"Atheist" red flagged, but not "Agnostic" or "Humanist"

[uu_mom]

Atheists have told me that they're prejudiced against, but I didn't know to what extent. I was running an ad to tell people in the area that UUs welcome atheists, agnostics, humanists, non-theists, and questioners - I wrote 3 separate ads Fri. night that were all the same except the one word that was different in each of the 3 and they all linked

Comments

[lord_of_entropy]

My experience as an Unitarian Universalist atheist whose mother served on the Covenant of UU Pagans' national board is that both groups face a lot of bias. I would thus counsel that you see both the original and the proposed pagan ad published.

Sadly, this kind of prejudice is not uncommon. After an atheist billboard in Charlotte, NC (quoting the pre-Red Scare Pledge of Allegiance) was vandalized, Washington Post’s Religious columnist David Waters response was: “[Y]ou have to admit that what the vandals did in North Carolina was clever and relatively respectful, considering that the billboard was placed along Billy Graham Parkway by a coalition of atheists and agnostics.”

[uu_mom]

OMG, the first, quick read-through, I missed it & had to go back - I really didn't notice the discrimination & thought it was an article that was positive toward the atheist attitude at first. I think it's like racism - we've been brain-washed in our society to believe a certain way or ignore certain stereotypes and don't see it when it's right in front of our eyes... unless we're the ones being prejudice against and are sensitive or have learned to be sensitive to another's issues. I certainly have been trained in the latter, but it still doesn't come naturally. Also, part of the problem is that the person being prejudiced against is so used to it, s/he ignores it & doesn't bother to do anything about it. I hope he got plenty of letters about that - I don't know if they post them all, but a printed letter-to-the-editor would get more notice than online comments. It doesn't look like they published one. It's rotten when it gets into the bias is in the press, too

[chalicechick]

Eh, my guess is that after the controversy about the Freedom From Religion Foundation ad in the UU world, somebody made a rule that atheism ads get extra scrutiny by the boss.

While the application of such a rule in this case is silly, as discrimination goes, this minor delay doesn't sound like such a big deal to me, especially since the "three days" we're talking about were Friday night to Sunday, and it is possible not a lot of people were in the office and the ad STILL went up within three days. Personally, I would have given them until Monday before publishing this.

[eracerhead]

It never should have been flagged at all. If the FFRF ad in UU World caused any controversy, then UUs are just as guilty of flinging theist bigotry as anyone else.

[uu_mom]

I didn't name the company, though many people might know who it was. I just expressed my surprise at that particular word being screened like that. It is a form of discrimination. I put up an ad with words like "good without God" and that went through fine. I NEVER in my ~8 yrs. of running internet ads had this kind of problem.

[chalicechick]

I just assumed that it was the folks you had linked to.

[uu_mom]

It's possible that hate-mongers (possibly both anti-theists and Christians) have used the term "atheist" in an inappropriate way online and that's why they've had to catch it in their computer program. It was eventually approved.

Online search engines use algorithms - complex mathematical programs to decide how to serve search results while avoiding tricksters, spam, abuse, and inappropriate content. They base their results on searches humans make, so that gives me an insight into how people relate to the terms "Unitarian", "Universalist" and "Unitarian Universalist". The internet is very interesting.

Shalom and Namaste to you and yours, too.