No Country for Atheist Potshots

Posted in response to an Amazon review on the book "Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists," by Dan Barker. The reviewer suggests that the foreward by Richard Dawkins reduces the credibility of the book, an opinion with which I am inclined to agree.

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I agree here, that Dawkins makes a poor spokesman for atheism, only marginally better than Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who in my opinion, was abysmal.

Rather than complaining about ignorant Christians, or how horrible it can be to act on faith, the future of atheism must be to ultimately, be able to take the positive contributions that religion makes, and make them as well, but better. Many atheists knee-jerk that there are no such "positive" contributions, but they are clearly wrong. There are in fact, liberal, progressive Christians, and many who do put their money where their mouth is, offering much compassion to those in the world sorely in need of it. They're out there, they are just too busy making positive contributions rather than grandstanding their belief system. There are many organizations who travel the world looking for people in need, and honestly are there primarily out of compassion, to help, rather than to collect more followers or dollars in the process. And the vast majority of these organizations are Christian, and many of them are not out there proclaiming doom and how Obama is the antichrist or whatever extremist vitriol is the popular focus of the anti-christian.

The problem with atheism is that there is no "Atheism"-- most atheists would just as soon not be "represented" by anyone claiming to be an atheist (myself included, though actually, I'm a theological noncognitivist which is considered non-theist rather than atheist), yet it is that level of organization that would be required to achieve a seat at the table of world religions. Government will continue to treat the atheist as a second-class citizen as long as "Atheism" has no political power, and as it doesn't even exist and most atheists prefer it that way, that seems unlikely to change anytime soon. But "atheist" organizations that can garner contributions and then can apply them to the same sort of positive tasks religious organizations most commonly perform, may ultimately raise the awareness to the level of at least insuring some respect for the atheist in common society.

I would say that preaching about atheism is far less compelling than leading by example, and the same is true about religion. And a lot of religions do exactly that, atheists would do better understanding them rather than taking potshots at the easy targets-- the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons...