I love this blogger.

[chibi_evil]

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/12/how-to-be-an-ally-with-atheists.html

she puts words on the page in funny and informative order.  And says stuff that needs to be shouted from the

Comments

[passer_hedera]

From the point #6 (and I might be drawing more in from the 10 Myths article she linked to--I realize I could be crossing them) it seemed very clear that she was telling me not to.

I know the community pretty well...I guess my reaction is primarily a result of the idea that this is a good way to teach a person about advocacy, or to explain atheist's feelings to the rest of the world. Because it's really, really not. It's a good way to alienate, confuse, and create situations where people can say "But I know you're wrong, because I dealt with those people you call mythical, or because you don't seem to understand what religious means and so you're making these incorrect statements about how you're different, etc."

I suppose it's best put this way: This is a great blog to read and go "Yeah, that pisses me off!" and feel less alone. But these are not good arguments to take into a debate, because they are 1) overstated to a point that they become actually incorrect (see myths v. stereotypes), and 2) draw from a large number of misconceptions about what religion is or how diverse belief in a divinity is (some believers don't have a Religion either, though they do have belief, and can be fundamentalist about those beliefs) in order to make the counter statements (see the discussion of "fundamentalist," in my other comment, for example--while using Fundamentalist--the proper noun which has a historical definition that, for the record, is a sect of Christianity infinitely smaller in population than the atheists in this country--is incorrect, fundamentalist (lower case) is not, unless you're going to make the argument that you can't have fundamentalists who are Islamic, or Subsets of Buddhism, or even Baptist or Evangelical, or make the argument that disbelief is somehow upheld over belief as a more valid rational thought, which I would take great exception to).

Also, just fyi--those first three comments on your blog are all one piece, if that clarifies anything I'm saying--LJ won't let you post more than 4500 characters in a comment, so I had to split them initially. The line breaks are somewhat odd but what I got stuck with to get it down to three--might make the overall arguments clearer

[chibi_evil]

heh. that could be the case. I'm pretty entrenched in the atheist blogosphere, so i'm a bad judge of where to begin--especially since i don't come from a place of ever having been religious. i'll take your word that she's not a good starting point. or this blog post isn't, at least.

I kinda wish someone would make a Aheism 101 blog similar to the Feminism101 blog. I'm not the person to do it--I happily admit that i come from a place of VERY little understanding of a relgious worldview. it confuses me. friendlyatheist might be better, but again. i have no idea.