A reader says the call for a kinder, gentler atheism is long overdue:
Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, and other New Atheists are like gay dudes in assless chaps dancing on a dildo float. They put their atheism in everybody’s face and make no apologies. While I understand why New Atheists do that (I sometimes metaphorically put them on when faced with the worst in religious lunacy), they aren’t changing minds with their tactics. It will be the mundane atheists who live across the street or work in accounting or coach your kids’ soccer team who will eventually make the religious realize that there is nothing amoral or sinister about people who don’t concern themselves with deities. It’s hard to fear somebody when you know they have to buy toilet paper and cornflakes just like everybody else.
Another sets a good example:
I know people who have been through grievous life events – the loss of a child, loss of a parent at a young age – and according to their belief system, they will see that person again some day. My grandmother lost a son to a drowning at a young age, and she would always say that when she got to heaven, she would at last understand why he had been taken.
Why would I want to aggressively go around telling people that none of that is likely to happen, that their loved one is just as dead as a squirrel on the road? That may be my belief, but I don’t know it to be a fact. Life is difficult enough – why take away a source of comfort to some? It’s not my goal to convert other people to my beliefs any more than it’s your goal to convert other people to being gay. All I would like is acceptance.
But another argues that society needs both pleasant and pissed-off atheists:
Religious leaders have slandered atheists for centuries as being evil incarnate, and we need quiet kind atheists to show that one can not only be good without God, but also the sweetest, most inoffensive person on the planet. But you need in-your-face New Atheists as well. You need these people to challenge the posting of the 10 Commandments in schools, courthouses, and town halls. You need these people to point out that U.S. law is based on English Common Law, which in turn is based on pagan Roman law. You need these people to expose people to the arguments against religion so it isn’t accepted fact that the supernatural is real or that Christianity was born in its current form straight from Jesus.
I’d also like to challenge the notion that nobody was converted to Atheism by the New Atheists. It was the works of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins that provided the final push for me on my journey from a skeptical Christian to a loud, proud atheist. Now I suspect that your reader is right that their works will fail to convince a devout Christian. Heck, I’ve seen you, Andrew, acknowledge historical and scientific truths that directly contradict your beliefs, only to brush them aside to claim a “higher truth” that cannot be proven. The ultra-rationalist New Atheists will never win you or other devoted believers over. However, they can and do win over people who are already skeptical of their beliefs.
Previous Dish on the need for atheists to come out here, here and here.
The Dish 