I sincerely apologize: I wasn’t writing from home, and the computer I was using had a sub-par keyboard and no spellchecker. I have corrected this as soon as I came home.
In The Craft And The Community we reflect on how to unite as a functional lobby, but I think that, while this question is indeed more than worthwile, we need to reflect on what makes our viewpoints unappealing to other groups, especially theists. You can’t argue against rationalism, against the efficient use of physical and intellectual resources, against sanity and intelligence… except when the logical extension of that mental hygiene demands that you do away with religion. This is when all the guns are pulled. This is when people have to say no: from a subjectively objective point of view, they have no other choice but to object.
This undermines the entire rationalist project. Therefore we need to find a way to defuse that bomb that doesn’t consist in making it blow up in our faces.
And of course, we absolutely must not use the Dark Arts while dealing with religious people, because that would be tantamount to betraying everything that we stand for.
I don’t mean to nitpick, but “ahteism” looks very weird when spelled that way.
I sincerely apologize: I wasn’t writing from home, and the computer I was using had a sub-par keyboard and no spellchecker. I have corrected this as soon as I came home.
In The Craft And The Community we reflect on how to unite as a functional lobby, but I think that, while this question is indeed more than worthwile, we need to reflect on what makes our viewpoints unappealing to other groups, especially theists. You can’t argue against rationalism, against the efficient use of physical and intellectual resources, against sanity and intelligence… except when the logical extension of that mental hygiene demands that you do away with religion. This is when all the guns are pulled. This is when people have to say no: from a subjectively objective point of view, they have no other choice but to object.
This undermines the entire rationalist project. Therefore we need to find a way to defuse that bomb that doesn’t consist in making it blow up in our faces.
And of course, we absolutely must not use the Dark Arts while dealing with religious people, because that would be tantamount to betraying everything that we stand for.