The Hard Sell
I've heard - often, from lots of different people - that atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens or the other atheist horsemen are rude, shrill, belittling, dickish, abrasive, and generally offensive. Fine, they're awful. Who's good? If they're negative examples, who in present or past history can serve as a positive example of what to do?
The explanation that seems most likely to be true, based on everything I've seen, learned, and been told so far, is that God is very unlikely to exist as anything other than a metaphor for attributes of matter and the complexity of the natural world. I think that religions are false confidences and superstitions. Distractions not only to the individuals who harbor them but to their families, neighbors, politics, and community. And I think that it's beneficial to discuss this with people who have invited the discussion.
Is there an example of someone communicating this without being percieved as rude, shrill, belittling, dickish, abrasive, or generally offensive? Is there an approach that succeeds where others fail? Because this a really hard sell. Religious/supernatural beliefs are deeply personal, important, and meaningful. Challenges to those beliefs are fundamentally, personally threatening. It's worse than insulting someone's hometown or sports team. You could tell me that the Baltimore Orioles are a terrible team or that Maryland is a terrible place to grow up, but it's quite another to say that the Orioles or Maryland never exited. I'd probably have a hard time dealing with proof that any memory of my childhood is false and illusory, even if it actually was.
tensegritydan made a similiar criticism of Zapiro's Mohammed comic. "The truly epic mental-aikido win would be to make an equally strong point without invoking the explicit "offense". OK, fine, Zapiro is a jerk and his comic doesn't work. Is there an example of someone who isn't? Something that does work? An example of a really epic win that criticizes this or any other silly cultural taboo without offending the subjects of criticism? I don't think so. It's a really hard sell. Especially since causing religious offense is itself a taboo in our culture, and religious people know this, which is why taking offense is part of the game. I suspect that "you shouldn't say offensive things" is an indirect way of really saying "don't say anything". If you limit yourself to statements that can't offend you're left with very little you can say.
Or maybe not. Maybe that's just doing it wrong. Is there anyone who does it right? If there's a better example of someone who does a really good job communicating religious criticism without offending I'd love to find it.
Update: I don't think that Carl Sagan is a good example, but maybe Jeremy Behan and Luke Galen? Their podcast doesn't offend me. Then again Dawkins doesn't offend me, so I might be deaf to their offenses.
The explanation that seems most likely to be true, based on everything I've seen, learned, and been told so far, is that God is very unlikely to exist as anything other than a metaphor for attributes of matter and the complexity of the natural world. I think that religions are false confidences and superstitions. Distractions not only to the individuals who harbor them but to their families, neighbors, politics, and community. And I think that it's beneficial to discuss this with people who have invited the discussion.
Is there an example of someone communicating this without being percieved as rude, shrill, belittling, dickish, abrasive, or generally offensive? Is there an approach that succeeds where others fail? Because this a really hard sell. Religious/supernatural beliefs are deeply personal, important, and meaningful. Challenges to those beliefs are fundamentally, personally threatening. It's worse than insulting someone's hometown or sports team. You could tell me that the Baltimore Orioles are a terrible team or that Maryland is a terrible place to grow up, but it's quite another to say that the Orioles or Maryland never exited. I'd probably have a hard time dealing with proof that any memory of my childhood is false and illusory, even if it actually was.
tensegritydan made a similiar criticism of Zapiro's Mohammed comic. "The truly epic mental-aikido win would be to make an equally strong point without invoking the explicit "offense". OK, fine, Zapiro is a jerk and his comic doesn't work. Is there an example of someone who isn't? Something that does work? An example of a really epic win that criticizes this or any other silly cultural taboo without offending the subjects of criticism? I don't think so. It's a really hard sell. Especially since causing religious offense is itself a taboo in our culture, and religious people know this, which is why taking offense is part of the game. I suspect that "you shouldn't say offensive things" is an indirect way of really saying "don't say anything". If you limit yourself to statements that can't offend you're left with very little you can say.
Or maybe not. Maybe that's just doing it wrong. Is there anyone who does it right? If there's a better example of someone who does a really good job communicating religious criticism without offending I'd love to find it.
Update: I don't think that Carl Sagan is a good example, but maybe Jeremy Behan and Luke Galen? Their podcast doesn't offend me. Then again Dawkins doesn't offend me, so I might be deaf to their offenses.