Nonreligious community increasingly split by provocative tactics

[Synnical]

I have to agree with the headline. Sadly. As a hard/positive atheist, I think we should be out and about.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/sns-200911041436mctnewsservbc-relig-atheists-se226,0,330204.story

MCT News Service


SEATTLE When some 600 atheists, agnostics and other nonreligious folks gather in Seattle starting Friday for a Freedom From Religion Foundation convention, there will be an emphatically nonprayer breakfast.

Not to mention hundreds of provocative bus ads, including one with Santa saying: "Yes, Virginia ... there is no God."

The ads may seem in-your-face to some. But the Wisconsin-based organization has never shied from controversy. It has filed lawsuits on state-church separation issues and sponsored "Imagine No Religion" and "Reason's Greetings" billboards in Seattle; Olympia,. Wash.; and other cities.

. . .


But even as the visibility of the nonreligious has risen dramatically in the past several years, what's also becoming more visible is the debate within the community about whether such aggressive tactics and hard-line anti-religion stances are the most effective.

. . .


Phil Zuckerman, associate professor of sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., said people are beginning to see that the nonreligious community is just as diverse as the religious community. Both the moderate and hard-line voices are "being more vocal and out," he says.

. . .

And he's not a fan of an increasingly prevalent tactic used by some atheist groups to get their viewpoint across: bus ads and billboards.

Some among the nonreligious "find billboards are wonderful tools to change minds," Zuckerman said. "Others are ashamed of them," seeing them as "emulating what we don't like about popular religion" the marketing.

Besides, he wonders about the wisdom of keeping the focus on religion.



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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[trotsky]

1. "whether such aggressive tactics and hard-line anti-religion stances are the most effective"

I dunno, how well has being silent and letting religionists get their way on everything worked out?

[Warpy]

2. Yeah, that's how I feel about it.

They've been shoving us down for so damn long a few of us have started to shove back.

I do love "Reason's Greetings!"

[Deep13]

3. Stating a contrary opinion in a nonconfrontational manner is now a provocative tactic. nt