I need to think of a new nickname I guess. I’m kind of burned out with the whole scene. It’s a combination of the idiocy described in the link above, some of the criticism in the post and comments here, and plain old waning interest.

Pretty much the only “atheist” activity I do now is read this blog. (And watch ProfMTH’s channel on youtube! What? You don’t know him? For shame!)

If my current busy lifestyle lightens up and I can get back into some active group I will probably go for the NYC Skeptics.

I think abnoxious people should be challenged about their abnoxiousness

And I think that peepul who can’t spel “obnoxious” should be mercilessly mocked for their lack of prufreading.

What bothers me most is the lack of understanding for religious belief. It’s true many religious people simply block out any evidence…but many more have simply never been exposed to rational thinking. Even for many of us who became atheists, it took time, a lot of research and reflection to reach the conclusions that we did.

Moreover, it seems that one ought to have a modicum of compassion for people who are unable to face the fact of a universe without a personal friend who cares about you and allows you eternal life.

I think that we can consider him the Sarah Palin of the atheist world.

Well, more like Palin with the worst parts of Teddy Kennedy mixed in. And yes, I know that’s a cheap shot.

It’s not necessarily a ‘cheap shot’, it’s just utterly ridiculous.

Hitchens has traits that make me roll my eyes and grit my teeth, but for you to say the above, I have to assume that you haven’t witnessed EITHER of them during debates

The ‘Brights’ thing really irked me too when I first heard about it. There are some religious folks I know who could absolutely clobber me in an argument because they know way more than I do.

I don’t like anything that suggests that being an atheists means being a part of some elite group. I’m just a person who doesn’t believe in god(s). That doesn’t make me a special snowflake who knows more than everyone else.

Great post Catherine

I have a very dear friend who teaches in the religion dept. at a local university (she’s a pantheist and as much of a ‘heathenist’ as most of us are:), and when the subject of the ‘flying spaghetti monster’ came up, she used the phrase ‘making fun of people’ in her description of it to someone who wasn’t familiar. On another occasion, when the subject of Bill Maher’s “Religulous” came up, a colleague of hers also used the phrase “making fun of” to describe the ‘point’ of the documentary……..

What bothers me about this is that instead of seeing the main POINT being made by ‘Religulous’ and the FSM, they only saw the ‘mocking’ aspect. That could be due to their perspective/biases, but it troubles me that so many intelligent people come away with the same impression of atheists.

We really need to focus on trying to make our ‘points’ (ie questioning the automatic ‘deferrence’ given to religions etc) without being condescending or insulting. I know how hard it is sometimes (especially when faced with creationists who are not above lying), but the payoff is worth it…..

When your words/actions demonstrate an integrity that is true to the ideas you espouse, you don’t give your opponents the opportunity to waste time by focussing on how ‘insulting’ you’ve been.

That is definitely my big issue with most atheists I mean. They all seem to be Nice Guys (TM).