexander was also hesitant to call it hate-motivated. “We don’t have anything that suggests that as far as I’m aware of. I know [Mr. Trottier] was talking about that, but certainly from what I see it doesn’t look like it falls within what our policies and procedures define as a hate crime,” Det. Alexander said. “But we’re still looking at that as well to cover all the bases.”
Austin Cline comments on the double-standard of not investigating this as a hate crime.
I don’t know much about Canadian law, but the events above strike me as looking very much like something that would be categorized as a hate crime if the victims were members of other minorities — Jews, Muslims, gays, etc. At the very least, I suspect that if members of some other minority were the victims, then the police would be treating this as a hate crime for the purposes of investigation, even if they refused to declare that it definitely was a hate crime.If the reports above all turn out to be true, and it also turns out that the attack was indeed motivated out of hatred of atheism and atheists, then I don’t think that too many atheists will end up being surprised. It’s true that hate crimes against atheists are less common than similar crimes against other minorities, but hatred and distrust of atheists remains wider and more common than hatred and distrust of other minorities. It may simply be that those who hate atheists lack sufficient opportunities to commit violence against atheists.
