When I hang out with my friends, who are religious, they are fine...

[cynatnite]

but get some of them on Facebook and at every drop of a hat they are spouting their jeebus, and the rest of their stepford-gawd-loving rhetoric. It's about driving me nuts. I'm to the point I dread going on facebook to see what my oldest daughter is up to. So, I'm off of it for a couple of weeks. Hopefully, the prostrating will die down and I can stomach it when I go back.

[laconicsax]

1. Facebook is a great way of seeing who's wacko and who isn't.

Or, for seeing which of your friends turn out to be weak minded fools with no convictions...then again, you can't expect much from apathetic agnostics.

[MrModerate]

2. I think you need to get past the fact that you have friends who happen to be religious . . .

And realize that in purely social situations, their faith(s) are somewhat less likely to come up for discussion -- especially if they know they're in a mixed crowd. OTOH, on a cryptopublic forum like Facebook, they're much more likely to let their faith flags fly, just as many DUers have more intense political discussions here on the board than they ever do in face-to-face life.

It's the nature of the Internet.

I just don't discuss religion with my friends (some of whom I'm pretty sure are religious). Everyone in my set knows it's not a topic anyone wants to jaw about. Since I'm not an activist atheist -- Anyone's allowed to believe whatever silly fairy stories they like, as far as I'm concerned -- the fact that I don't feel a need to confront my friends about their (admittedly preposterous) religious faith helps maintain an even strain.

[Q3JR4]

3. Most of my close friends are Atheists,

so when it does come up in conversation we are in agreement.

Those who are in my social circle who are theists know from experience that if we want to avoid hurt feelings (mostly on their part) we should probably not talk about religion.

I guess you can say that we have sort of a don't-ask-don't-tell policy.

Q3JR4.

[qnr]

4. To be honest, I lasted 3 weeks on FB before deleting my account, it just didn't

'grab' me at all. Atheist Nexus, however, is quite enjoyable.

[ralph m]

5. I may go back to Facebook

I spent four months on A|N and started getting more and more fed up with libertarian atheists, global warming-denying atheists, and anti-feminist atheists -- which ended up being the ones who made me realize that Atheist Nexus's mission statement of gathering together all atheists regardless of other belief positions is a stupid way to try to build an organization! I was told by some who had been there longer, that things get ugly on a regular basis, and everytime things get out of hand, someone might be banned and offending posts deleted. To me, that's just trying to sweep everything under the rug....which is apparently what they did with me, since after I quit, they deleted all of my posts to make it appear that I had never existed.

If I ever join an exclusively atheist group in the future, I am going to make sure that it at least adheres to basic progressive principles. I can see forming a secular humanist organization, but any crackpot who doesn't believe in God is an atheist! And not someone I necessarily want to hang around with.

[Iggo]

6. Alright, ralph!

"I can see forming a secular humanist organization, but any crackpot who doesn't believe in God is an atheist!"

Nicely put.

And Welcome to DU!:hi:

[salvorhardin]

7. Haha

Yeah, Atheist Nexus is a great way of proving that the only thing atheists have in common is a lack of belief in gods. Although if you spend some time on the Rational Response Squad forums, Atheist Nexus starts to look like a damn philosophers club.

[ralph m]

8. Yeah, the Rational Response squad is pretty juvenile

but the problem with A|N isn't deliberate offensiveness; it's that they seem to think everyone who is an atheist has enough in common to be part of the same organization. A few long time members who tried to talk me into staying on, say that they just are active in their groups and avoid the main discussion pages for that reason. I suppose that could work, but it doesn't say much for the concept of atheist community.

I don't agree that promoting atheism or deconverting Christians should be universal goals. This idea that everyone will be happier and act better if they become atheists has become the New Atheists' faith position. There is no reason to believe that it will lead to an improved, more rational world. And on the other hand, should I feel better that a conservative becomes an atheist, and retains all of his conservative views on climate change, economics, and foreign policy? The only positive change would be that he would be inclined to act more rationally than a conservative fundamentalist, who thinks his politics are all part of God's plan.

[salvorhardin]

9. A couple of things...

This idea that everyone will be happier and act better if they become atheists has become the New Atheists' faith position.

Well, that assumes there is any organized New Atheist position. Your own experiences with Atheist Nexus prove that there isn't. I know for a fact that isn't PZ Myers' position, and I strongly doubt that's Richard Dawkins' believes. Neither do I think Dan Dennett thinks this way. Harris and Hitchens I can't say.

