I have a slightly askew relationship with the “organized atheism” movement, not so much ideologically but tactically – I think some facets of the movement can be a little petty and mean-spirited sometimes (re: the “you know it’s a myth” billboards that amount to a neener-neener against various faiths during their holidays); and I’m unable to subscribe to the tenet that “All religions are bad.” Sorry, I can’t go there – they’re all a little silly, conceptually, sure… but not only are most self-identified persons of faith either decent or at least harmless; the vast majority of the world’s hundreds of thousands of organized-religions are fairly benign.
That having been said, I’m fairly comfortable in my infrequent calculation that while not ALL religions are bad… between three and four of them (the religions) ARE bad – or, at the very least are a net-negative influence on the modern world as a whole to a degree that is not offset by whatever good is done by individual adherents. And this kind of shit is WHY…
That’s Pastor Sean Harris, rather explicitly suggesting that parents should – upon witnessing their children behaving in homosexual and/or gender-non-normative ways – essentially beat the behavior out of them. Charming.
He has, of course, offered a toothless apology on his blog.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers. This fellow, and the cheering/clapping ignoramouses hanging on his every word, are Believers; and that designation has NOTHING to do with their being religious and EVERYTHING to do with the words coming out of his mouth.
Oh, and have you heard? Activision has hired right-wing folk hero Col. Oliver North – convicted (later overturned on appeal) in the Iran-Contra Affair – to do commercials shilling next “Call of Duty” video-game.
Yeah, things are goin’ swell…
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
@TheAlmightyNarf
What do atheists want? For Christians to not try to use state institutions to proselytise. We want them to stop trying to foist their values and prejudices on the non-religious.
By all means pray at school if you want to… just don't force non-christians to pray with you.
Form religious clubs or whatever in schools… just don't object if non-christians form groups too.
Teach your children that they shouldn't have sex before marriage… but don't object if the schools teach more comprehensive sex education. The same goes for Intelligent design… if you want your child to learn about Intelligent Design, feel free to supplement their education. Don't expect the schools to do the job for you.
Don't expect the law to prohit behaviour that your religion says is wrong, but is acceptable in mainstream society.
Don't expect non-christians to hold your beliefs in the same regard as you do. Also don't expect us to stay silent about practices that your religion promotes that we believe to be harmful.
I think those are the main points. As to how Christians can be overt in their faith without breaking some of those principles, I don't know.
Some atheists want rid of religion altogether, this is true (I am one of them, to a degree), but mostly not through banning it. The great majority of atheists respect your right to believe whatever you want. They'll just push for the teaching of critical-thinking and so on, and for people to be able to make up their own minds. We'll settle for you all practicing your religion in peace, and not causing evil in it's name.
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@ Thorbs
None of what you said sounds in any way unreasonable to me. So, here are a couple suggestions I think will go a long way toward that:
1) Hold Atheism to the exact same standard you want Christianity held to. I realize that you may to think it should be because you don't think of it as a religion, but I'm telling you right now that the day a group of Atheists and the ACLU go after a teacher ranting about how god absolutely doesn't exist to their class is the day a large segment of Christianity will start taking that standard more seriously.
2) Pit moderate and conservative Christianity against each other. When you attack Christianity as a whole you force moderates to pull in closer to conservatives simply because they have no other true allies. But, if you make allies of moderate Christianity, the complete incompatibility of beliefs the two have right now will drive them apart. Having moderates simply be the “enemy of your enemy” will never help you as long as they see Atheism as an even worse enemy.
And on that note…
3) Stop being dicks to Christians. If even Bob can't get on your side because of that, it should tell you something. You're never going to win over the extremists, the least you can do is stop scaring everyone else away.
And on even that note…
4) Be just as scornful to hateful Atheists as you want moderates to be of hateful Christians. The fact the Dan Savage got so much support from the Atheistic community should sicken you just as much as the support for Preacher Jackass up there sickened me.
And finally…
5) Don't sue over trivial things. It makes the whole “separation of church and state” issue seem like hyperbole, and gets real infringements taken less seriously.
Perhaps not all of those, but at least some of those would probably go a long way to Atheists getting to live in the sort of tolerant society they want and should be.
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@TheAlmightyNarf
“1) Hold Atheism to the exact same standard you want Christianity held to.”
