If you've read this week's Carnival of the Godless you've already seen this, but I felt PZ Myers' comments deserved to be highlighted. In preparing this edition of the CotG, PZ wanted to:

...balance the yin and yang of atheism: on one side, the ungodly would rail against the unreason and oppression of living in a religious society; on the other, we'd have the affirmations, the positive assertions of what it means to be a freethinker. Both are important.

What he found was not unexpected, but does illustrate something I've talked about elsewhere. The rants against the awful stupidity, harm or just downright silliness of religion far outweighed the entries promoting the positive side of a godless life. I think we can do better, and so does PZ:

I would suggest, though, that we're failing to communicate a significant aspect of what it means to be godless, and we're not getting the case for atheism across.

The next edition will be at The Evangelical Atheist on 27 November. I'd like to propose a challenge to the freethought community: for every link you send in to cotg-host@brentrasmussen.com that mocks the foolishness and futility of religion, I'd also like all of the submitters to write one post that doesn't reference religion at all, that highlights the virtues of godlessness, and send that in as well.

A large part of my impetus for starting Neural Gourmet was to put aside all of the hate, the fear, the irrationality and superstition that is being foisted on us from all sides. It's not unnatural for us to attack back, and I'm in no way suggesting that we don't hold the religious fundamentalists accountable for their words and actions. However, if we only react then not only are we failing to advance our progressive agenda, but we become defined by our negativity. We become the stereotype that the religious zealots characterize us by.

And to be honest, I hate that everything has become about religion. The theist extremists have turned every subject into some slight against their religion or are pushing to have their religion codified into law and policy at every turn. It's only natural that we atheists come out swinging but it can't all be that. We need to move beyond simply fighting off the enemies of the enlightenment and somehow promote the positive aspects of atheism.

For our own sake we need to end this war because all this constant battling cheapens society and makes it ugly. We know the religious fundamentalists aren't going to offer up the olive branch. They want -- they need -- this war. Well, I don't propose that we surrender, but I would hope that as champions of reason and tolerance us atheists could lead by example.

So, I accept PZ's challenge and I hope you do too. It ain't easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. 

Bookmark/Search this post with:

| | | | | | | | | |

tng's blog | printer friendly version