Corwin

http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/affirmations.html

http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/declaration.html

Yes both of the above piss off Jerry Falwell to no end.

keitht

Getting athiests excited about something is like hearding cats.

Corwin

No... getting us excited about something is easy.

It's getting us ORGANIZED and all moving in more or less the same direction that's like trying to herd cats.

Of course I'm also a computer tech and the same thing is frequently said about us..... so.....

capsaicin67

I essentially agree with Alonzo's position on this one. Inactivity, and reclusiveness are definitely not going to be in our best interests over the long haul------but, we need to be really smart in what we do, I do not believe that just any "doing" is necessarily optimal.

It may well be that a mix of approaches will be what helps our cause to lurch forward, that's often how these things have gone historically. Very difficult to get anywhere close to the entire group under the banner of any one style/consensus. BUT......

That being said, I'll say what I think should work best in meeting the goals of building momentum for our cause, and what I would personally vote for as the best approach to focus resources on.

If there is any one issue that I can think of that Joe/Jane Lunchbox would identify as an issue they do resent with respect to religion it would be aggressive prosletyzation and being "told what to believe". Its about the only thing I can think of that you can even get some critical support on with the fencesitters these days. They are still quite a little ways from getting on board with deeper reasoning and critique of religion, and frankly, most I know don't want to have that deeper discussion. They aren't of a profoundly investigative mentality, their needs are probably more basic. In short, some might be enlightened, but I think that most would be either unaffected or worse, turned off. And whomever the unfortunate soul was to have to do the door-to-door, well, I expect they are going to receive even more abuse than the typical religious zealot. But that's my opinion, and I wish them well.

Freethinkers as an imprecisely defined collective, I think it's fair to say, have limited resources and supportive infrastructure. The infrastructure thing is being birthed, slowly, right now, I think.

I think that there is a fine line between visibilty and prosletyzation. I think we need visibilty and accessibilty. With those in place [the result of a solid support/organizational infrastructure] we could be more pro-active in getting out positive messages/outreach without being obnoxious [tho many will disagree, even so, as to what that constitutes] and perhaps most importantly the "fencesiiters" will have a safe place to land if it resonates with them-----something that currently is woefully lacking in many areas of the USA. I know of individuals and couples that candidly admit that while they don't believe much of the message, they join churches to have some community and support----organized endorsement of values and education of same for their kids, and to locate babysitters or to avert social isolation. Personally, I believe that about as many people get sucked in at that level as ever side with theological arguments etc. Thes are legitimate needs that the long-established Humanist movement has consistently neglected but that the future of freethought hinges upon.

People have emotional/social needs as well as intellectual. A few stalwart, hardcore, truthseekers will always brave it alone---------and that's cool. But if we have outreach as a goal, or even security and protection of those that are looking for a safe place to have the freethought lifestyle they have already chosen-------and to protect our legal rights-----then I believe we ignore this situation at our own peril.

We probably also need to be able to cooperate with religionists that share the bulk of our values.

The ugly part of all this, big picture-wise, IMHO, is that superstition and reason are mutually exclusive ultimately so long as individuals subscribe to anything much more than a deistic or Stephen Hawking definition of a god[s]. The religious salespeople [Falwell et el] recognize this and that is why they are aggressively trying to dig in and overwhelm the growth of reason and secularism. At the end of the day it is important whether you make critical decisions on the course of humanity based on magical thinking, myth and superstition------or reason.
I think anyone should be allowed to think or talk about or ebleive any notion they wish, and even act upon some. But the idea that these 2 approaches are equal with respect to quality I think is perhaps wrong. Hopefully we can return to and bring along a culture of reason and personal growth and responsibilty incrementally without being too obnoxious.

Seems to me that if the social and organizational support is there, the remainder of the debate will return to the intellectual----where we have the stronger case and people will no longer have as much incentive/need to deny/fear it. Just my opinion.

Sorry for the length,this is my favorite type of discussion!

never been there

We need something like the Masons have: "to become one, ask one".

Of course, in their case you're supposed to believe in a creator.

How about buttons, bumper stickers, etc., reading "Ask me about my atheism"? Of course, you will get every wierdo trying to score witnessing points, but it does have the benefit of reaching both the hard-core and the waverers without offending the nice believers.

Alonzo Fyfe

Using one's resources in the most efficient way possible means not using them to do things that cannot be efficiently done.

It does absolutely no good to lay back and cry over what we cannot do with the resources we do not have.

The thing for each of us to do is to take stock of the resources we do have available, and try to determine the most that each of us can do with the resources that we do have.

My project at the moment is a set of writings called:

Ethics Without God: A Personal Journey

I am presently writing up a very rough first draft which I am honored to be able to post in the Secular Lifestyles and Support forum.

Perhaps this will be useful, perhaps not. It's the best contribution I can think of at the moment. I am not even attempting to herd cats. I am simply doing what appears to me to be the best that I can do with what I have.

That's it.

theyeti

The one thing I dislike most about religion is evangelism. I really don't care what weird things other people believe, just so long as they don't try to shove it on me or use my tax dollars to support it.

I could not become an evangelist myself without being a hypocrite and turing my back on the values that make me dislike fundamentalist religion in the first place.

theyeti

Alonzo Fyfe

By this, I take it that you are unwilling to sit silently while they use government power to shove their religious beliefs on you or take your tax dollars to support it.

This is quite sufficient, as far as I am concerned.

I will grant that if I was, in fact, being left alone and did not see noticeable reason to believe that my life is being made worse than it would otherwise be by their beliefs and actions -- their blocking potentially useful medical research that would provide me with a healthier, longer life; their taking money out of my paycheck and giving it to organizations with help-wanted signs that say "atheists need not apply"; their demanding pledges that equate atheists with separatists/rebels, tyrants, and perpetrators of injustice; their posting signs in public buildings announcing that the government's most important principle is that its population should be divided between a "we" who trusts in God and "they" who do not; their having churches send me the bill (though my property taxes) to pay for their fire and police protection and other civil services that they get for free; the violence I experienced when I was a kid for being an atheist and the fear I hear in the words of atheists today.

If these things had not happened and were not continuing to happen, I assure you I would not care one way or the other. I would be more than happy to do other things with my time.

theyeti

Absolutely. That's why I'm a member of the ACLU, AU, and NCSE, among other things.

I agree that these are all things worth fighting against, but I do not agree that they're caused by theism per se. Rather, they're caused by a particularly virulent strain of fundamentalist, conservative theism. (Although yes, all churches get tax exempt status, though I find this only mildly annoying. At least they have to abide by the same rules as all non-profits.) Therefore I don't think that atheistic evangelism will help anything, because the liberal theists who are most likely to actually listen to us aren't the problem. They're frequently just as much the victims as we are, since the fundies hate them and wish to marginalize them just as much as they do us.

The idea behind becoming an "evangelist" for atheism is to cast aside the liberal values of tolerance and multiculturalism; we'll end up fighting against the liberal theists who we share values with, and end up becoming like the fundamentalist theists whose tactics are the very thing we abhor. I just don't see evangelism -- that is, becoming like them -- as the answer. I see a greater respect for tolerance and open-mindedness as being best for society, regardless of whether one is a theist or an atheist. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with persuading other people of the correctness of your point of view. But it does mean not giving people the hard sell as the fundies do, like going door to door on Saturdays telling people that the Bible is full of lies, or telling people that they're irrational and stupid for their beliefs. Just my 2¢.

theyeti

Shake

Forgive my ignorance: the NCSE?