Best Living Spokesman for Atheism

[mralstoner]

If you read books like The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, it explains that people who tend to be very conservative and/or religious value hierarchy far more than people of the "other" persuasion... namely, us. So to us, it's almost a silly question, to ask "who is your leader?" We are not herd animals; we tend to listen to all, and think for ourselves. This is baffling to someone who is accustomed to learning "the right answers" from someone above them in a clear hierarchy.

That's ironic. You are espousing a liberal position, whereas Haidt's work is aimed at bridging the gap between liberals and conservatives. Haidt's position is that liberalism is a very dangerous "unconstrained vision" (i.e. radical individualism without leadership and direction). And conservatism is the opposite i.e. hugely oppressive. Haidt's point is that both liberals and conservatives have valid viewpoints, but the place we want to be is somewhere in the middle, not at either extreme. Liberals and conservatives are symbiotic, yin and yang, we need each other to avoid extremes.