The conclusion of an article on:-http://vclass.mtsac.edu:940/pobrien/athe11.htm
This much is clear: Atheists deserve a lot more attention, representation, and respect than they been given.
The government still has an incredible tendency to lean toward Christianity, from conducting prayers to labeling the currency with "In God We Trust."
No surprise there![/QUOTE] When the new atheist first realizes just how strongly the world ideologically leans against them, it can be discouraging and maddening. In turn, the atheist's reaction tends to be an angry one, or at least more aggressive.[QUOTE]A true reflection ?
There might very well be a better policy for doing what atheists want to have done than this intellectual aggression. That policy is one I try to outline and exemplify in this text, one I am sure has been used for centuries. I have every respect for formal argumentation, but there can nonetheless be a stilted and unappealing quality to it. Philosophical issues become too much the stuff of classroom curiosity and coffee shop conversation pieces. The most in-depth discussions have become inaccessible to the masses, for they have become readable and understandable only by those select scholars in the academic community who play by the same stylistic rules and understand the same special jargon.
But philosophy was not born in the classroom, and philosophical issues do not disappear when the school-bell rings or the coffee mugs empty. We carry philosophy in the pocket of our minds and hearts, 24 hours a day, influencing every action, decision, and opinion we make. I'm trying to take this discussion of God and Godlessness to the level where it moves us most; not in the classroom with eloquent rhetoric, but with a more subjective and human accounting for religion. This is why I moved toward a discussion of pragmatism and more emotional convictions.
When I first began to become a more morally responsible atheist, I was appalled by the lack of literature on the subject. When I finally did find books about atheism, I was even further shocked by the incredibly negative and clinical positions taken in nearly every text. I admit that I too have contributed to many disrespectful conversations against Christians; that fact seems to pervade the Godless movement in this country, but it will never advance the cause very far if it continues.
Because history is so stacked against the atheist, I do not expect to see a complete respect given to the Godless in my lifetime. Things can only change so fast, after all. But I feel that the next step towards a greater and more long-lasting change has to come from atheists internally. When the atheist brings the discussion of God to the human level where it was born and treats it with the respect, humility, and cooperative spirit that it deserves, then atheism will be in a position to make itself better known to the world. This move may not be as easily done as said, but it is at least an alternate route for the atheist movement.
I ask atheists earnestly: Represent your cause, whatever it may be, with honor and respect toward those who disagree with it. No one can rightfully condemn the honorable thinker, and behind all thinkers with or without a God, there is the solitary human individual. Let the new humanism extend itself patiently and cooperatively to those who would oppose the Godless, and I can almost guarantee that we'll be moving in the right direction.
I think the above is 'fair enough'..........do atheists agree ?
