Keep It Real wrote:You can persuade people to adopt atheism through teaching critical thinking and skepticism. The one should lead to the other by my mind.

Yes, so you persuade people to adopt critical thinking and scepticism and let people reach their own conclusions.

Just persuading people to adopt atheism can leads to all sorts of errors in thinking.

Keep It Real wrote:OK fine. If you care about the absence of an opinion and think the world would be a better place if more people had that absence of opinion then you should wish to persuade them to adopt that absence of opinion. Catchy.

No, if you care that people form their view of the world, based on evidence and reason, you should promote skepticism and reason.
Atheism is just a consequence.

Discussing theism/atheism can be a vehicle which carries instruction in skepticism.

Keep It Real wrote:Discussing theism/atheism can be a vehicle which carries instruction in skepticism.

Discussing them isn't the same as promoting atheism.

Being atheist =/= being rational.

I do. There used to be a time when I would not openly claim to be atheist or argue with people about religion; because most people in my life were religious. In my case, it was interest in atheism that led me to rational skepticism. That now underpins my lack of belief and informs my opinion on other subjects.

So what y'all are saying is that rocks and babies are atheists.

Someone get the hessian sack and manacles before he brings hell down on us all...

I promote atheism by being openly atheist and not an asshole in person- just on internet fora. That's it. I think that's all one can do. Atheism isn't superior to other worldviews because it isn't a worldview, so I've no meaningful way to convince theists that they'd be better off being atheists. It simply isn't true.

But I try to promote critical thinking. I think critical thinking can benefit everyone, regardless of their beliefs regarding gods, and there's a chance that persons using critical thinking might find themselves questioning the existence of gods. That isn't promoting atheism.

scott1328 wrote:So what y'all are saying is that rocks and babies are atheists.

I don't know how you got away without Fallible calling you a naughty ticket there.

You're quite right, he is a very naughty ticket.

GF laid it out nicely.

She is actively anti-theist. Is that promoting atheism ...likely.
She takes on JWs at the door.
She's pissed with theist dolts due to death of kids in her hospital from parents refusing treatment.

I will tend to take on proselytizing theist trolls here and elsewhere and promote Merry Solstice as general twitting of theist notions.

As for moral imperative ....current mores are not aligned that way ...mores are for societies, ethics for individuals. As such - it's the individual choice to proselytize. I tend to frown on any such action by any worldview adherent.

There is a growing moral swing towards acceptance of atheists, gays etc and non-tolerance of extreme religions.

Excellent. Another devangelist.


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..of course, I'm fishing for compliments on coining such a clever new word.


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The_Metatron wrote:..of course, I'm fishing for compliments on coining such a clever new word.


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Devangelist is a bit long. Can we just call you devels for short?

John Platko wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:..of course, I'm fishing for compliments on coining such a clever new word.


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Devangelist is a bit long. Can we just call you devels for short?

Only of you are willing to advocate for him.

I actively disagree with 2 categories of people : theists and agnostics. I'll let you decide if "actively disagreeing" is a type of promotion
Theist because they believe shit and try to force their beliefs onto us, and agnostics because of the "we don't have enough information to to be sure". Yes we do. God is pretty well described in the OT, and all 3 major religions rely on this definition.
And we KNOW that if we've been made on his image, then he is not a god, since we're not. We KNOW that he can't be omniscient/omnipotent and do what he did in the OT.
THIS god (55% of the world population believe in him, jews account for 0.0018% of the population) can't exist. We have sufficient evidence to state this.
I'm currently writing something about this.

Major reason I do not call myself atheist is because of this site and the so-called "new atheism". I do not want to be associated with attitudes toward religion prevalent here. Like it or not I don't care. I rather call myself agnostic because "militant agnostic" has not become buzz word yet and when it will become I will have to think something up.

The real question is: can either this site or the "New Atheism" suffer the blow of Tuco's disapprobation?

I am that important? Sometimes it indeed seems like it ;)

tuco wrote:Major reason I do not call myself atheist is because of this site and the so-called "new atheism". I do not want to be associated with attitudes toward religion prevalent here. Like it or not I don't care. I rather call myself agnostic because "militant agnostic" has not become buzz word yet and when it will become I will have to think something up.

Seems like a fairly compelling argument against calling oneself agnostic. That's a big time saver. Thanks.