Blog 6: Case Study Outline

Part I

My case study is focusing on how Atheists portray themselves through Internet memes. Mainly, I am investigating how Atheism is portrayed as morally and intellectually superior to other forms of religion through their use of sarcastic and mocking memes.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-Atheist-memes

This meme is a prime example of how Atheists project an image of intellectual superiority and attempt to bash other religions with their mocking tone.

The criteria I used in selecting the 12 memes to be discussed in my final paper mostly have to do with the content of the memes themselves and less to do with their formatting or use of a certain stock character. Their commonalities lie in their tone and the messages being communicated through the memes. The 12 memes I chose all use mocking tones and communicate a message of supremacy or authority over those who believe in something other than Atheist ideals. I found all of my memes on Google Images which has been curated from a number of outside sources, all linked in my previous blog posts. Google Images provides a vast sample of diverse Atheist memes that may have not been found using just one source.

The key assumptions about religious beliefs that my study focuses on are that most religions are based on faith and without faith, there is not much concrete "evidence"for the existence of God. Atheists view this faith-based aspect of religion as the cornerstone to their conviction for the absence of a God. 

This relates directly to Atheists's actual understanding of this belief and their memes serve as an extension of their convictions and a means to get their opinions out to a majority religious world. 

Part II

Offline Atheist culture creates standards for how online religious authenticity should be considered by basically stating that religious authority of any kind is inherently flawed because they do not believe in any sort of religious figures as having any authority online or offline. The scholarly article claims that Atheists use online spaces as a means for activism and to enhance their offline identities as well. A great deal of importance is placed on the Internet as a venue for "contemporary secularists to develop a group consciousness based around broadly similar agendas"(Smith & Cimino, p. 2). This substantiates the claim that Atheists use memes and other forms of online culture to supplement their offline image and rally collective action both online and offline. Another source states that, "people are getting smarter, smart people tend to reject irrational beliefs, hence with increasing intelligence more people become nonbelievers" (Cheyne, p. 1). This speaks to the goal of Atheist memes and the justification they place behind their assertions. In a way, they believe that if people are getting increasingly smarter offline that has ties to Atheism, then there should be an outlet for that intelligence to reach a greater audience online as well. 

Digital culture truly echos offline assumptions of Atheism by furthering their agenda and perpetuating their notions of correctness in terms of religion, or in this case, a lack thereof. Digital culture tends to be more progressive and valuing the concrete and tangible so it makes sense that Atheists would use that medium to preach their ideas about science and the faultiness of faith.

Based on my research, the relationship between online and offline meanings and messaged communicated through memes is very much blended. Atheist online and offline messages seem to be one and the same, both pushing an anti-religion, pro-science agenda. However, I do think that the online platform allows them the anonymity to be harsher towards other religions than they would perhaps be offline.