I've just visited the website Conservapedia for the first time. All I can say is wow. A few quotes from their article on atheism, and I'll move on.
- "The atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability." - Voltaire
- "An atheist’s most embarrassing moment is when he feels profoundly thankful for something,but can’t think of anyone to thank for it" - Mary Anne Vincent
- How to trap an atheist: Serve him a fine meal, then ask him if he believes there is a cook. — Source Unknown
It was in the "atheism quotes" section at the end. The interesting thing about such quotes was that the most contemporary of the quoters were Calving Coolidge and C.S. Lewis. Being new to the freethinker/atheist/(however you want to define it) "community," this simple read made me realize the importance of being outspoken about certain things.
Why be outspoken? The negative effects faith-based thinking have on decision-making and the "moral compass" to me are reason enough. These are things that I've experienced. Racism, hooliganism, being ok with knowing someone is going to hell (the absolute worst thing that any of us could imagine, amplified 100x); it's the cognitive dissonance that is talked about so much in specific types of theists.
Only, it's different than you'd think - this is a way of thinking that trains you to be ok with going against your own beliefs. The moral code laid out in the Bible is not something that people follow. My thinking on this, which I came to when I was around 17 or 18 at a Christian school, is that the moral code of the new testament can be summed up very simply.
How do you, as a Christian behave? Jesus answered the question to some random dude: Love God. Love your neighbor. So then the question becomes, what is love? Well, that's lined out in a letter from Paul to the Corinthians: love is patient, kind; doesn't envy, boast; isn't proud. Not rude, self-seeking, easily angered; keeps no record of wrongs. Doesn't delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
A quick summation of 1 Corinthians 13. Anyways - I thought it was a really easy answer as to how to act. The golden rule is encompassed with that love thing - but even above and beyond that, the love guide teaches you to be a good person. Be nice, don't get pissed for no reason, don't be a selfish prick, etc. Good things laid out with some nice specifics.
I was pretty astonished to find that the things I was presenting to people were surprising to them. Jesus said love is the most important thing (I'm ignoring the God part for now, I'm just interested in moral behavior/thinking right now). Then this other guy goes on to tell you how to do it. So if you want to behave like Jesus said - follow the guide book on the topic. The reason I found it surprising is because of how novel the idea seemed to a lot of people. I found it an insight into the moral thinking of most Christians.
Ok, so that was all meant to give an idea of why I think we should be outspoken about the benefits of reason over faith. As far as the purpose of being outspoken: getting rid of these horrible misconceptions. Step one in convincing people that atheism is a completely reasonable position to have requires that we tear down all these horrible misconceptions. I believe a lot of that can come from just simple moral behavior.
I "came out" to my parents over Christmas break. My dad is a pastor (for 3 years now, long story, but he's always been involved in the church in some capacity) and my mom is also involved in everything at the church. So, about a week after my bomb, he and I went out to get a Christmas tree and he started up a conversation regarding it. He was mostly interested in hearing how I came to take a position of no God vs. God. So I told him my stories, reasoning, reading, etc. Since then we've been discussing random topics regarding faith and religion. But as of now, I feel that I've made headway within that relationship - I'm to the point now where I think that he allows that my position is reasonable and is starting to reconfigure his idea of what atheism is and isn't. And that's something I feel is immeasurably important.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't attack the irrational, immoral, and inhumane things that religions and religious people do. I think that Dawkins' consciousness raising is the most important thing we can do. Trust the human mind to take over at some point, but we have to plant the seeds of reason.
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