Dawkin's Out Campaign
Dawkins is asking people to come out and let others know you are an atheist, and I add, agnostic. I'm in favor of nonbelievers coming out of the closet, but this doesn't mean you have to commercialize it like he has done. I do understand if some non-believers cannot do it at this time in their lives. But if you can do this, I too encourage it. See link
11 comments:
WOW it is looking more and more like a .. what .. religious cult? .. perhaps a church, perhaps not?
We have the seminal texts.
We have the need for faith to believe.
We have the proselytising evagilists, complete with web sites where you are only one click away from making a donation.
AND NOW we have the T-shirt.
Next is the meetings where the evangelists do their proselytising .. wait we already have those, but not every Sunday ... at least where I live they are Thursday nights.
I guess we have even got to the point where those of the atheist belief seeks to discriminate against those other faiths or to belittle their faith. Setting up yet another "us" and "them" divide for a rabble rouser to use to further their own ends.
But then there is the advantage of the example of other religions being abused in that way for generations.
Congratulations to the atheist religion, ...come of age at last!
Seminal texts? Since when does having an influential book automatically make you a religion?
Need for faith to believe? What faith? I accept only those propositions that are more likely than their alternatives, no faith necessary.
Proselytising [sic] evagilists [sic] and donations? So I guess all non-profit organizations that try to raise money and awareness for a cause are also a religion?
And since when does a T-shirt have anything to do with religion?
You can try as hard as you want, but you can't make atheism fit into the religion mold - it's not even a philosophy, for that matter, just a viewpoint on a single philosophical issue. Is calling it a religion supposed to be an insult or a compliment?
Eric, thank you drawing attention to the fact that I had a typo on "evagilists" and used the UK spelling of proselytise - I guess I am not perfect, can't type and didn't grow up is the USA.
Sorry you missed the irony of the rest - perhaps it's an English thing. Or perhaps it's not ironical at all, just at lot of inconvenient parallels.
The one big difference between atheism and Christianity is it's ability to change with new evidence. Christianity and every religion I'm aware of, is stuck somewhere in time and the faithful want to make sure it stays that way.
That's funny, I thought the one big difference between religion and atheism was one has gods and the other doesn't.
Akakiwibear, your irony would work better if your list of traits were, you know, true. Atheism does not require faith (or, at least, any more faith than gravity); that leaves you with important books, people who try to convince others about the importance of their thoughts, and t-shirts.
So, you've just lowered Christianity to the same level as Trekkies (um, excuse me, Trekkers). Congrats.
I think Joseph was stressing the word "evidence" here.
In practice though, Christianity has indeed changed over the years because of the evidence. It's an ever evolving religion. The believers at any one point in time don't see it this way though.
"I thought the one big difference between religion and atheism was one has gods and the other doesn't." Uh, yeah that, too!
shygetz, for those atheists who believe there is no God - that is an act of faith. As much as you might like to think otherwise there is no proof absolute either way. So to believe either way you need faith.
JWL, we almost agree, religion is evolving, obviously yes, but I would argue that most religious see that too - but then I can only really base that on what I read and those I meet.
akawikibear- if you define "faith" to mean "a belief for which you do not have proof absolute either way", then just about everything we think and do is based on "faith", outside of formal systems of logic such as mathematics. And if atheists need "faith" to not believe in God, and that constitutes an "inconvenient parallel" with religion, then I can think of lots of uncelebrated religions out there: my belief that there are no unicorns, your belief that you can venture safely outside without having to fear that it's raining heads of lettuce, and so on.
Defining "faith" and "religion" so broadly thus rather diminishes the usefulness of the words, since they don't exclude much of anything any more.
shygetz, for those atheists who believe there is no God - that is an act of faith. As much as you might like to think otherwise there is no proof absolute either way. So to believe either way you need faith.
You are partially correct; were I to absolutely, 100% believe that there was no such thing as a god, I would need faith. Now comes the hard part; name one person who believes that. I don't know any. I imagine they exist, but they are rare. So far as I know, none of them exist here. Dawkins certainly isn't one. Dawkins claims he doesn't know any.
Now, I have almost 100% belief that your characterization of God doesn't exist. I can justify that belief with evidence. You have no evidence for your God; therefore, your God has as much chance of existing as any God with random characteristics that I would choose from an almost infinitely large pool of potential gods. Therefore, the liklihood of your randomly chosen God actually existing is very, very small. But, admittedly, not zero.
You are pounding on a strawman of atheism rather than coming to grips with the real phenomenon. Stick to the point at hand.
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