Athée Canadien
Be vocal
By Ian
Hemant Mehta began his blog as the “Friendly Atheist,” with a characteristic style of being willing to reach out and dialogue with religious moderates.
If you’ve been reading him for a while, you’ve likely noticed that he’s slowly shifted from that position to a growing cynicism and increased mocking of extremists.
Today he provides some elucidation on his shift. He touches a bit on how one cannot just be quiet when injustice happens, or when people are blatantly wrong and lying, and you know you’re right. He also talks about the lack of religious moderates condemning, really condemning, the extremist responses to things like Draw Mohammed Day, Instead they tend to get wishy washy and fail to defend freedoms.
The whole post is worth the read, but I think the real worrying emotion he noted, in one of his equally liberal, skeptical, albeit less active friend he describes, is that of “I’m okay with the crazies being wrong.”
I think there’s a real danger when forces of ignorance persist unchallenged. 27% of Americans think the President of the USA was definitely or probably not born in the USA. More think the world is 6,000 years old, and many other people think it’s okay to let your kids go to school without their shots.
These wrong beliefs don’t go away on their own. They must be challenged.
So, while I’m probably speaking to a converted audience, why are you not more active at challenging ignorance and irrationality?
| Print article | This entry was posted by Ian on September 4, 2010 at 4:26 pm, and is filed under Religion, Skepticism. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
Missed the boat this year
about 4 months ago - Comments Off
Many Humanists and Atheists are increasingly trying to put our actions where are words are. We say we can be good without god, and now we’re ready to prove it. The Edmonton Atheists have been on the ball with this, organizing an annual highway litter cleanup. I just came across another great project that I…
‘We Are Atheism’ and proper credit
about 5 months ago - 8 comments
There’s a great new campaign making the blog-rounds called “We Are Atheism.” The premise, nearly identical to Dawkin’s Out Campaign, is simple and effective: the more people who are willing to call themselves atheists, the less discrimination we all face. Their goal is to get people to make a brief video that pronounces their atheism,…
Much ado about the ‘nones’
about 10 months ago - 3 comments
Hi Everyone! I just did a quick interview with Ben Mercer of Newstalk 1010 in Toronto, regarding the recent study on the potential extinction of organized religion. My interview will follow a discussion with a U of T sociology prof who addresses some of the nuances of the study. I didn’t have to be very…
Skeptivism: yay or nay?
about 11 months ago - 15 comments
This afternoon Deepak Chopra stopped his woo woo train speaking tour here in Saskatoon to give a seminar on “Healing Transformation and Higher Consciousness.” [I find it really telling that the website for the event describes the afternoon in this way: “Dr. Chopra’s seminar begins at 2:30 pm. The onsite bookstore will be open at…
The next step
about 1 year ago - 4 comments
PZ Myers asks why you’re an atheist. In the process he craps over everyone who doesn’t agree with his definition of atheism, even though he admits he doesn’t even like the real definition in the dictionary. He continues: There are a fair number of adults who ought to know better who insist on the dictionary…
Support skeptical education in Uganda
about 1 year ago - Comments Off
Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I blame the holidays and then a subsequent lack of motivation to write, but hopefully that will slowly dissipate and I’ll return to my regular frequency. For now, care of the Atheist Alliance International, I direct your attention to their commendable efforts to rid Uganda of superstition…
Are we preaching too much?
about 1 year ago - 4 comments
There’s an interesting article on the Guardian Science Blog about the UK Skeptics movement and how it’s spending too much time in the pub and focussing on in-group activities rather than public outreach, specifically education of children. He has a couple good points, but misses a couple key things too. I like that he draws…
Should atheists enter discussions on faith?
about 1 year ago - 28 comments
I think so. Which is why I’m trying to persuade my local paper to let me have some space to contribute in its weekly “religion” pages of the paper (Saturday edition). I’ve been in contact with the main reporter for the section, though so far he’s said “it will not fly” to have a nonbeliever…
Denominational differences amongst atheists
about 1 year ago - 8 comments
Well, the sequel to the NYTimes article on the atheist “rift” is now available (Ian wrote about the first article here). I have to say, I’m disappointed. The first article in the series compared the supposedly-ousted Paul Kurtz (founder of CFI and a ton of other stuff) to the downfall of King Lear. This highly-sympathetic…
The religious right … in Canada?!
