“[N]ot getting involved in controversy is one of those things I’m not particularly talented at.” — Richard Dawkins, ~5:15
“The world needs your irascibility, sir.” – Caleb Lack
Controversy will always be with us, so long as we remain the emotionally-driven fallible apes who first emerged from Africa some few thousand generations ago. To avoid controversy altogether would require an intolerable amount of apathy on the salient issues of the day, for example, there will inevitably be controversy and strife around President Obama’s pick to succeed Justice Scalia. To ignore this controversy is to sit out a public policy debate that will determine the future of constitutional law and civil rights in America.
It is not difficult to think of similarly unavoidable controversies, policy debates which are both ineluctable and indispensable, in which humanists and secularists must take sides: the ongoing fight for LGBT equality, the endless legal wrangling over an array of reproductive health services, the neverending struggle to keep church and state separate, among a host of related examples. Wherever theocracy rears it head and demands a return to the Bronze Age, we must not cultivate a talent for not getting involved in controversy.
Then there is the delicate question of whether it is acceptable to wade into avoidable (as opposed to policy-related) controversies, such as whether any gods exist. It is probably no coincidence that the individuals who have risen to high prominence in the field of atheism are those who proved more than willing to brazenly and openly call bullshit on theistic memes. People like these:
With the arguable exception of Neil Degrasse Tyson, everyone on that list has deliberately courted controversy. Yes, even the kindly and venerable Daniel Dennett has been known to take a stand for highly unpopular ideas. It is in the nature of both the atheist and skeptic movements to attract and exalt contrarians, because our primary social function is to call popular, potentially harmful, deeply held ideas into question. Ideas like theism, original sin, faith-healing, and anti-vaccination nonsense. (Sorry, Bill Maher.)
Given that we have a collection of controversy-courting contrarians at the forefront of movement atheism, can we reasonably expect that they will stay on script, using their talent for controversy strictly in the ways that we happen to like? There are those who demand that it must be so, and expect conference organizers to fall in line. And then there are those who ask only that we work to create “room for a range of reasonable opinions” and allow a frank and open discussion thereof. I cast my lot firmly with the latter.
