The Case Against In-Your-Face Atheism
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/04/the-case-against-in-your-face-atheism.htmlSALES STRATEGY
01.04.15
An atheist counsels his fellow non-believers on how not to talk to people of faith.
When I began my blog on the Atheist Channel of Patheos, I thought I’d be able to show how someone can live a meaningful life without religious belief. Instead, I spend much of my time criticizing my fellow atheists. While I agree with the goal of making atheism a socially and politically acceptable movement, there is a type of “firebrand atheism” that I believe is hindering its progress.
The president of American Atheists, David Silverman, defines firebrand atheism as simply telling the truth about religion, with the emphasis on the telling. He says we should make clear that it’s religious beliefs we’re attacking, not the person. He says, “I’m not attacking humans; I’m attacking those humans’ silly beliefs.”
That word “silly” is the problem, as is Silverman’s whole take-no-prisoners assault on religion.
Think about what religion is—a total worldview that lets each believer feel like she’s found meaning and purpose in a bewildering universe. So, it’s not much of a stretch to argue that people are reluctant to give up their religious beliefs when they are intimately tied to their sense of self-worth.
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How would you describe that statement? Tolerant? Open minded? Humble? Liberal?
so maybe you could tell us.
So tired of this crap. 
You deserve love, not a hard time.
you might have a point.
But it doesn't, so I guess you don't.
They have a concept of balance they call the yin and the yang:
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The black represents the Yin, the female, the soft or cold. The white (or red) represents the Yang, the male, the hard, and the hot if you will. Neither can exist without the other; and, in fact, they exist within each other (the black spot inside the white, the white spot within the black).
I feel that all causes have their own yin and yang. Their firebrands and their peacemakers, and just as in the chinese concept of yin and yang they can not exist without each other. The american civil rights movement could not have succeeded without both firebrands and peacemakers. Those rocking the boat sitting at the front of the buses, and those who sought common ground to promote their causes.
They needed both their Malcolm X's and their Martin Luther King Jr.'s. Even then, MLK's actions were not completely those of a peacemaker. He called upon people to commit acts of civil disobedience, and Malcolm X did come to see the need for peacemakers as well.
Firebrands are needed to shake the comfortable from their nests snugly situated at the top of the tree of passive complacency. To make people feel uncomfortable, and even irritated. To get people to question themselves.
The author is arguing that firebrands are counter productive because people are intimately attached to their self worth. But the exact same could be said of the opponents of the civil rights movement and the anti-gay movement. If anything, they were MORE attached to those beliefs because they resorted to violence to stop progress. It took firebrands to stop them then, and it takes firebrands now.
History has shown that peacemakers alone are not enough. Even decades after the struggle for equal rights for racial minorities and women firebrands are still needed to produce change. Even today we have people wearing shirts saying "I can't Breath" as they block traffic and get in the faces of the American public to say that the racial double standard has got to go.
Firebrands are not the problem, and objecting to them because one does not like the way they present their message is not the solution.
The solution is for both firebrands and peacemakers to fight for their cause in their own way and acknowledge that both methods have their strengths and weaknesses and that together they make an unstoppable one-two punch for change.
Organized atheism will get nowhere until it, firstly, drops the sneering, supercilious, contemptuous tone; secondly, acknowledges that it understand faith and people of faith as little as Pat Robertson understands its lack and thirdly, admits that some atheists, especially of the "New Atheist" variety, can be real jerks.
I predict that if there are responses to this, them will be either A) childish reversals, "we're not x, you're x"; B) tiresome claims to not knowing who the "New Atheists" are; C) claims that the theists drive them to it ("she made me so angry"
; D) pointing out that many theists are jerks (which is true but missed the point) or E) simple flat denial and/or insults.
Thanks for hitting the nail squarely on the head.
... "missing third panel" response by the Theist to:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12309178
Updated:
61.1% Christian, to 22.3% non-religious.
Non-religious breaks down into "Atheism, agnosticism, deism, scepticism, freethought, secular humanism or general secularism" according to their census.
So, 61% to something less than 22%.
Not a minority at all.