about 1 year ago - 10 comments
As an American living in Canada, I have to admit that I’m always a little amused when I hear people up here complain about the religious right. I mean, I grew up as a Bible-thumpin’ girl in deep South of the US, where “voter’s guides” are periodically inserted into church bulletins and preachers have no…
Comments are closed.
about 1 year ago
First, out of curiosity, when Christianists peddle creationism, what percentage of the criticism do you think should be dedicated to saying they have freedom of speech outside the classroom?
And second, there are 24 hours in a day. People can’t dedicate their entire lives to your cause. Some people choose to write about other issues, and it’s perfectly fine. Just like I’m not criticizing this blog for having written 21 posts about Islam versus 15 about Christianity. I get that you guys care about different things from me, and I only criticize when you say things that I think are wrong. People care about what they’re familiar with. I don’t think South Africans should have been faulted for writing more about apartheid than about the Cambodian Holocaust, which objectively killed 2-3 orders of magnitude more people.
about 1 year ago
“Just like I’m not criticizing this blog for having written 21 posts about Islam versus 15 about Christianity.”
Pretty sure this post wasn’t about you anyway, but I like the way you counted and then posted your non-criticism. Very sneaky, your stealth is second only to the quality of the criticism :P
I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that people have to spend their entire lives fighting, but that in the face of evil it’s not virtuous to stand idly in the name of being “nice”, or staying out of the fight. That’s not a commendable position; it’s cowardice.
It’s an interesting piece – thanks for posting it Ian.
about 1 year ago
If only your intelligence matched your sarcasm.
Look: the main criticism of Dawkins’ shrillness is not that it’s not nice. It’s that it’s ineffective. Dawkins himself said he’s not sure his approach is the most effective at winning people over. It’s great at selling books, but it just makes people who don’t already agree with Dawkins angry and associate evolution with hatred of religion.
about 1 year ago
I’m fairly sure the main criticism of Dawkins’ shrillness is that he isn’t shrill in any way. It’s because the people whose skin he’s getting under don’t like what he’s saying, so they call him names instead of dealing with his arguments.
And so we add another item to the list of things you’ve addressed that this post isn’t about: Richard Dawkins. This is about standing by and not speaking up in opposition when people do things you find abhorrent.
about 1 year ago
Dawkins is just an extreme example of someone whose speaking up is actually counterproductive. But there are many more people whose speaking up doesn’t do anything one way or another. They’re not as terminally offputting, but they’re not too persuasive.
about 1 year ago
The idea of a middle-aged British biology professor being an “extreme example” of anything is a pretty hilarious idea. You’ve also made a huge jump between “he’s not sure his method is the most effective” to “he’s counterproductive.” You may not like him, but he’s pushed the conversation out into the open, helped a lot of people galvanize their position, and moved many more off the sidelines.
But since you consider speaking out to be an ineffectual and counterproductive waste of effort, I invite you to lead the charge the other way and keep quiet. When all is unsaid and not done, we’ll put up a blank plaque in your honour.
about 1 year ago
You never get tired of reading your own words, do you?
about 1 year ago
[Ian] thanks for this interesting post. Hemant Mehta said that the doctor called the people who don’t believe in vaccines are crazy, I wonder if, as a believer, she wants to be called crazy too. In any case, I agree with everything that Hemant Mehta said, and atheists should be active to defend their position on religion and other issues. About challenging the crazy ideas, it should be even stronger than just explaining why are they wrong, because some people are not going to stop being so arrogant about their deliberate ignorance . So I think it should be made fun of after explaining its falsity. For example: “God created us in His image”, that sentence shows a great level of ignorance; yeah their nutty god created them with their blind spots, recurrent laryngeal nerves, human tails and hiccups.