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Show Open minds needed to erase stigmas H umans are wired to cling tenaciously to their beliefs. Regardless of how delusional, these beliefs tend to automatically make humans dismiss any conflicting evidence. In areas like politics and religion, this tendency is especially true. As a skeptic of organized religion, and as someone who falls closer to the atheism end on the belief spectrum, understanding the other side can be difficult for me. At first, my own religious ignorance hindered my ability to truly explore the religious perspectives of others. My ignorance stemmed largely from the common problem all ignorant people have: a total lack of knowledge about the history, scripture and culture of a religion. This realization took an enormous toll on my self-perception. Up to this point, I had prided myself in just how openminded and unbiased I thought I was. If anything, I was being more unfair and biased than even the most religious zealot: Not only was I dismissing conflicting evidence, I wasn't even aware what the evidence was. In a genuine endeavor to dispel my ignorance, I decided to make a change and educate myself. An idea I had was to interact and initiate meaningful conversation with those who fall outside my beliefs. This idea in practice, however, was always stymied the moment I "outted" myself as an atheist, and I frequently experienced what I can only label as a stigma against atheists. What started as a constructive and insightful conversation on topics such as God, belief, spirituality or faith quickly turned tense, austere and sometimes hostile once I uttered the word "atheist." After my irreligiosity was made known, most of those I talked with declined to continue our conversation, accused me of solely being interested in attacking their god and beliefs, and treated me like I was about to drag them down to intellectual hell with me. Others brashly laughed at my personal beliefs and blatantly accused me of acting too smart and too good for God, something I would later deeply regret, according to them. Yet, for me, the most poignant response was the tsk-tsk and the true pang of sorrow in someone's voice when they would tell me, "You must be so unhappy without God." The stigma about atheists shouldn't come as a surprise to me. According to a study by Pew Research Center titled "How Americans Feel About Religious Groups," on a scale of one to 100, with one being the most negative and 100 being most positive, atheists were ranked at 41. Jews, Catholics and Evangelical Christians ranked at the top. Additionally, atheists were consistently ranked at the bottom and were overall perceived much more negatively by other religious groups in this survey. Surprisingly, while 59 percent of those polled in this survey said they knew someone who was atheist, only two percent of those polled identified as an atheist. This figure is illustrative of how real the stigma is. It seems that on a personal level, such as casual conversations with friends and family, people are comfortable with identifying as atheists. However, it seems clear that atheists resist identifying themselves on a quantitative and large-scale level. Somewhere between the micro and the macro presence of atheism, this overwhelming stigma shrouds atheists and prevents accurate representation, in turn fueling the stigma. It is impossible to create and sustain meaningful religious coexistence and intellectual freedom when only popular interests — in this case, the interests of the most dominant beliefs — are represented in society. Something incredible happens to us when we allow our psyche to soften. We become permeable to another's experience in the world. This allows people to create a space where differences are explored and questioned. More importantly, stigmas can be thoroughly absolved and corrected in this space, which creates a profound understanding of the universe and our place in it. letters@chronicle.utah.edu U.S. should recognize other religious holidays A s the Christmas season approaches, many of us eagerly anticipate the days off to catch up on some much-needed sleep and celebrating with friends and family. Dec. 25 is recognized as a federal holiday in the United States and has become so commercialized that many non-Christians take part in the festivities as well. However, recognizing Christmas with a day off and leaving out the holidays of other religious groups that make up a huge part of the population promotes inequality and marginalization. Although the U.S. claims secularism, it seems that notion disappears during the holiday season. Whether or not you remember the religious history and background of our country's most celebrated holiday — Christmas — there is one aspect no one dares to forget: the gifts. From an economic perspective, the holiday season and breaks given to both workers and students benefit many industries, especially the retail industry, and bring in a large, concentrated amount of capital in the Continued on page 12 General Conference spoiler alerts I he 184th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just around the corner. With the local and national media coverage that has recently surrounded the Church, it's high time General Conference gets its own preview and predictions like any other big event. What used to be an exclusively Mormon event is now front page news in papers like The Salt Lake Tribune and is even mentioned in The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. While they have covered various aspects of General Conference, what these publications choose to cover is typically pretty selective — hence the need to preview what will be covered by the media this coming weekend. To those of you who are unfamiliar with the LDS Church, let this preview be your guide on what may or may not occur at the conference. As for you Conference-going Mormons, well, you already know what to expect — it's the same thing every six months. Thanks to the well-publicized Mormon support of Proposition 8 and Mitt Romney's 2008 and 2012 presidential runs, the LDS Church has had their Mormon Moment:' and for better or worse the mainstream media has jumped on the bandwagon. General Conference has more media interest than ever, though what is actually covered remains strategically selective. Hence the need for a few predictions of my own. As the prognosticator of prognosticators I will make the very safe prediction that at some point a talk will be given reaffirming the LDS Church's support for traditional marriage. How can I be so sure? Because they always give the same talk about the importance of traditional marriage — and have been doing so since long before Proposition 8. I also predict that even though there will be nothing new about this long-standing doctrine, it will make the front page of The Tribune and be referenced in national newspapers. For my next bold prediction, I'm going to go out on a limb and make the claim that construction for another LDS temple will be announced during the Saturday morning session — and it won't be the long-awaited White Plains New York temple that was announced in 1995 and has yet to see the light of day due to opposition from the local community in Harrison, New York. Curiously, the LDS church has been able to get approval to build a temple in the notoriously secular Paris, France and one in the Catholic stronghold of Rome and yet somehow has been denied in New York. Now that's a story worth gracing at least the fourth or fifth page of any newspaper. Instead, most media organizations will cover any conference talk that reminds the world that Mormons still believe homosexuality is a sin. For my next trick I will peer into my crystal ball and make the prediction that there will be talks about charity, faith, giving service to others, avoiding pornography, respecting spouses and honoring commitments, all of which will not be covered by any media organization with the lone exception of The Deseret News (which, due to its affiliation with the Church, doesn't really count as an unbiased news source). Now it's time to predict what won't happen this weekend. There will most certainly not be a talk on the benefits of shopping at the sparkling new City Creek mall as opposed to, say, the outdated Gateway mall. I highly doubt there will be a talk expounding on the reasons why college students shouldn't grow beards, which would disappoint the BYU students who are petitioning the university to drop its no-beard policy. Finally, I predict that members of Ordain Women will not be attending the priesthood session this weekend, and even if they were allowed to attend, their recently excommunicated leader Kate Kelly would be barred from entering anyway. But at least it will give her something to blog about, and I can guarantee that will make the front page. letters@chronicle.utah.edu 10 { THECHRONY I NEWS I OPINION I ARTS I SPORTS I WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1 2014 } |