Militant Atheism - need to be more tactically inventive?

[Jay G]

Thanks. It has to do with family (wife and kids and not wanting to make a big disturbance in everybody's life while I sort things out for myself)

Jay, several of us have to "soldier on" for various reasons without our heart being in it. So we know what you're dealing with. And you couldn't find a better place to let your hair down and be who you really are than Rationalia.

Thanks again.

[Trolldor]

Militant Atheism needs to get on it's knees and suck my pleasuarbly large cock.

Sick and tired of the term and this 'movement'. What happened to simple 'reason'?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Jay, your situation sounds very difficult - and with a large chance of trouble ahead - either you continue to play a part you are increasingly unhappy with, which won't help anyone in the long run - or you come clean and take a step into the unknown land of not knowing how your family/friends/loved ones will react. I don't envy you, mate.

But that's what Ratz do best - we listen to you moan about such stuff and we give you smileys and suggest you wank or drink beer - it helps - a lot - trust me!

Many of us have been through similar scenarios in various ways and we are a supportive bunch.

[Rum]

R.e. OP. Personally I have no desire to structure my attitude to those who believe nonsense around my lack of belief in something. If nobody minds I will just be inconsistent, and react according to the mood I am in!

[Tero]

J

But that's what Ratz do best - we listen to you moan about such stuff and we give you smileys and suggest you wank or drink beer - it helps - a lot - trust me!

Hmm, there are possibilities here. Does the beer improve the wanking?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

R.e. OP. Personally I have no desire to structure my attitude to those who believe nonsense around my lack of belief in something. If nobody minds I will just be inconsistent, and react according to the mood I am in!

[charlou]

R.e. OP. Personally I have no desire to structure my attitude to those who believe nonsense around my lack of belief in something. If nobody minds I will just be inconsistent, and react according to the mood I am in!

heh. Well put.

[Pappa]

Just read the OP. Love the sentiments expressed in it. Those sorts of direct remarks often work well because they can't be denied. Stuff like "bronze age mythology", etc. They are jarring, but true.

[Santa_Claus]

Just read the OP. Love the sentiments expressed in it. Those sorts of direct remarks often work well because they can't be denied. Stuff like "bronze age mythology", etc. They are jarring, but true.

Cheers (and also for the other comments in this thread - on topic and not - one of the problems with Atheism is that too much thinking for selves. and too much free time )

Would be easy to come up with campaign slogans that would outright offend "Mohammed is a Kiddie Fiddler" or "Christianity = Nonsense on a stick" as abuse is an important weapon (and fun ) but IMO it is fundamentally important to seize and skew the agenda (by fair means and foul - it's a fight for the future of humanity!, not a game of cricket) by making simple requests or asking straightforward questions which everyone knows means something else (and preferably also raises a snigger. ) ..........the trap is that ignoring means acceptance that a valid point is being raised but to respond also gives the credence to the point being made - whilst also looking stupid and weak for responding.

On the Muslim Bhurkha - I love the idea of printed bin bags with eyes on them But I would also claim that the wearing of a Burkha is proof that their trust was abused as a child by her parents, family, school and community by being taught.........nonsense that led them to genuinely beleive wearing a bin bag was acceptable. And who is goig to stand up for Child Abuse?.............. If, just for a laugh , I taught a child over a 12 year period that it was both normal and a good thing to cover themselves in tin foil when leaving the house just in case Aliens tried to abduct them I would be sent to prison. hopefully............

[hiyymer]

Thanks. It has to do with family (wife and kids and not wanting to make a big disturbance in everybody's life while I sort things out for myself)

Just to pile on. I was married to a nice Catholic woman for 20 years. Religion was not why we got divorced. She doesn't have a dogmatic bone in her body. On the morality front there was little we didn't agree about. If she heard about some fundamentalists going off, she had a stock response. "If they can't question their faith, they don't have any". She certainly never held my lack of it against me. I guess what I am saying is that it doesn't have to be a big deal. What do you think would happen if you just leveled with "everybody" about what you are feeling about it?

[Hermit]

Militant Atheism needs to get on it's knees and suck my pleasuarbly large cock.

Sick and tired of the term and this 'movement'. What happened to simple 'reason'?

The effect of "the light of reason" on our world view is vastly overrated. We all seem to have loads of reason. As Descartes put it somewhat sardonically: "Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have." And yet, what do you see? Societies, the with huge numbers of overwhelmingly poor members are also overwhelmingly superstitious. On the other hand, societies with substantial strata of comfortably off bourgeois members living in democracies tend toward atheism.

Yes, the latter do tend to be well educated and practiced in reasoning, but I put it to you: Can you think of a society without a bourgeois democracy that has a significant population of atheists? Or - to put it another way - the spread of reason is contingent on social structures.

[Feck]

R.e. OP. Personally I have no desire to structure my attitude to those who believe nonsense around my lack of belief in something. If nobody minds I will just be inconsistent, and react according to the mood I am in!

Mostly I have no problems with theists ,as long as they sit at the back of the bus ,don't leer at our Atheist women and don't think we are going to waste money on an education for them that would give them ideas above their station and make them unhappy .

[Trolldor]

Militant Atheism needs to get on it's knees and suck my pleasuarbly large cock.

Sick and tired of the term and this 'movement'. What happened to simple 'reason'?

The effect of "the light of reason" on our world view is vastly overrated. We all seem to have loads of reason. As Descartes put it somewhat sardonically: "Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have." And yet, what do you see? Societies, the with huge numbers of overwhelmingly poor members are also overwhelmingly superstitious. On the other hand, societies with substantial strata of comfortably off bourgeois members living in democracies tend toward atheism.

Yes, the latter do tend to be well educated and practiced in reasoning, but I put it to you: Can you think of a society without a bourgeois democracy that has a significant population of atheists? Or - to put it another way - the spread of reason is contingent on social structures.

Common sense is not reason. It is Assumed knowledge.
Secondly, the spread of any idea is contingent on social structures. Most poorer communities don't have education, and where they do it is provided by religious institutions.
Perhaps these so called 'instituions' for reason might want to look at providing support without an agenda? Like many Christian charities do - and yes, there are Christian charities who provide secular support.

[hiyymer]

Militant Atheism needs to get on it's knees and suck my pleasuarbly large cock.

Sick and tired of the term and this 'movement'. What happened to simple 'reason'?

The effect of "the light of reason" on our world view is vastly overrated. We all seem to have loads of reason. As Descartes put it somewhat sardonically: "Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have." And yet, what do you see? Societies, the with huge numbers of overwhelmingly poor members are also overwhelmingly superstitious. On the other hand, societies with substantial strata of comfortably off bourgeois members living in democracies tend toward atheism.

Yes, the latter do tend to be well educated and practiced in reasoning, but I put it to you: Can you think of a society without a bourgeois democracy that has a significant population of atheists? Or - to put it another way - the spread of reason is contingent on social structures.

It just demonstrates that atheism is typically a delusion of rational self autonomy which requires the kind of personal security, tolerance, and openness to technology that mark ascendant cultures. Such cultures do not get the way they are because of there "social structure" but because of economics and accidents of history and geography. There were a lot of rationalists in India at the time of it's ascendancy before Christ was born. It's nothing new. Islam was much more open and free thinking at its zenith around 1,000. Then it lost its trade monopoly.

[Trolldor]

You need to do a little more research on Islam.