(August 28, 2011 at 4:14 am)Aegrus Wrote: This post has evolved a lot- Stalin, Eugenicism, surpluss population. . .
Although I definitely agree with everyone above who said that there are far too many people in the world, if Atheists take too militant or extremist a stance, it is important to remember that we are vastly outnumbered. We depend on the moderates in society- people who may be religious but haven't read the bible and also don't know about or support the various murders and other crimes in it- to keep fundamentalists in check. If we take polarizing stances on things not immediately critical Atheism, such as population control, stances which alienate the middle ground from us, (even if their views are considered by us to be wrong), we remove our primary defense against the fundies.
Essentially, I didn't mean to say that we should be nice and passive regarding religion, but that insulting the mentally ill by comparing them to fundies could make us enemies we can't afford to have.
I was not implying in previous posts that we need to extend olive branches to people who laugh at the deaths of so-called sinners, but we need the moderates. Regardless of whether or not you think they are right, we need them. There are too few Atheists in America to outvote the fundies, and if they are not consistently outvoted, they will become more and more extreme and powerful until they attempt to kill us all.
Wait who was seriously talking about population control? Wtf?
Ummm I certainly wasn't. Just to clarify.
And there may be too few atheists in yank land but in my country I ain't scared to stand up to religious fucktards.