Stormy

If everyone likes you, then you are nothing more than a mirror for others.

How can I respect someone who is never disagreeable?

But of course, I am probably wrong and you are right.

(Last line spoken in the hopes of acquiring new friends )

livius drusus

I disagree completely with your assessment of both of them. Biff's sledgehammer is not purely factual as a great part of it is assumptions and insults. DC is neither particularly friendly nor apologetic.

If you can point to a single instance of a fundy shell being cracked by a "Bad Cop" on this board I would be fascinated to see it. Biff himself said that fundies, the people you claim he is sledgehammering, will never change so clearly that is not his goal. Meanwhile, the same heavy gauge weaponry gets deployed on other varieties of Christian as well. The cherry-pickers leap to mind.

Again I disagree completely with your assessment. "Good Cops" are not afraid of confrontation. I am confronting you right now, for instance, and I assure you it scares me not one whit. I have no idea where this spokesperson thing comes from. The most visible atheist of recent times, Madalyn Murrah O'Hair, was the very incarnation of the "Bad Cop" in terms of her debate style.

The notion that DC or Brighid or Roland or myself are anything remotely resembling doormats is frankly laughable.

brighid

That is quite an assumption and I would say, at least in my own case, completely off the mark. I do not doubt myself on the subject of my lack of belief (or most things), nor would self-doubt promote me to use kid gloves when dealing with people who have a different opinion or belief system.

I operate from the perspective that most people want the same things I do, and with much experience I have found that my position is far better advanced with a respectful tone then with a condescending tone. I don't disagree that there are some, but rare, occassions where brutual honesty may be called for. Brutual honesty does not have to be accompanied by hostility in malice to be an effective weapon against irrationality.

We are doing some things wrong, that add to the acrimony between theists and non-theists. We have room for improvement.

If we are attempting to "promote" something to a group of people who either lack information, or have been provided incorrect information how successful will it be to beat them over the head with the "truth"? How successful are evangelicals using a similar method with you?

I don't think expressing the desire to use respectful behavior implies that one must be "nice" all the time. I think going out of one's way to be hostile, or to meet hostility with hostility is counter productive and history has proven it to be an ineffectual tool in promoting truth.

Brighid

Rusting Car Bumper

What I am not suggesting is being a Good Cop (accepting your definitions) all of the time.

I agree about a hybrid approach. My approach is the hybrid apprach that you accept but never to point of becoming what we condemn. However, my point is that *we* far too often only express the bad cop approach exclusively.

DC

livius drusus

Now, now. If you keep avoiding confrontation like this we'll never get anywhere, Doormat Chicken.

Heathen Dawn

Exactly. Why must we blame ourselves for our predicament? Sometimes it is the other side which is to blame. We atheists aren’t doing anything to deserve those RR people’s hatred; the only reason they hate us is that we don’t agree with them. Short of accepting fundamentalist Christianity, we’ll never win their love and respect. They have a book telling them we are “of your father the devil”, and that’s justification enough for them to hate us.

Rusting Car Bumper

We can control us so why not do it in the best way possible?

Further, the message is not the only message. (What??) To quote McLuhan, "The medium is the message." If the message is delivered in an angry and confrontational way then the actual facts of the message are often lost. The audience then sometimes only remembers that the messenger is angry and confrontational. It does no harm, to take into account, that the listener often learns things from the manner in which the message is delivered regardless of how true the message is.

DC

Starboy

I advocate tit-for-tat. If they respect atheists and simply wish to learn about us, then fine. They deserve respect and we should answer their questions with as much honesty and sincerity we can muster. If they come here full of beans, ready to convert us and essentially assume we have no reason to think as we do then the gloves should come off. If they don't make any trouble, there should be no trouble. But if they start dishing it out, then we should give better than we get.

Starboy

Heathen Dawn

I’m all for delivering our message in a kindly and compassionate way; I just don’t expect the RR-types will accept us just because of that. That is, we must do our part in being kind, but we mustn’t blame ourselves when we see our kindness doesn’t bear the fruits we expect.

Rusting Car Bumper

I was not claiming they would and I don't think they other participants on my side of the fence were claimingt his either.

As I have said in this thread (and other threads in which you have participated), the concern isn't the extremists and its not instantaneous.

Its the middle which can be influenced by us or the extremists. Further, I don't expect that anybody is influenced immediately. As I have always said, a campaign of us changing ourselves so that we are not only better people because of non-belief but appear as better people is something that would ahve to take place over a long period of time.

DC