Wait...what? We are supposed to have a strategy?

I think i missed a meeting, or the memo went straight to my junk folder.

An atheist strategy would be to continue rejecting beliefs in gods.
I'm not really that interested in converting theists, but i do take an interest in exposing and countering the usual lies and misinformation.

I am happy for people to profess a belief in god(s), i just don't want them telling kids that they will go to hell if they don't obey, etc ad nauseam

If we as self-professed rational people continue to point out the idiocy of religion, keep providing the evidence, keep disarming the religious war-machine, we will be making the world a better place one infinitessimal fraction at a time.

There is an old saying "the way to eat an elephant is in tiny pieces", hopefully in a few more generations we will be chewing on the tail and burping appreciatively.

Shaker wrote:

nunnington wrote:I think partly religion actually acts as a protection against the power of the numinous, hence the Otherness of the divine, which has to be kept at a safe distance, or it will smash the ego world.

Deepity.

Indeed. And vacuous word-salad to boot.

The OP implies that there is a homogenous group called 'atheists' and that they have signed up to some sort of strategy. It then questions whether this strategy is successful or not. To even adopt a strategy supposes that there is a goal to be achieved and some agreed methods by which that goal might come about.

So the OP is really pretty loaded to start with.

There are degrees, colours or grades of atheism and atheists (e.g. the RD atheist scale in the TGD) so besides one or two fundamental points of agreement it would be hard to categorise atheists as at all homogenous. As far as I know there is no formal or informal 'strategy' adopted by any specifc type or group of atheists, because I as far as I am aware there is no agreed set of goals and therefore it would be pretty hard to attribute any degree of success or failure to such an invisible strategy that attempted to bring about an unstated goal.

Here are some possible/potential atheist goals that I do not think are formally stated anywhere:
1. The complete eradication of all forms of religious belief
2. The removal of all overt religious symbolism in society
3. The complete separation of secular matters from religion/belief systems in the world, or perhaps a specific country
4. The prevention of religious education/indoctrination to children under (say) 16.
5. 'Leading Atheists' (whoever they are) given equal status, weight and balance by the media in any form of coverage of religious/faith issues

This is an arbitrary and probably not very good list but that's not the point. Whatever the candidate list of 'atheist goals' I suspect atheists would debate their precise wording from now until the sun becomes a red giant.

Even assuming some atheists could agree on a goal or goals, then would come the debate regarding what tactics and strategies should be adopted in order to attempt to achieve the afoementioned goal(s).

Only once all the above had been performed and some strategies been tried might it be worthwhile reviewing the how well the strategy was working out.

As Hack pointed out, on RS (and on RDF - RIP) alone there are a lots of different approaches taken by different atheists, it would be hard to determine if any of these were more successful than others until we knew what constituted success. If it was 'conversion' of theists to atheists I think our success rate is very low - and we can all speculate why that is.

I think we might have a better approach if we just accepted that religion can't be reasoned with cause its entire existence depends on not being "reasonable" or logical". I think we could reach Christians by teaching them the history, development, and human social behaviour background of all religions, inculding theirs.

If we have a strategy I was not informed of it and I feel very left out.

Mr Ashbo wrote:The OP implies that there is a homogenous group called 'atheists' and that they have signed up to some sort of strategy. It then questions whether this strategy is successful or not. To even adopt a strategy supposes that there is a goal to be achieved and some agreed methods by which that goal might come about.

You're right; the OP wasn't sufficiently clear on this matter.

What I had in mind was not about getting religious people, and specifically Christians, to change their minds about anything; I was simply considering how best to deal with their attempts to convert us to their way of thinking.

I was suggesting that, instead of remaining stalled on the Fine Tuning argument, or the Argument from Design, or whatever, we should try saying: 'OK - let's, for the purposes of our discussion, concede your arguments for deism or theism. Now, please tell us where you go from here? How do you get from this point to Christianity?'

It just seems to me (and the absence of any comments on this from our neighbourhood Christians tends to support it) that there is a great big gap in their thinking at this point - a gap which may not be given the attention it deserves if we stay hooked on the well known arguments for deism/theism.

Will S I think I get what your saying. I think the problem though is once they make one giant leap of faith to accept something a whole bunch of tiny ones are no big deal.

trubble76 wrote:Wait...what? We are supposed to have a strategy?

trubble76 wrote:If we as self-professed rational people continue to point out the idiocy of religion, keep providing the evidence, keep disarming the religious war-machine, we will be making the world a better place one infinitessimal fraction at a time.

There is an old saying "the way to eat an elephant is in tiny pieces", hopefully in a few more generations we will be chewing on the tail and burping appreciatively.

... and I am just trying to figure out how what you have just described, is not a strategy.

John

Will S wrote:I’m wondering if, in our debates with Christians, we atheists adopt the wrong strategy.

I think the problem is that you're defining yourselves as "atheists" when you should simply be striving to be a positive force against all bad ideas. The other problem is that you, at least, are defining yourself against "Christians" when the problem is much larger than any one particular religion.

