RE: Popular arguments you think Atheists shouldn't use
September 6, 2014 at 11:16 am
(This post was last modified: September 6, 2014 at 11:17 am by tjakey.)
I completely agree with Brian. Religion is a society wide phenomena that will not go away in a day, year, or century. It has to be challenged at every moment and at every place where it can be demonstrated that the claims of the religious are wrong, that their actions are oppressive and abusive, and that the cosmos is simply not a place created by or containing a deity. Individual believers should be hard pressed to defend their claims anytime they bring them up. The institutions of religion should be consistently forced to explain why they should be allowed to break the laws every other institution in the society must obey. (If the Catholic church was a secular business, it would have long ago been sued into bankruptcy for its discriminatory stance on women.)
We should take every opportunity to set the various religions against each other. Ask the Protestants why they want to live under laws forced on them by a Catholic Supreme Court. Why should the Baptists be forced to subsidize Methodist churches that are near empty every Sunday? Force them to defend the religious claims of Pat Robertson and Bill O'Riley. Insist that the Muslim explain ISIS and women not being allowed to drive. Ask the Catholic why they should live with the Protestant view of birth control. Religion is as intolerant of other religion as it is of non-religion, something many of them usually try to hide. Expose it for the weakness it is.
No chance should be passed to challenge the tax exempt status of churches. Any politician who supports "faith based" social programs funded by taxpayers should have to explain him or herself over and over again. Judges should be constantly derided for using the powers of the court to force their religious prejudices on a free people. Every time some religious spokesperson makes an insane statement on the basis of a god, every religious person on the planet should be forced to agree or dismiss it as false. All religion should be challenged at every turn and in every way, with whatever argument, debate tactic, or legal challenge is available at the moment. Every chip out of the foundation, every crack in the walls, any breech that forces it back the smallest of steps, is a small victory and adds just a little hope for the future.
Be polite. Be aggressive. Be argumentative, intransigent, insistent. Marshal your arguments carefully or just blast away at religious prejudice, abuse, and ignorance. Whatever suits your personality and the circumstances of the moment. Or just walk away in disgust, that can work too. But never let them walk away without realizing that there is at least one person in the world who thinks they are full of shit.
Every bit of religious mayhem currently assaulting human kind is based on a lie, a myth, a fairy tale. People every day are abused, murdered, and oppressed in the name of something no more real than Santa Clause or the Tooth fairy. There is no argument out of bounds when it comes to challenging that horrible fact.
We should take every opportunity to set the various religions against each other. Ask the Protestants why they want to live under laws forced on them by a Catholic Supreme Court. Why should the Baptists be forced to subsidize Methodist churches that are near empty every Sunday? Force them to defend the religious claims of Pat Robertson and Bill O'Riley. Insist that the Muslim explain ISIS and women not being allowed to drive. Ask the Catholic why they should live with the Protestant view of birth control. Religion is as intolerant of other religion as it is of non-religion, something many of them usually try to hide. Expose it for the weakness it is.
No chance should be passed to challenge the tax exempt status of churches. Any politician who supports "faith based" social programs funded by taxpayers should have to explain him or herself over and over again. Judges should be constantly derided for using the powers of the court to force their religious prejudices on a free people. Every time some religious spokesperson makes an insane statement on the basis of a god, every religious person on the planet should be forced to agree or dismiss it as false. All religion should be challenged at every turn and in every way, with whatever argument, debate tactic, or legal challenge is available at the moment. Every chip out of the foundation, every crack in the walls, any breech that forces it back the smallest of steps, is a small victory and adds just a little hope for the future.
Be polite. Be aggressive. Be argumentative, intransigent, insistent. Marshal your arguments carefully or just blast away at religious prejudice, abuse, and ignorance. Whatever suits your personality and the circumstances of the moment. Or just walk away in disgust, that can work too. But never let them walk away without realizing that there is at least one person in the world who thinks they are full of shit.
Every bit of religious mayhem currently assaulting human kind is based on a lie, a myth, a fairy tale. People every day are abused, murdered, and oppressed in the name of something no more real than Santa Clause or the Tooth fairy. There is no argument out of bounds when it comes to challenging that horrible fact.
