Atheism and sharing the bridge to the future
 

OK, so the last thread I posted began down a specific byway, but I failed to make my purpose clear, so this time I am presenting the "50,000 foot view" of my opinion and topic, so that past and future threads will be in clear context.

There is little doubt that atheism is gaining popularity in the American consciousness. Those early adopters endured vehement and at times even violent (and hypocritical) opposition and ridicule from the faithful adherents.

So it is emotionally understandable that now that non-believers are "out of the closet" and even embraced by enlightened leaders (such as President Obama), that non-believers respond in kind, fighting fire with fire.

But the grass roots atheists must be careful to avoid the extremism that has tarnished religion (whether Islam or Christianity), as this risks polarization of the population that will make adoption and acceptance more arduous and perhaps even violent as America moves into the future society.

Atheism is trying to march triumphantly into the future (as it should) but it cannot build a bridge to cross into this future if the bridge is being torn down simultaneously by a legacy culture of religious believers.

Non-believers will need to recruit the current culture, not alienate it in order to achieve the long term goal of a society free of religious dogma and extremism.

I apologize for the liberal use of metaphors, but imagine the believer as in a walker.

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...lC9FADfljm297Q

The walker is God. It helps the believer to get around in life.
Now, a loving adult would place the baby, not away from the walker but let him hold onto it, and then encourage the child to walk to the adult.

If the adult were to ridicule the baby and criticize him for needing it, this will not encourage the baby to leave it as the adult wishes, but the adult becomes less attractive than the walker.

http://www.clipartguide.com/_named_c...part_image.jpg

It is ironic that the successful bridge to the godless future must be achieved by Jesus' commandment: "Love each other as I have loved you."

The Christian's own guidelines will be the winning strategy for atheist's gaining acceptance and political power in the future.

When women gained the right to vote, they did not immediately work to remove the right to vote for men.

When African-Americans won the right to vote they did not immediately work to remove the right to vote from whites.

Now that atheists can stand in the light of day, they must stand shoulder to shoulder with believers in the same way as women and African-Americans did.

This tolerance will win the day for non-believers.

I am a believer. But I am an American who believes and supports freedom of religion (which includes freedom from religion) and will defend the right for atheists to exist and to have a say in our society, and not just because they contain some of the best minds today (and in the past), but simply because they exist.

So I want to help build that bridge between the faithful of today, and the secular future of tomorrow. Baby steps my friends, baby steps.

I don't really disagree with anything here. As we've already seen, the demise of religious thinking has to be a slow, ORGANIC process. Outlawing religion (as China and the USSR did) does not achieve this end, instead, it pushes believers underground, and makes them cling even tighter to their traditions. It makes persuasion impossible and inadvertantly gives credence to their ideas.

A respectful, open, and dispassionate dialogue is extremely important, in fact it's crucial.

However, I do somewhat object to the implication that the faithful are babies in walkers. The faithful (at least the one's we're interested in talk to) are full-grown adults, who do not have the right to live their lives in a vaccum. Their ideas must be attacked, and even at times, ridiculed if we are to move forward. Their religion may treat them like children and sheep, but I intend to give them more respect than that.

Politness and political expediencey no longer is an adequate defense for ignorance and mystical thinking. In the face of of being overwhelmed and further politically and socially marginalized by the LEGIONS of loud, poltically minded theists, Non-believer's of all stripes need to be just as loud, and just as extroverted socially and politically in order to bring about the kind of social change that needs to happen. Does this mean that some believers will be hurt and offended? of course. These are offensive ideas. The belief, and lack of belief in God(s) and the divine are inherently incompatable ideas, one is right, and one is wrong, and it is intellectually dishonest to assume otherwise. This dialogue needs to take place, because the implications are far-reaching. The may be, in fact, the most important human dialogue in history.

I am also a little irritated at the suggestion that atheists want to take Christian's votes away. Who are these atheists HP? Because I know Kontan and I never said anything like that, nor have I heard of ANY prominent atheists attempting to make that argument.

I want to take their votes away, them's my votes dammit. But, i think he was using it as an example, that when given a chance to rise, we shouldn't also lash out at the people we disagreed with.

