Sunday, August 4, 2013

Taking Atheism 'Out Of The Closet' So To Speak: A Call To Arms


They say the internet is where religion comes to die.

I hope they're right.


It does seem like the internet is dominated by atheist media. When I first started becoming more vocal about my atheism around 2009, I'd spend hours on YouTube watching videos that poked fun at religious belief. The amount of entertainment seemed endless. And it inspired me to start blogging about my disbelief.

I came to know Richard Dawkins who I had previously knew little about. He has his out campaign encouraging atheists to be open and public about their atheism. I think it's a great idea. Atheists, freethinkers, and all nontheists, should be as open as possible in much the same way that gay people have come out of the closet. It's worked wonders for the gay rights movement and gay acceptance.

If enough atheists came 'out of the closet' to their families, friends and coworkers so the world could see we're by and large decent moral people, we might in 10 or 20 years time not be the most distrusted demographic in America anymore.

That brings me to the fuzzy topic of accommodationism. An atheist who is an accomodationist is someone who thinks that science and faith can be reconciled and that religion may have merits to it, and should not be vehemently opposed. I for one am not an accomodationist, but as I've written before, hardcore militant atheism can hurt the cause for atheism being accepted.

But just like I outlined in my guide to militant atheism, "When it comes to the internet, the blogosphere, social networking sites and forums be as anti-theistic and confrontational as you'd like - that's what the internet's for." I think the internet is the single biggest reason why atheism is spreading, and so for atheists who care about the cause for secularism and desire to see religion on the decline like I do, we need to be relentless on our critiques of religious belief. Every time a theist asserts a fallacious argument about their religion online, they should be pounced on by ten atheists who pick apart its faulty logic. A basic code of decency should be maintained, but there should be no mercy spared on destroying the theist's argument itself.

The goal here is to saturate the internet with atheist media, blogs, videos, podcasts - you name it - to make it so that religious views are drowned out by criticism and the atheistic perspective continues to dominate the web. It's the least you can do as an atheist in a free society where you wont be jailed for expressing your disbelief like they do in some other countries.

2 comments:

  1. I think you will really like the mythicist position. Here's a video with many great links in the info box.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63BNKhGAVRQ

    I hope you'll start a new blog to discuss it. It needs to be shared and passed along so that more will even be made aware that it even exists.

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    Replies
    1. I do enjoy the mythicist position. I just wrote a criticism of W.L. Craig's argument for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection where I borrowed a lot from mythicists like Richard Carrier.

      See here: http://www.atheismandthecity.com/2013/08/4-facts-that-arent-really-facts.html

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