Also, I take issue with the term New Atheists in general. There's nothing new about the so-called New Atheists. They're not saying anything new; anything that hasn't been said by atheists at least as far back as the ancient Greeks.

And, this is my own personal opinion, but I don't think that the ultimate goal should be, or even is for most people involved in atheist activism, the deconversion of as many people as possible. Rather, I think what most of us are working for is a society that is just friendlier toward atheists, where atheists aren't a damn minority whose beliefs (and lack of) are discounted out of hand. Where criticism of religion isn't seen as a shocking thing (or worse, intolerance), and atheists aren't viewed as pariahs. Where the state is as neutral toward religious beliefs as possible and policy decisions aren't made, implicitly or explicitly, based on dogma.

And on the other hand, should I feel better that a conservative becomes an atheist, and retains all of his conservative views on climate change, economics, and foreign policy? The only positive change would be that he would be inclined to act more rationally than a conservative fundamentalist, who thinks his politics are all part of God's plan.

Here's a fallacy that a lot of atheists fall prey to. The idea that being an atheist makes one any more rational than anyone else. It doesn't. There's nothing saying that most people become atheists for rational decisions, nor does being an atheist have any implicit guarantee toward rational thought. Hell, just look at Bill Maher and his dangerously goofy ideas about vaccination, medicine and nutrition (not to mention his misogyny).

[ralph m]

10. There may not be an "organized" new atheist position but...

There is a sharp difference in the suggested approach towards dealing with religion and religious believers between the "new atheists" like Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens, and the more traditional approach of secular humanist academics, who concentrated on developing naturalist philosophy and humanist systems of ethics and morality. Paul Kurtz and the quiet humanist approach of building secular organizations, and forming alliances with moderate, non-evangelical religionists who don't insist on pushing their religious beliefs on others, does not get a lot of attention, especially in an age where only vulgar, in-your-face confrontation makes the news.

Sam Harris's book:"The End Of Faith," did not become a bestseller because he wrote the best argument for atheism and counter-apologetics -- it was because it contained a philosophical defense of the use of torture, said the religious right was leading the U.S. to theocracy - yet declared that this was preferable to Islam, which he described as a "cult of death." And then he threw a curveball at the end of the book, with his friendliness towards Buddhism and embrace of the mystical tradition through meditation. Mixing politics with religion is what really sold the book, and the later works by Dawkins and Hitchens copied that strategy. Notice that Dennett's book during the period of atheist bestsellers: "Breaking the Spell," had the richest content, yet the poorest sales, likely because he avoided politics and inflammatory language.

Specifically, regarding Dawkins's beliefs on whether some people need religion -- a key issue since if nobody needs religion, that means atheists should be evangelical about deconverting all believers:

"I dealt with this in the last chapter of The God Delusion, 'A Much Needed Gap' and also, at more length, in Unweaving the Rainbow. Here I'll make one additional point. Did you notice the patronizing condescension in the quotations I just listed? You and I, of course, are much too intelligent and well educated to need religion. But ordinary people, hoi polloi, the Orwellian proles, the Huxleian Deltas and Epsilon semi-morons, need religion. Well, I want to cultivate more respect for people than that. I suspect that the only reason many cling to religion is that they have been let down by our educational system and don't understand the options on offer. This is certainly true of most people who think they are creationists. They have simply not been taught the alternative. Probably the same is true of the belittling myth that people 'need' religion. On the contrary, I am tempted to say "I believe in people . . ." http://richarddawkins.net/articles/318

Even if he's right that the proposition that some people are somehow wired to be religious or unable to break free from a purpose-driven way of examining the world, is condescending or patronizing -- that doesn't answer whether or not it is true. It's worth noting that Dawkins explains the propagation of ideas and concepts by his Meme Theory of propagation of ideas that he shares with Daniel Dennett. If there are good viral ideas and bad viral ideas (like religious dogma), Meme Theory implies that fighting bad ideas should be done in a similar manner to eradicating diseases. Many neuroscientists in recent years have come to the conclusion that there are more basic underlying reasons why some people are religious, while others outgrow this way of thinking
http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/11/religious-brain-pragmatist-brain.html If the differences are more than having our thinking infected with harmful viral memes, then the pragmatic approach would be to back off and let people figure out how to fit their religious worldview to the real world, and only interfere when their dogma is directing them towards harmful actions.

The problem is that atheist evangelists will create more hostility from the religious folks, and make fundamentalists more entrenched in their beliefs. And I agree that atheism doesn't necessarily equal rationalism. But people who are able to unload the traditions they have been taught from an early age are more likely to be rational and pragmatic than those who just follow their traditions without question.