Loren Michael wrote:

Will S wrote:I’m wondering if, in our debates with Christians, we atheists adopt the wrong strategy.

I think the problem is that you're defining yourselves as "atheists" when you should simply be striving to be a positive force against all bad ideas.

I don't see that. I don't 'define myself' as an atheist, in the sense that I'm not just an atheist - I'm lots of other things too. But I am an atheist, and I don't see why I shouldn't say so. Nor do I see why a professed atheist can't strive to be a positive force against all bad ideas - not just theism.

Loren Michael wrote:The other problem is that you, at least, are defining yourself against "Christians" when the problem is much larger than any one particular religion.

The OP challenged Christians for the simple reason that Christianity is the religion which I've been most exposed to and which I know most about. I don't doubt that other religions might be challenged in a similar way: to bridge the gap between basic deism/theism and their own distinctive beliefs. But why not start with Christianity?

(Or perhaps you're thinking that, these days, 'Christianity' is a pretty soggy word which can cover a huge range of beliefs; some people even say that you can be a Christian without being a theist! If so, that's fair comment. The OP is, broadly speaking, only a challenge to traditionally-minded Christians.)

What we need to do is think hard and find a way to experimentally disprove the existence of god

Paul1 wrote:What we need to do is think hard and find a way to experimentally disprove the existence of god

which god?

To the OP: That's Hitchen's thesis all the way down!

I fully agree with the OP. Even granting that Jesus did resurrect, christians would still have all the work still ahead of them to make a sound case on why are we supposed to grant the guy any divinity of any kind.

Luis Dias wrote:To the OP: That's Hitchen's thesis all the way down!

I fully agree with the OP. Even granting that Jesus did resurrect, christians would still have all the work still ahead of them to make a sound case on why are we supposed to grant the guy any divinity of any kind.

I completely disagree with this line of argument. If you concede something as ridiculous as the resurrection you put yourself on a slippery slope my friend - as soon as irrational, magical or 'supernatural' events are conceded then there is no reason why further concessions will not be demanded by theists. This would go along the lines of "Well if you agree that Christ did rise from the dead surely a burning bush could have spoken and the Red Sea could have parted and, and and -"

Far better, IMHO, to stick to placing the burden of proof for ANY evidence of ANY supernatural events, beings etc onto those that claim them. Never give an inch.

Hmm.. I would see this very differently - as you've all but stated, the so-called 'logical proofs/arguments' (ontological, transcendental etc.) aren't actually logical or arguments. They all suffer from the same two problems: they don't actually define God and they only work if you already assume God exists in the first place (and a proof that relies on its own veracity to work isn't a proof...)
I suspect the best way to get theists thinking about the problems of religion (and this should be the aim, no theist worth his salt is going to be deconverted in one conversation) is to focus on other religions. The theist and atheist agree on all religions but one; when a Christian fully understands why Islam was created and why Muslims believe it to this day, it is a very small step to see the parallels with Christianity (and all other religions past and present).
I've posted on religious discussion groups many times - discussions of morality and logic are always taken up, while duscussions that treat religion as an abstract social phenomenon are roundly ignored. Inviting theists to participate in the atheist's worldview (which we do when we consider religions we 'both' don't believe in) is highly unsettling.
(I've written about some of these points on my website, in case of interest.)

z8000783 wrote:

trubble76 wrote:Wait...what? We are supposed to have a strategy?

trubble76 wrote:If we as self-professed rational people continue to point out the idiocy of religion, keep providing the evidence, keep disarming the religious war-machine, we will be making the world a better place one infinitessimal fraction at a time.

There is an old saying "the way to eat an elephant is in tiny pieces", hopefully in a few more generations we will be chewing on the tail and burping appreciatively.

... and I am just trying to figure out how what you have just described, is not a strategy.

John

I suppose you could call it my strategy if you like, but i doubt it's our strategy.

Mr Ashbo wrote:

Luis Dias wrote:To the OP: That's Hitchen's thesis all the way down!

I fully agree with the OP. Even granting that Jesus did resurrect, christians would still have all the work still ahead of them to make a sound case on why are we supposed to grant the guy any divinity of any kind.

I completely disagree with this line of argument. If you concede something as ridiculous as the resurrection you put yourself on a slippery slope my friend

I concede nothing. I simply show how huge the path that christians have to travel from the Kalam argument to their own specific religious tradition. I concede everything, for the sake of argument. I am no coward not to argue for the sake of argument.

- as soon as irrational, magical or 'supernatural' events are conceded then there is no reason why further concessions will not be demanded by theists. This would go along the lines of "Well if you agree that Christ did rise from the dead surely a burning bush could have spoken and the Red Sea could have parted and, and and -"

Everything is a slippery slope. The only thing you have to be sure is where you stand, and have some strength holding the fucking line.

Far better, IMHO, to stick to placing the burden of proof for ANY evidence of ANY supernatural events, beings etc onto those that claim them. Never give an inch.

Far better is to let everyone make their own fucking case. We are not an army, nor you are my brother in arms.