Hi All,
Chris Crawford – in the What other Topics Conversation – suggests that we have an area in which folk may discuss the pros and cons of “taking the high road of a positive message” when dealing with Theists – and discussing the pros and cons of “taking the low road of in-your face confrontation” when dealing with Theists.
See Chris’ full comment in the What other Topics area – but PLEASE add your comments within this area. We would like to attempt to direct the deeper discussion of this topic within this area.
Let the free for all begin -
Огромное спасибо за потрясающие идеи!!! Буду следить за блогом, много всего интересного. А мой блог о науке, надеюсь, тоже понравится
Hi all,
I just went to Yahoo’s BabelFish (remember the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”?) to retrieve a translation of the above. It is:
Enormous thanks for the staggering ideas!!! I will follow [blogom], there is much entire interesting. But my [blog] about the science, I hope, also it will be pleased
We are pleased that our Blog reaches an international audience. Thanks.
Bob
PS. Click on Olechka-persik’s name above – and you will be taken to his Website.
Well, I might as well start off. I think that “Aggressive Atheism” (as opposed to “Assertive Atheism”) is bad politics. Whenever you deliberately get into other people’s faces, you just make them more defensive. For example, I frown upon P.Z.Myers’ famous ‘desecrate the cracker’ stunt. It didn’t do anything to further the cause of atheism and it did infuriate a lot of theists. Why would anybody want to hurt another person’s feelings? That’s ignoble, and the only people who respect ignoble behavior are fanatics. Most people have the basic decency to prefer constructive approaches, and a deliberately, uselessly provocative nature of Mr. Myers’ stunt just turns people off.
In a similar vein, the Washington atheist’s sign was good except for the final sentences denigrating religion. It’s always better to represent yourself as the victim than to give the victim’s position to the other side, which is what happens when you attack them. A far more effective approach would have been “We’re tired of being told that we’re amoral. We’re tired of being told that we’re not American enough because we aren’t Christians. We’re tired of being treated like second-class citizens.” That would have accomplished far more than the sign did.
Hi all,
Not being familiar with P. Z. Myers “desecrate the cracker” stunt, I’ve done two things.
First, I found P. Z. Myers Website and entered “desecrate the cracker” in the search engine on his site – and the first entry (of many) that came up is – http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_great_desecration.php.
After reading Myers’ take on things, I then searched Wikipedia for “host desecration” and came up with this – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration.
Both of these links are worth the while to review.
I have a sense that this Blog discussion may have a deal of “fire in the belly” heated passion – which is OK. I would like to remind folk though, that ideas and personhood are two separate entities – and from my perspective – I prefer eager participation to “scoring points at the expense of personhood.” There’s a fine line here.
As Red Green puts it on the Red Green TV show – “I’m pullen for ya; we’re all in this together.”
Bob