Easy. The majority of atheists would no more support an atheist teacher telling children God does not exist than we would support a religious teacher preaching their religion. Again the Establishment Clause should cover this, and the ACLU should totally get involved. Teach the children our best, current knowledge of the world around us, and let the children make up their own minds.
I have great difficulty believing this happens to the same degree as with Christians though, to be honest.
“2) Pit moderate and conservative Christianity against each other.”
There are many atheists trying to do this. They gain nowhere near the same level of media attention as what you would call the “hateful atheists”. They have limited success, mostly due to the reasons I'll mention when I address point 3.
“3) Stop being dicks to Christians.”
This is where it all falls apart, because, for the most part, we are not being dicks. A minority may insult christians as a whole, but mostly our criticism is focused towards particular church policy, or particular fundamental behaviour or people.
The thing is, in almost all cases, ANY critcism we make of your religion is percieved as offensive. Whenever we try to open a public dialogue about church policy, we immediately get labelled as being intolerant of your religion. It's exactly the same as when non-Muslims over here in the UK try to discuss the practices of Islam we are immediately accused of Islamaphobia. Even mentioning our existence is deemed as being offensive… just look at all the issues with atheist billboards being defaced and denounced by Christians, or banned by advertising companies because they may cause offense, regardless of how mild they are (A billboard with just the word “Atheists” and the contact details of an atheist organisation was deemed too “offensive” to be run). Proper public discourse is made impossible in these circumstances, and when we are effectively being silenced are you surprised that the bits you do get to hear tend to be dickish?
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…continued (damn 4096 character limit!)
“4) Be just as scornful to hateful Atheists as you want moderates to be of hateful Christians.”
Firstly, there IS much arguement and discussion between the moderate and militant atheists. These arguements are commonplace throughout the atheist community. In honesty, atheists spend almost as much time argueing with each other as they do argueing with the religious.
Mainly though, these things are not the same.
At most militant atheists will insult you or your religion. We do not issue death threats, try to legislate our beliefs, abuse children due to our beliefs, withhold medical treatment due to our beliefs, seek to limit the rights of others, defend child-molestation, bomb health clinics or call women who use them “sluts” and “whores”, cause additional suffering to mourners by protesting at funerals, gloat and tell people they'll burn in hell (including children!), carry out acts of terrorism, mutilate the genitalia of our children, stone or behead people for not following out religious teachings (or just “offending” the religion), or commit genocide.
These things are not the same.
“The fact the Dan Savage got so much support from the Atheistic community should sicken you just as much as the support for Preacher Jackass up there sickened me.”
Dan Savage made some remarks that Christians found insulting while discussing how Christian's reasons for opposing homosexuality are hypocritical. The points he made were correct. The Preacher was advocating the beating of children. These things are not the same.
“5) Don't sue over trivial things.”
What you consider trivial may not be considered trivial by others. Also, don't force us to sue by completely disregarding complaints and advice.
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@ Thorbs
1
I really don't think it happens nearly as often as it used to in the 70s and 80s, but we're talking PR here. At least once there needs to be some big media circus covering that exact sort of thing.
2
Welcome to the same club moderate Christians are in.
3 & 4
Perhaps both moderate Christians and Atheists alike should make a conscious effort to make these sorts of internal conflicts more public?
It's interesting you the mention the billboard because a few months ago there as a big Atheistic convention of some sort not far from me and there were billboards all over the place advertising it, yet I don't recall the Christian community making any fuss about it… At worst it was a passive aggressive apathy, and a confusion as to why people would need to have a convention about not believing things.
I mostly just mentioned Dan Savage because he was a recent example, and yes, there are Christians out there who say far more harmful and hateful things. But, the point still stands. I mean, if Savage's goal was to convince Christians to be more accepting of homosexuality, do you think he actually helped that goal at all?
What I'm starting to realize may be our biggest hurdle at all is, as you mentioned, the media isn't interested in portraying moderates and will always go out of their way to find the most vile, hateful people they can to drum up viewership. As much as Christians may be hurt by that harming their public image, it hurts them all the more by making them apathetic to the worse parts of their community. And, of course, this hurts Atheists because moderates very well may not have any other way to make their voices publicly heard.
This, unfortunately, I don't have any solutions for.
5
I would actually love to hear your advice as to what I may be able to do from my end.
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