Exactly MOC. Sorry Des. I discombobulated my verbal expressionism again.
But yeah: even though non-believers were denied their irreligious freedom by believers, they should avoid doing the same to beef livers. I mean beekeepers. I mean...believers.

Damn, I be readin' too much Gnet parodies in the lit forum. :p

I still think you're looking at this in a crazy way, HP. Atheists AREN'T a political force. There can't be. The only thing it has in common amongst non-believers is just that. A lack of belief. The implications you're taking that non-believers are a GROUP of people are a bit staggering because we're not saying "We should make policies like this BECAUSE we're atheists." But for some reason it seems like that's what you are saying.

That's implicit on so many things that I can't even support.

The defeat of mystical thinking WILL NOT happen through legislature. It will happen through communication, reasoning, criticism, and mockery. Basically, being an atheist NEEDS to be a public consensus as a better means of understanding the world. This can't be forced by the gun and it shouldn't be because that would undermine the entire effort.

Agreed, but there is an important factor I am trying to get everyone to tweak:
politicians kiss up to religious voters, and so we end up with religious leaders (yeah right).

There are two important drivers to change society, to wean Americans from a religious culture: the grass roots, and the leaders. We have to work on both if we are to build a bridge toward a changed future.

But yeah, you may be right about how I am looking at it too. I sometimes see things a little differently from the average bear. I am trying to leverage my experience as a believer, and my thinking as a reasonable man, to build consensus and a starting point for navigating towards a truly secular culture.
If Americans can accept political representatives who are godless, then it smooths the way for their followers.

I don't know. Maybe it is hopeless and non-believers will remain the minority for a looooong time.

Last figure that was stated that I know of is when Bill Mahre said it was up to around 20% of non-believers.

Case in point about atheists. Last night I ran into a nutso Libertarian atheist on the train. He was preaching to a cop about his beliefs, stating that he believed in evolution which makes him an atheist. He then starts preaching about having an appeal to a more Old-Testament form of justice because he fucking hates the stupid communists and hates criminals. Despite his black and white view of the world, he STILL wants an Old-Testament anarcho capitalism world. Right in the face of what we would all imagine is contrary to your typical atheist.

Thing is, this man is easier to take down. Without the Jesus seal of approval, without the backing of a church or religious community, we can clearly see with no skew of the respect for religious beliefs that this man is quite clearly an anti-social fuckwad who deserves no amount of respect and probably deserves to be ostracized from his society. This man IS NOT one of my allies politically. I think he's fucking insane.

He's still an atheist, and atheism can still be a political force. That's the point of pluralism.
Ironically, you're still making a "no true Scotsman" argument.

The insane know no boundaries, the bell curve for both believers and non-believers both contain fringe elements.

What got me thinking about actually thinking hard about this topic was a friend at work.

He is a great guy, atheist, very smart technically (I go to him for advice on storage hardware issues), Canadian (if that makes any difference, not American), and all around likable, but he is a little ...caustic...towards believers.

He has a bumper sticker that says "Born right the first time" (LOL!) and a few other inflammatory signs in his cube at work. But him and I get along well, have backyard barbecued together but I can see him still a little like Alan: has the blowtorch set on high as almost a badge of honor somehow, a label he identifies with to define himself.

EDIT: Who? Kon or I?

No doubt, I'm sure there are those that try to vote and make policy BECAUSE they're an atheist, but I'm willing to bet that the reason itself is still too nebulous for any measurable solidarity.

But I'm not saying that atheism can't be a political force. Sorry if I obscured that point. I was saying that if atheism was a political force, it still may not be something I'd want to get behind. The precedent is far too loaded with bullshit. In fact, I'd be opposed to policy based solely on the idea that it's atheist just as much as someone making policy based on religion. Both are horrible excuses for policy making and especially the idea of making policy based on atheism because it can only be reactionary to it's direct intellectual opposite.

Kontan. It's just wrong if not downright dumb to say that "Atheists AREN'T a political force"

Yes, they can be and ARE. There are numerous atheist organizations with the intent of creating a world that most resembles their own ethics, whether it be simple secularism, free thought, or straight atheism.

