(April 22, 2014 at 10:24 am)Fromper Wrote: Again, my point is the PR from letting people know that atheists exist, and we can be good people. What if that kind old lady is a nice person who just assumes all nice people must be Christian like her? Introducing her to some nice people who aren't Christian would be an education to her, and could help in the long run with ending religious discrimination.
To put it in context, I keep saying this is like the PR job the LGBT crowd has done. Thirty or forty years ago, if a nice old lady told a gay guy "You should meet a nice girl and settle down", he probably would have just smiled and nodded to avoid a confrontation. In the last decade or two, the gay guy would be much more likely to let the old lady know that he's gay, so he's not looking for a wife. And if the old lady thinks he's a nice guy before finding that out, then suddenly, gay people aren't so bad in her eyes. It's because so many Americans know someone who's gay that LGBT rights have made such advances in recent years. We should be copying that approach when it comes to atheism.
I get this sentiment. But the individual level is not where good PR is going to happen. Especially when you are essentially refuting their version of "thanks" and saying "nope, I don't want that."
Perception is reality. This is axiomatic, IMO. So while your perception of saying "no thanks, I'm an atheist" is letting people know that there are nice atheists about, to the person you are saying that to, it could come off as an affront. In trying to reverse the roles, I would say it would be equivalent to me saying "good luck" to someone, just meaning "best wishes" and not really implying anything about luck, and that person saying: "thanks, but I don't need luck, I've got God." My immediate thought is "what a douche," when their thought is likely a positive one.
My thought is that you just say thanks to the casual exchange. Usually it is not really even that religious a message. It is a colloquial "Have a nice day." If someone is actively preaching to you, then absolutely. The other side of the coin is that even if you don't come off as nice, it will shake up the idea that it is a reasonable assumption that everyone you meet is religious.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
