mitchellmckain wrote:Here is indeed the insidious evil of an ignoramous in the highest postion of power in the world.
But I think we must learn from this how intolerance can muddy the water. I know that for a very long time atheists have been the most intellegent and humble people. But in the last 100 years we have had to face up to a number of disagreeable realities about the horror that human beings are capable and the communists have shown that atheist are certainly not immune. So what effect can this new popular agressive atheism have, with their echoes of MaoTse Tung's "religion is a disease", but to change the perception people have about atheism? It may seem like tit for tat to adopt the intolerant attitudes of the fundamentalist Christians, but surely the intellegent can see that imitating the worst of what you despise can only make all the efforts battle such things a lost cause, forfieting all the ground won in history so far.
I think it is clear that GWB2 was elected in part from a growing mistrust of human intellegence - they want somebody dumb that they can understand. Can anything be more scary than this? I think this is a sign that the efforts of agressive atheists to convince the world that religion is incompatable with science has not had the desired effect, for instead of convincing people that religion is not worth pursuing, it is only convincing people that science and critical thinking is not worth pursuing. For all that this serves the ego of the new atheists, it is not serving the future of mankind at all.
(I will pass on to you what I have passed on to others: Firefox offers a spell-checker for its browser. You may find it useful if you want readers to consider your ideas without stumbling over your presentation.)You are speaking from the position of privilege, and showing limited understanding of the pent up anger that belongs to those who have lived under enforced silence.
(I'm riffing off of a comment this week by
Austin Cline, but it fits here.)
Christians have set the agenda for dialogue about meaning for far too long. From their high-&-mighty position as the American majority, they have waylaid science education, decried equal treatment regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, and given greater sway to magical thinking over rationality since before the Enlightenment.
Non-believers have had to keep silent, and often even attend church, in order to maintain relationships with their families and in their communities. They couldn't be open and teach in the public schools. They couldn't be open and join or lead the Boy Scouts. They couldn't be open and achieve elected office.
So until you are willing to concede your privilege by pushing HARD to excise Christian privilege (as depicted by such malarkey as "In God We Trust" or "Under God") from the national center stage, stop lecturing atheists about OUR divisiveness.
I was wacthing some news thing that said Athiests are polled to be "below" gays and muslims. And that on quote by Bush scared me. 
Does anyone know what the canidates for 2008 views on atheism are? I'm old enough to vote this presidental election. ^__^ And I don't want to vote for someone who doesn't think Atheists should be citizens.
