I’ve seen the Humanist Canada ads: “You *can* be good without God”, and I have to say, that is a much better ad than ours.

Buddha

Good for you.

Keep sending us your hard earned money. Ha ha ha…

You’re just putting up smoke and mirrors in an attempt to slow the progress of some people who’ve decided to take up an atheist banner of some kind. We really don’t need your kind of cowardly closet atheism infecting this otherwise healthy experiment. You come here painting yourself as the intellectual heavyweight disappointed by the caliber of discussion you’ve found, scolding the crybabies. But your notion that we should all remain under our little rocks and not ever unite behind something or someone is just plain stupid. Thankfully you weren’t a black person when Martin Luther King Jr. was around. Since when did you become the judge on how atheists are supposed to behave- a notoriously independent lot- announcing that atheism is dead because atheists killed it. Get a grip. Its never been more alive and thats the whole point. We choose what to support when it seems right to us.

So yes, Ill buy and read my Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Its “intellectual ammunition”, in the words of Ayn Rand. Ill donate to the site and buy a bumper sticker for the Atheist Bus campaign, thank you very much. While you come and fling mud, because the people who are actually doing something, unlike you, aren’t up to your lofty individual standards.

The fact is I’m not going to go around beating my head against a religious wall of obfuscations and glib irrational cop-outs. But, if someone else wants to enter the fray, by all means I say. This is the first atheist based movement that has actually had an impact locally and I choose to support that.

I support it because ultimately religion in the modern age is just slowing humanity down. They slowed stem cell research and cloning, sources of potentially unlimited organ transplants and medical breakthroughs. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a religious one that is sapping that entire area’s resources and a source of seemingly endless conflict.

I support it because to take most religious beliefs literally is silly. It makes me wonder what kind of critical thinking is being encouraged in those kind of people. A world full of that kind of thought would be a strange place full of much devotion and idol worshiping but no miracles or messiahs to merit it. Besides, of course, the glib ones we’ve been given so far and perhaps eventually some fake ones with the advancing realism of computer graphics.

I support it because not to take the Bible or Koran or whatever literally is akin to hypocrisy. On the one hand its supposed to be written by those inspired by God to do so, “the Word of God”, yet in the other hand everywhere you look its pick and choose, lukewarm, and “oh we don’t actually believe that part anymore”. Isn’t that the point though? That this is God’s word, the only so called proof that there even was a Jesus or whoever else? Shouldn’t they be following it letter by letter, and if not then wouldn’t God work in its mysterious ways to inspire the necessary changes without revealing itself? It can read your thoughts, knows all about you, manages a place called heaven, oversees the universe, but can’t find the time to update his book through.

I’m getting off topic. I just really wanted to tell Jack Skellington to stop being a poseur. He isn’t helping anything but his own internet ego while he flips through his pocket Descartes and ponders skepticism, sipping his latte with his scarf wrapped around his neck at Star Bucks, not even Fair Trade coffee, and encouraging others to remain divided since in his mind thats the true atheist way… and we’re all out here killing it so shame on us since we don’t feel like answering to his obfuscations, to get him to get off his butt and do something for a change.

Meanwhile, the rest of us who choose to put our money where our mouths are are actually Doing Something. If not on the front lines like the good people driving this campaign or the Richard Dawkins / Christopher Hitchens of the world, we are producing ammunition in the back, donating and buying a thing or two.

This is an “atheist” message we need everybody to hear.
Every thinking Man, Woman and child.

This message is so important -especially now.

Jesus taught:

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matt 6:34

Perhaps we can continue this discussion in the Ethics and Morals section of the forum. It has already been started in the The Origin of Morals thread.