Austin Cline finishes the sentence “You might be an Uncle Tom Atheist if…”
For example:
You might be an Uncle Tom Atheist if…
You Apologize for “Bad Atheists” Making Religious Believers Uncomfortable
It’s easy to see how generalizations about an entire class of people must be wrong, but bigots get around this by dividing a group into the “good” members who do what they are told and the “bad” (uppity) members who make the entire group look bad. Uncle Tom Atheists accept this division and thus also accept the principle that the actions of a few atheists can be classified as “bad” and thereby tarnish the reputations of all atheists. Whether the behavior of the “bad” atheists in question really is bad or not typically remains unaddressed for obvious reasons. By apologizing for other atheists, Uncle Tom Atheists tell religious believers that they have good reasons to be bigots and are therefore not immoral.
Is the list fair?
Do you fall into any of those categories?
How do you justify your actions?