Atheist author, blogger, and activist Greta Christina delivered her lecture entitled “Why are you atheists so angry” in Wallenberg Auditorium on Thursday, April 10.
Christina’s lecture was jointly sponsored by the Gustavus Secular Student Alliance, Queers and Allies, and College Republicans.
Secular Student Alliance President and Founder Ryan Liebl addressed the organization’s motivation for inviting Christina to the Gustavus campus, noting that Christina’s stance on sexual justice and support for the LGBTQ community would also appeal to the campus population.
“The other unique thing is she’s kind of a firebrand, like she’s not your usual really nice Midwestern kind of person, but she’s not going to make people feel comfortable at the talk necessarily if they disagree with her viewpoint. We thought she was compatible as a whole, but would also challenge people at the same time,” Liebl said.
Christina opened the lecture with an expression of religious and political issues, addressing the legal discrimination which has been historically directed toward atheists among a multitude of global social issues rooted in religion.
“To deny the role that religion plays in religious conflict is a classic case of ignoring the elephant in the room,” Christina said.
Defining religion based in terms of a belief in the impact of the supernatural in the natural world, Christina addressed the issue of the lack of “reality check” in an entity based in faith and the intangible, stating that religion is consequentially “uniquely armored.”
Christina stated that she believes moderate and progressive religions are harmful in their promotion of faith, which among other negative effects opens people to vulnerability in bad decisions.
She spoke about the power of anger as a tool in creating social change.
“I think I’m right to be angry. I think all atheists are right to be angry,” Christina said.
Placing the element of anger within public conversations about atheist activism, she described interaction with other religious or social groups encouraging atheists to tone down their anger and message, which she asserts removes power and energy from the atheist movement.
“Atheists are angry because we have compassion, atheists are angry because we have a sense of justice.[We are] not angry because there’s something wrong with us, we’re angry because there’s something right with us,” Christina said.
Christina encouraged atheists in the audience to “come out” to family and friends in an effort to create a more supportive environment for other atheists and to select a form of activism that is personally comfortable and productive.
Following the lecture, a question and answer segment permitted audience members to interact with Christina, including queries about the diversity of unbelief, why atheists should “come out of the closet,” selective Biblical interpretations, among others.
One audience member inquired what Christina’s ideal future for religion would entail, to which she responded in favor of an increase in atheism, removal of religion from government, and the eventual nonexistence of religion globally.
Junior Kaity Young was in the audience and reflected on Christina’s message following the lecture.
“I think it went really well, I was impressed with what she had to say. I like that she didn’t really do anything that would make other people angry, she just expressed why she was angry, which I think was a good thing to do specifically on this campus because of all the backlash that there can be,” Young said.
Young also addressed the importance in promoting such conversations on campus about atheism, so atheists may be perceived as more relatable to some members of the campus community.