Comments on: getting my atheist on

By: Emanuel Goldstein

Emanuel Goldstein — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 13:58:29 +0000

Atheists killed my dad and crippled my mom.

As for my kids, you aren’t going to get them.

By: Janice Dawley

Janice Dawley — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 04:52:00 +0000

…Jesus entering your opened heart and lurking there like a genii in a bottle…

This made me laugh out loud.

By: LQ

LQ — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:54:48 +0000

Jose — As for targeting religion in general, Dawkins & Harris have been the standard-bearers on that issue, and a lot of folks have made your point. Or what I take to be your point: That it is important to fight individual issues on which certain religious believers are having a very bad influence — like science education in the schools — but that it is, as you say, pointless to target religion in general. Other folks have gone further, and said that it’s harmful to target religion in general because you lose the religious moderates. Dawkins’ articulated response has been that it depends on what struggle you’re looking at: If you’re only worried about the individual battle — evolution, stem cells, global warming — then maybe it’s harmful in the short-run to target religion in general. But if you’re focused on eliminating the need to have such struggles in the future, then it’s better to focus on eliminating religion now.

As for me, I’m a pragmatist, and think there’s room for everyone to work to make the world a better place. People with religious faith who believe in science education should be able to fight alongside the godless for science education. And ideally, folks of religious faith and folks without should be able to argue passionately about the benefits and detriments of religious faith itself. As to those arguments, Harris & Dawkins have set out substantive problems with religious faith, and I have yet to see a convincing pro-faith response to those arguments. The three I list above are just my personal favorites.

… global warming? Are there Xtian dominionists behind global warming skepticism? I know that there were some fundamentalists with that idea because they believed the resurrection / apocalypse was imminent, but dominionists aren’t necessarily looking for the second coming right away, are they? … As a matter of pragmatic strategy, I think it would be worthwhile to get more xtians on board on environmental issues.

By: Jose

Jose — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:29:24 +0000

I think a case should be made attacking the Christian dominionist underpinnings behind some Global Warming skeptics (the thinking that man can’t screw up the planet because ending the world is God’s job). And there’s also the whole stem cell issue. This is the best place to tackle religion head on in my opinion. But shooting religions way in general seems pointless to me.

By: Velcro City Tourist Board » Blog Archive » Links for 29-10-2006

Velcro City Tourist Board » Blog Archive » Links for 29-10-2006 — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 02:17:57 +0000

[...] 1 – getting my atheist on “The last couple of years I’ve been pleased to see an outbreak of out-and-out criticism of religion, not just for the bad things religious folks do in the name of religion, but for the silliness and harmfulness of religion itself.” (tags: rationality reason argument respect mutual public debate criticism atheism belief faith religion) [...]