Stop be dicks about everything.
Seriously, even if we were as right as some of us act being magnanimous about it would get us farther than winning the argument. And let's not fight the battles we can't win. Nobody is changing the pledge anytime soon. And the treasury isn't taking God off the money, so let drop it for now. We have important issues at hand, like climate change, sex ed., and drug policy.
Which atheist is being a "dick" about anything? Or is that your assessment of how atheists are viewed by the general public?
ReplyDeleteI'm on a mission to address an issue that like climate change, sex ed., and drug policy doesn't actually have an atheist perspective. But like the tacit acceptance of slogans to a deity that are on our money and forcibly inserted into an allegiance pledge, it's a battle that probably can't be won. I'd like people to stop using words like "dick", "douche bag", "sucks" as pejoratives. The use of these words derives from the sexist tendency to see men as powerful and hierarchical and women as passive and contaminated.
Hear, hear. Any time I hear someone make the claim that religion (or theism or supernaturalism or coercive theocratic ideology or what have you) is the greatest threat to the long-term survival of a healthy civilization, I want to take them by the shoulders and shake them and say, have you HEARD about the entwined three-headed threat of inhumane capitalism, exploitative corporatism, and economic inequality??
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it is usually a nonstarter position to criticize *others* for selecting the wrong target for their activism. There's enough problems to go around.
(I second the disapproval of gendered terms as pejoratives. And I generally endorse the practice of always using original vulgarities anyway.)
This sentiment is in the zeitgeist: http://jezebel.com/how-to-be-an-atheist-without-being-a-dick-about-it-823225375
ReplyDeleteAlso: it looks like I can subscribe to updates to THIS post, but not to the blog in general. Is there a widget you can add to the template, that lets us become Followers (not, ahem, acolytes), or Subscribers or some such?
ReplyDelete