Neil Degrasse Tyson

[robvalue]

I think if you want to talk about an "atheist movement" it would be the fact that people have decided they're going to speak up and stop being pushed around and silenced.

I wouldn't call that anything official, nor do all atheists want to do that. Some just want to carry on quietly and not make it their issue.

Anything further to that I'd just call a movement which happens to involve atheists with similar ideas. Atheists can wildly disagree with each other as much as with theists.

[Cephus]

 You want to know why Christians have their panties in a bunch?  Because they used to have a lot of undeserved power and now that power is gone and they desperately want it back.  Christmas used to be their holiday.  Now it's not, in fact, now it's almost entirely secular.  They don't like that.  They used to be able to get away with sectarian religious displays on public property.  Now they can't and they're pissed.  These are things they should never have been able to do.  They could.  Now they can't.  They're playing it as discrimination.  In actuality, it's making things the way they should have been all along.

You missed the point of my post.  Christians have got their panties in a bunch because of the atheists, humanists and secularists who are activists.

Well, if you consider "activism" as "just won't shut the hell up", I'll agree. The only reason this is the case is because now we have the Internet, which prevents Christians from bodily assaulting atheists, who have this strange idea that free speech doesn't only apply to the religious.

There are a lot of things that I think ostensibly atheist organizations out there are doing that I find an embarrassment to atheism, but I don't speak for them, they don't speak for me and everyone has the freedom to do what they want to do without having an effect on others.

So, you've finally agreed that there are atheist organisations whose members are activists. They don't speak for you but there are people out there who will assume that the activists do speak for you.

I never said that there were no activists, I said there were no atheist movements, meaning movements representative of all atheists, everywhere. Any individual or group can do things all they like.

Which brings us back to NDT.  From what he said in the video he doesn't want people assuming that he campaigns to get nativity scenes removed from public places etc.

And that's fine. He can do what he wants to do, just like anyone else. He can support what he wants to support, just like anyone else. That doesn't mean anyone else can speak or act on his behalf, just because of a label he chooses to wear, or not to wear in this case.

[Celestine]

I wanted to know your guys' thoughts on Neil, because I have a very different view of him than many other atheists might have.

I believe that he is a great scientist and is really smart, however his attitudes towards atheism are very cowardly. In the video below he makes many cringe worthy statements. For example at around the 25 second mark he calls atheism a philosophy and claims that with it comes baggage. He also is extremely ignorant when it comes to the terms atheism and agnosticism.

I think it is time that we completely disassociate him from the atheism movement, because that is what he wants us to do. 

He is not ignorant in that he knows many people think of when they think of the word atheist, many theists especially the more fundamental ones view atheists as a stereotype, a bunch of hate mongers etc, probably in no small part thanks to people like Richard Dawkins who is more akin to mormonism than atheism, before him atheists never went door to door asking people why they believe what they do, I didn't like the mormons doing it while I was a christian, and I don't like the mormons doing it while I'm an atheist, don't know why he thought it was a good idea, what is a good idea though is trying to get passed that stereotype in order to allow your target audience to be more open minded.

As for my opinions  on Mr. Tyson they have dropped considerably ever since the second season of Cosmos.

[Shuffle]

As for my opinions on Mr. Tyson they have dropped considerably ever since the second season of Cosmos.

Please continue...

[comet]

yeah toss out a guy that understands the science of many atheist is poor. Its a belief claim with no observations. actually the observations point to "something" not "nothing". But like all fundy personality types, facts are not important in maintaining a safe world view. real or imagined.

Like dude said, it about not being pushed around more than facts.

[Clueless Morgan]

yeah toss out a guy that understands the science of many atheist  is poor.  Its a belief claim with no observations.  actually the observations point to "something" not "nothing".  But like all fundy personality types, facts are not important in maintaining a safe world view.  real or imagined.

Like dude said, it about not being pushed around more than facts.

[Shuffle]

I second this action.