He tries give an example by mentioning a right-wing atheist nutjob and saying that he's not one of his allies, to which I would simply say:
"uh... yeah dude, he is, insofar as atheism is concerned."
Our ideas are a multiplicity. Would Kontan also say he's not progressive simply because a scientologist also claims to be socially progressive? Would he not be a feminist because some feminists claim that the illegalization of porn is the most important feminist issue?
No. So why is this different?

He didn't claim that the dude wasn't an atheist or wasn't a REAL atheist. The dude was an atheist. He just happened to be an atheist, and a moron, and on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

So it's not a "No True Scotsman", Kontan's point was that atheists aren't unified. We don't have anything inherently in common other than non-belief in God(s).

Yeah and that guy's an asshole. But at the same time, I also feel that it's somewhat necessary. I wouldn't do it, but I think the idea of non-belief has to be presented extroverted. There's really no way that he being extroverted about atheism wont be inflammatory. I might be wrong about that. Can you make a suggestion as to how to share non belief ideas in a quick and simple bumper sticker that wont be low brow flame?

Which is all you need for an actual political force. You don't need to have all political opinions in sync to have a movement or an interest group. That's why I said that it's still ironically a "No True Scotsman" argument. It's an inverse No True Scotsman yet it follows the exact same logic.

I think Kontan misspoke. I think he mean that atheists aren't a unified political force in the sense of Christianity and the like.

While there are atheist and secularist political action groups, they don't speak FOR ATHEISM they speak for their own set of ideals that happen to be based around secularism and the like.

The error in HP's comparison, though, doesn't have to deal with unity or mere plurality.
The error is in believing there can be a form of "extremism" in atheism that is analogous to religious extremism.
The most extreme we could go is be condescending assholes, which we already are. Violence would have to come from somewhere else, as (and here's where I feel Kontan's sentiments should have led him) a point-zero stance can't make a positive assertion.

Essentially, yeah.

Right. Again, Alan gets what I am saying. As atheists become a larger demographic, believers will feel threatened. Yes, atheists may not fire the first shot, it will be believers who hypocritically become violent towards atheists (as some are towards abortion clinics and the like). But non-believers with a demeaning attitude will make believers feel threatened.

That potential violence is what I want to avoid, by using a method that instead of insulting or ridiculing believers warms up to them and lets them continue their beliefs while moving forward towards laying the foundation for greater acceptance and who knows? Maybe the churches will start paying taxes.

Making wealthy churches pay taxes is an example of the political reward of successful, political atheist power. Changing such laws requires politicians in power who feel secure to make such changes, that they have the support of voters to make such change.

Something interesting:
In America, it's pretty much impossible for an openly atheist figure to become president (and here we see an example of the actual importance of atheist political lobbying)
In Mexico, it was pretty much impossible to be a president and NOT be an atheist. Say what you want about Mexico, at least we got the whole separation of church and state dead on.

That is interesting, actually. Incredibly interesting.

Wow, that stunned me. I would have thought that a largely Catholic populace would elect Catholic politicians. Why is that Alan? Why do Mexicans favor atheist presidents? A paradox, or do Mexicans really have it together in keeping personal faith and political functioning separate?

The last two have been openly Catholic, but before that during the PRIato they had to be atheist or at least secular.
We take the separation of church and state very seriously as the Catholic church has always opposed popular movements. I don't think even one percent of the Mexican population doesn't follow the desire for education to be "laica y gratuita" meaning secular and free. Priests couldn't even vote up til recently which I would have disagreed with but they're still forbidden from using the pulpit for political messages, and this prohibition to priests is not technically authoritarian as all religious grounds in Mexico are federal property.

Also note:

Mexico legalized gay marriage across the board. The USA is still fighting with proposition 8s. Really?

Okay, lets assume you're right. How does one go about doing this? How can we "allow" someone to voice (and vote by) a worldview which is inherently in conflict with our own?

I mean, we can't even CHEAT like Christians (in this case Gov. Huckabee) and say "I have my roadmap to God here. If you say you have a different roadmap to God, i say okay, good luck with that".

I mean, if I put a simple disspasionate bumpersticker in my car which read simply "GOD IS NOT REAL" how many people would I offend?

But that's just my worldview, pure and simple, without wrath or mockery.

So how can this be Done HP? you tell me because I don't see it.

Speaking as an American, who overall likes and is proud of his country...that is freaking embarrassing.

Props Mexico, props.