"Atheists realizing the best defense is a good offense"

[More Than A Feeling]

In the specifics, what this comes down to is the fundies say teaching evolution in the classroom is wrong because it contradicts their religious belief. By playing that card, they’ve provoked the freethinking side to challenge their armor and ask why it is specifically that religion can assume that it should go unquestioned. By using what was just a mundane defense mechanism as an aggressive tool to get into secular territory, the fundies have put this defense in danger and sure enough, in response to this aggression, you’re seeing the freethinking side up the amount of attacks on the very idea that faith deserves respect—just look at the number of titles coming out just this year not just arguing that atheism is right but that religion doesn’t deserve respect.

Because the fundies have gotten more aggressive, in other words, they’ve created an opportunity for anti-religious thinkers to flood the media with our point of view and also to get more aggressively anti-religious, not just arguing that fundies are wrong but that faith itself is fundamentally flawed and damaging. And in order to examine the “religion deserves special respect because it’s so good” defense, people are amassing evidence and it’s damaging this defense mechanism even more. From an evolutionary theory perspective, what I’m seeing happening is by invading the secular spaces, the fundies forced freethinking to become more aggressive and now there’s a chance that freethinking is probably going to spread.

Oddly enough, the group that stands to lose the most members in this struggle is going to be the mainstream churches. With the sheer number of arguments out there about how faith is overrated going up, the number of people who are going to be persuaded by that argument is bound to go up as well. And I have a feeling those people aren’t going to be the fundies, but people who don’t have many reasons to be religious other than the fact that they grew up thinking it’s a generally good thing and no one has challenged their beliefs aggressively. And the realization of this is what’s prompting the Amy Sullivans of the world to beg of freethinkers to find a way to attack fundamentalism without attacking faith itself. But what I think a lot of mainstream Christians fail to realize is that as long as the fundies are using what are merely defense mechanisms in mainstream religion (predominantly the social stigma against attacking another’s faith) as weapons to invade secular territory, they can expect freethinkers to attack the weapons being used, even if the fallout is the mainstream churches lose members to atheism. http://pandagon.net/2006/11/18/atheists-realizing-the-best-defense-is-a-good-offense/

The whole thing is worth reading. If this is right, it would explain a lot of what goes on in this forum as far as religious/atheist relations go.

Edit: Just to make things clear, I am not Amanda, and I did not write this. She did. Go to her blog at www.pandagon.net for insightful feminist commentary and other thoughts. It is well worth your time.

[Ian David]

1. Hallowed are the Ori. You will accept Origin.

It is the will of the Ori that we should spread Origin to all those blessed by their creation. They shall find the path to enlightenment. The power and the greatness of the Ori cannot be denied. Those who reject the path to enlightenment must be destroyed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ori_(Stargate)

[StClone]

2. Religio-Wackwingers cause Evolution

Yes they do!

Just as Rove and his style are contested, then countered, the attack on atheism will lead to an evolution of thought which is actually detrimental to Religion's (or Rovians in the former case) formerly accepted societal importance.

[Speck Tater]

3. Hooray! Another reason to split the country into warring factions!

The problem is that both atheists and deists are too damn arrogant. The fact is this is a subject about which we can never make absolute statements. The existence of God is not provable, and the non-existence of God is not provable. If we could all agree on those two facts we would be a lot better off. And even if we accept the existence of some "higher consciousness"or "divine being" the likelihood that the real God bears any resemblance whatsoever to any of mankind's messed up religions is vanishingly slim.

So even if the atheists are wrong, which I believe is a distinct possibility, it's almost certain that every single human religion is wrong too.

Now if we could just set aside our arrogance and accept our inability to know for certain the world would be a safer and happier place.

[More Than A Feeling]

4. You mean atheists and "theists" right?

[Speck Tater]

5. I stand corrected. "Theist" not "Deist"(nt)

[StClone]

6. Assured that proof is needed to believe

Atheists are not arrogant only logical. I don't make pushing this idea a personal Crusade; I just make it my personal observation. One that I don't discuss or pass along unless asked to.

[JerseygirlCT]

8. Which is pretty much the way I behave

wrt to my faith.

And which, I think, is what the article quoted in the OP is arguing for. Tolerance, respect.

[progdonkey]

7. the non-existence of unicorns is not provable, either...

but a person would have to be pretty stupid to go around telling people that unicorns are real. If someone tells me that they believe in unicorns and that there's a unicorn right in front of me, and I say, "There's nothing there. There's no such thing as unicorns," are we both making equally "absolutist" statements?

Or is it that the other person is making a baseless claim and expecting me to believe it simply because he says it's true, and I'm making a conclusion based on all available evidence that he's full of crap? Of course, it could be that there really is a unicorn standing right in front of me and I just am too blind to see it, but when all evidence and logic points to there simply not being a unicorn there, am I wrong for concluding that there isn't? Besides, the burden is on the other person to prove that it really is there (for they are making the claim in the first place) not for me to prove that the claim is false.

Atheists aren't "arrogant." It's not arrogant to expect that when someone makes an extraordinary claim--whether it's the existence of fairies, gnomes, unicorns, ghosts, angels, or gods--they better have some damn good proof to back it up. Saying "gods don't exist" doesn't make a person arrogant, anymore than saying "unicorns don't exist" does. It is arrogant, however, to make a wild claim and just expect everyone to accept it as true because you say so, and that it's a moral failing in the other people if they actually expect some proof. Until a theist can prove that there is this entity called "god" (which would first entail all the theists actually agreeing on what the hell they're even talking about), I will maintain that there is no such thing as gods.

[JerseygirlCT]

9. I agree with you that this is just what seems to be happening here

and possibly around the country.

I'm less sure that it will drive more moderate relgious folks from their beliefs, though. I suppose you'd have to be fairly unsure to begin with if someone else's non-belief was enough to change your mind...

[kwassa]

10. Not this again

blog quote:

"With the sheer number of arguments out there about how faith is overrated going up, the number of people who are going to be persuaded by that argument is bound to go up as well. And I have a feeling those people aren’t going to be the fundies, but people who don’t have many reasons to be religious other than the fact that they grew up thinking it’s a generally good thing and no one has challenged their beliefs aggressively."

This idea represents, to me, a great lack of understanding on the part of non-believers as to why believers believe. It certainly pops up here quite frequently, the whole mistaken concept that we only go to church because our parents did.

This is getting a little tiresome. Is this yet one more thread on the subject?

I think it is hard for non-believers to wrap their minds around the idea that we actually THINK and consider our faith.

[More Than A Feeling]

11. Your highlighted quote

is referring to this part: "the number of people who are going to be persuaded by that argument is bound to go up as well." It isn't referring to all believers.

[kwassa]

12. I know that, I just think that this author is wrong.