What will be the consequence of the new higher profile of atheism?

[More Than A Feeling]

Will it lead to more respect for non-believers and life-stances that don't involve a god? Or will there be a backlash that will make things worse? Or perhaps some other outcome?

[rurallib]

1. I think Jesus will be toting guns to fight the godless.

[More Than A Feeling]

2. He'll be firing out the window of an H3, right?

[razors edge]

4. Don't be silly.

They have catholic school girls manning the towers. :sarcasm:

[NMMNG]

3. We're already seeing a backlash

People don't like what we're saying and the fact that we're no longer hiding who and what we are. I'm hoping, though, that it will eventually die down as more non-believers come out and speak up. Eventually a truce of sorts should be possible.

[razors edge]

5. On a serious note.

I don't think that there will be any major change in this relationship in our lifetimes short of aliens landing on the White House lawn in broad daylight in the middle of a televised speech.

We make up a small portion of the total and the utter contempt by the majority is not going to change, only a few on the fringe will make more of it than it really is. The majority see the whole war on Christmas thing as something to gain attention, in a pathetic sort of way.

The majority will not follow some retribution against those who refuse to believe, the Salem days are long gone.

Likewise the majority, being made up of scared individuals with limited critical thinking skills, will see it safer to pretend to believe in order be in line for heaven, just in case.

edit:sp

[jgraz]

6. I'm optimistic

I expect to see more and better discussions of atheism, more people "coming out" as atheists and, finally, greater acceptance and popularity of our world view.

After all, truth is a powerful message.

[boomboom]

8. as is predicted in the Bible.

[NAO]

7. Atheists will "come out" and be less marginalized

As Sam Harris says, if someone claims that Elvis is alive, or that they are in telepathic contact with aliens, THEY are marginalized.

Why is it that when people say someone who (maybe) lived and died 2,000 years ago is going to come down out of the clouds like a superhero wielding magick powers, that they are not laughed out of the room?

This is what needs to change as a result of high profile atheism. When people make outrageous, irrational statements, they need to receive conversational pressure and not get a free pass just because some ancient literature says so.

[struggle4progress]

9. I don't see how atheism today could have a higher profile than it did in the 1960s

reaction to the SCOTUS school prayer decision is perhaps informative: although the simple mention of the plaintiffs in that case reduced extremists to screaming incoherence, and although the right-wingers and Fundamentalists have tried ever since to use it as an organizing tool, the country as a whole promptly accepted the decision as proper.

Cosmopolitan American has been tolerant of divergent views for quite some time. Mencken was ridiculing every possible sacred subject in the 1920s, without any problem from his employers at the Baltimore Sun. In the late 1960s, I had no difficulty finding Mencken's work, or Twain's posthumously published Letters from the Earth, or Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian on city library shelves.

[varkam]

10. Mencken!

He's a quotable fellow :D

[struggle4progress]

12. Enjoy:

http://www.io.com/~gibbonsb/mencken.html

[Goblinmonger]

11. I like a lot of what you are saying

but I don't think it is accurate that "the country as a whole promptly accepted the decision as proper." It is still something that comes up again and again and again. Not just from the fundies.

Otherwise I like your optimism.

[struggle4progress]

13. I think this book review offers a reasonably accurate take on the subject:

Vol. 9 No. 10 (October 1999) pp. 462-464.

SCHOOL PRAYER AND DISCRIMINATION: THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AND DISSENTERS by Frank S. Ravitch. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999. 273 pp. Cloth $50.00.

Reviewed by Gregg Ivers, Department of Government, American University

In 1974 .... we began our school day with announcements ... followed by a Bible verse from the New Testament and a prayer .... Then one day our intercom church services suddenly stopped .... a Deep South elementary school twelve years behind the curve in complying with ... the Supreme Court's ... decisions banning state-sponsored prayer ... in the public schools ....

The vast majority of schools and school districts know the law and they comply with it .... It is in schools where the population is more homogenous and Christian fundamentalist that the religious rebirth finds its greatest support .... Indeed, the influx of conservative religious groups into the litigation arena has had a tremendous impact on the dynamics of the church-state debate ....

For example, most students are not aware that many Christians oppose state-sponsored religion in the public schools. Groups such as the Baptist Joint Committee, the American Baptists Churches and the National Council of Churches have consistently opposed school prayer ... in the public schools for the last thirty-five years because they believe that such exercises water down religion in the name of politics and .... most reform and conservative Jewish organizations .. believe that the American experiment with religious disestablishment has helped protect their status as equals in the religious milieu, even though they constitute distinct minorities ....

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/ravitch.html


In my experience, ordinary people who complain about the school prayer decision often don't have a clue (1) what the decision actually said, or (2) why it represents good law and good policy, or (3) why so many religious people supported the decision. Meanwhile, of course, the rightwing noise makers have dedicated themselves to agitating their volatile base on this issue ...