Anyway, I vote we go for the Alpha Centauri ending.

Interesting just to look over that site and see how many “official” religious groups there are, even just those recognized by Arlington, isn’t it?

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/210063/The_Dawkins_Defeat

FYI – If you haven’t heard of Digital Journal… I was accepted as a writer there a few days ago and if your writing is good, you can get paid for submitting articles.

For the atheists looking for a non confrontational symbol, the Arlington Cemetery does acknowledge an authorized faith emblem for atheists. I’m not sure the history behind it, but it looks like it might be what you’re after.

My first impression of that symbol was, “I’m an atheist, I don’t work for NASA!” Seriously, if I saw that on someone’s car (or grave) I would assume they were an astronaut.

My first reaction is to offer a gentle word of caution. Human beings have a powerful tendency toward superstition. Since we lived on the African savannas we have found interesting objects and have become fond of them, attached to them, and finally convinced that they posess special powers. That curled boar’s tusk the hominid wore around his neck. Did it just look cool, or did it somehow help him catch that antelope? Better keep it just in case. Again and again our tendency to link objects with events has grown into elaborate superstitions and religions replete with magical objects.

When people free themselves from religious beliefs they sometimes miss the things that went with their religion, like the reassuring familiarity of rituals, the special clothes, the companionship of fellow believers and the emblems of belonging to something bigger than themselves. Being able to wear a symbol of belonging to a cohesive group carries a power and a confidence that can be sorely missed when we divest ourselves of the foundation beliefs.

The problem lies in that we can become fond of these emblems, attached to them, and very subtly start to attribute special qualities to them as our ancestors did with the boar’s tusk. Such attachment to things brings on problems because they get lost or stolen, they break, they let us down when their special qualities don’t work, or when the group that they symbolize is revealed to be made up of people, who because they’re human can let us down too.

Please don’t take offense as if I’m suggesting that you’re superstitious and silly. I’m not. Express yourselves with confidence and gusto, but be mindful of any attaching little bits of magical thinking to the emblem in the way we all are very capable of doing.

The wearing of an emblem that eventually becomes recognized by the public as saying “I’m an atheist” may interfere in your meeting and befriending people who shy away from such a connotation. Not getting to know you first, they won’t have the chance to discover that you don’t fit the negative stereotypes they may harbor about atheists. Of course it could also help you find others of a similar mindset, and so could also help you find friends. It’s probably a trade-off as so much in life is, but you should be aware of how it works both positively and negatively in your life.

One other caution is simply that there are many places in this “tolerant” country where it is definitely not safe to express atheist views. You can get yourself some very unwelcome attention.

There’s one other step that I’d really like to see, that I haven’t figured out for myself yet, but I’m working on: I want a good way to express my “faith” openly and with pride, but in a way that does not come across as an attack on other religions. I see people with crosses, stars of David, ?ij?bs, etc., all the time. And, although it’s safe to assume that the bearers of these icons think that the bearers of the others are heretics, the icons mean something besides “other people are wrong”. Most atheist iconography (eg Darwin “fish”) seems to directly mock other people’s faith. While mocking religions can be fun and healthy for us atheists, I’d like more ways to celebrate our guiding beliefs free of mockery and belittlement… Sadly, I’m not seeing anything like this from the “New Atheists”, but I admit that I’ve not read anywhere near all of the books that have come out in the past couple years. If people know of things like this, I’d appreciate leads.

I hope soon to work for an employer who is not so in(Catholic)tolerant.