Repost from April 30, 2012
(note: in this post I use gross generalities and paint with a wide brush. I realize there are exceptions and that not everything I say here applies to all skeptics everywhere. I use the word skeptic to encompass atheists, agnostics, humanists, and none of the above)
In recent weeks I surveyed the various enclaves within the skeptic community and have come to some sobering conclusions. I am a blue-collar kind of person, having grown up in poverty and lived in areas dominated by manufacturing. “My people” are what is commonly called the working class. Most of “my people” do not have a college education. They are white and poor or middle class people. They are overwhelmingly Christian.
In my survey of the various groups that make up the skeptic community this is what I found. The skeptic community is overwhelmingly:
- White
- Male
- College educated
- Dominated by scholars, professors, scientists and people with white-collar jobs
- Middle and upper middle class
- Regionally centered on the East and West coast or in major cities.
The Skeptic community is dominated by the educated, scholarly class. The books they write reflect their education and place in life. The conferences they hold reflect their upper middle class lifestyle, complete with expensive conference fees, hotels, and meals.
Now, this is not a criticism of skeptic community demographic. Skepticism naturally demands that people be educated and informed about matters of importance. Who better to turn to than the scholars,professors, and scientists?
I am thinking about “my people”, the high school educated, Christian, blue-collar worker. Why does the skeptic community find it so difficult to reach “my people?” Why are so many of my fellow working class people turned off by the skeptic community? Why are there few working class people found among the skeptic community?
Let me try to answer these questions….I answer these questions as a skeptic but also as a life-long member of the blue-collar working class. The skeptic community has failed miserably at making inroads with working class people. Why is that?
Working class people generally have a mistrust of educated people. Sometimes, their mistrust is quite irrational but, at times, their mistrust is quite justified. Working class people, especially poor working class people, generally feel they are without a voice. Politics are dominated by the educated élite, the rich. Working class people go to work just to make ends meet. They likely will never amass large sums of money. Owning a home and driving a late-model car is a sign of success. Life is one of simplicity and struggle.
Their distrust of educated people comes from the fact that educated people often talk down to them and treat them like an unwashed mass. Every four years the political class asks for their vote and then spend the next 4 or 6 years trying to demolish the working class and their attempt to hold their head above water.
Educated people tell them to “trust us.” They are the experts. They speak of double dip recessions and anthropogenic global warming, while all the working class person wants to do is get to tomorrow. They want to go to work, pay their bills, and enjoy the weekend. All this talk of this or that, in complex terms, falls on deaf ears. Why can’t the experts present their facts in the language of the commoner?
They go to their doctor and he speaks to them in Latin and with words having lots of syllables. They leave the doctor’s office confused and uncertain about what is really wrong with them. Why can’t the doctor speak to patient in way that can be understood?
The working class person has, or most likely had, friends who went off to college and got an education. They don’t interact with each other like they used to. Education has brought a distance between them. The blue-collar worker laughs when he hears the educated, white-collar person complain about how hard they have to work. The blue-collar worker knows what so many educated, white-collar workers have forgotten…that the hardest jobs, the jobs that require the most effort and labor, pay the least. They find a perverse satisfaction when one of the white-collar workers are demoted to the floor or when they find out that so and so they work with on the line has a college degree. See, what did all that education get them?
They laugh at Mitt Romney and his wife’s talk of doing hard work, yet they will likely vote for him in the upcoming presidential election. Inconsistency exists in the working class world just like it does everywhere else. Most working class people routinely vote against their economic interests and religion is the reason they do so.
With religion, the working class person finds certainty, comfort, and support. They want to hear of a life that matters. They want to know that there is a better life that awaits them beyond the grave.
In the church house they feel they are as good as anyone else, that social status doesn’t matter. (even though churches are often governed and controlled by educated, moneyed, white-collar people) With Jesus they find someone who is their friend, a friend who promised to never leave them or forsake them. The Bible, regardless of how inconsistently they interpret it, is their source of strength, comfort, and hope. In the Bible, the poor, the working class are exalted and often are portrayed as those closest to God and this message resonates with working class people.
Along comes the educated, middle/upper middle class, white-collar skeptic ever ready to rob the commoner of those things they hold dear. With big words, lengthy books, and the like, the skeptic pronounces Christianity a great evil and suggest only stupid, poorly educated people still believe in superstitions like God, Jesus, Satan, and a divine Bible.
On cable news, in the newspapers, and at gatherings like the Reason Rally, the uneducated, working class person hears their beliefs and lifestyle routinely denounced by the luminaries of the skeptic community. In their mind they think skeptics view them as stupid, ignorant, hillbillies. (and more than a few skeptics do)
If the skeptic community hopes this approach will increase their ranks they are sadly mistaken. Yes, more white, educated, white-collar people, people less likely to be religious, will be drawn to them. But, what about blue-collar working class people? What about people who have only a high school education? The group of people, by the way, that make up the majority in the United States. (and most everywhere else in the world) Is the skeptic community effectively making inroads with them?
If the goal is for skeptics to move the United States towards becoming a true secular society where science, reason, and rationality are the norms, then they MUST change their approach.
Let me say at this juncture that I am not suggesting that educated, economically flush, white collar people deny who they are. To suggest they be anything other than what they are is bigotry. However, I would like to suggest that a change of approach is in order.
First, the skeptic community must change how it is perceived. As long as they are perceived as arrogant, argumentative, educated god-haters, the people who make up the majority in the United States will turn a deaf ear and blind eye to them. They must come down out of the ivory towers and walk among the uneducated. They must be seen as normal, every day folk, as people who understand the plight of the uneducated, working class community.
Second, the skeptic community must simplify their language. Again, if the goal is the greater good of the United States then the skeptic community must learn to talk in the language of the commoner. They must develop relational skills that help them understand the people they are trying to reach. Their books, blogs, and the like must be written in a way that a high school educated person can understand their arguments. Regardless of what one may think of Bart Ehrman, he has mastered the ability to take complex arguments and make them accessible and understandable to the uneducated. Neil Degrasse Tyson is another person who has a unique ability to make complex matters of science accessible to those lacking a science education.
Third, the skeptic community must stop its bombastic, over the top, rhetoric about Christianity. Deny it all we might, we are far too often viewed as angry, argumentative, mean-spirited assholes. The very kind of people that many of us left behind when we deconverted. I don’t intend to get into the whole accommodation vs. confrontational debate. I know that accommodating religion is rarely the answer BUT I also know that the confrontational approach rarely works. Oh it might stir the faithful and make them think what people of power we are but back in the hinterlands of America such an approach is viewed as offensive and does little to change anyone’s mind.
Fourth, the skeptic community must make their events more accessible to working class people. In my survey of the skeptic community and their annual events and conferences I found that the conference fees and associated costs were quite expensive. Lowering these costs would allow more people to attend and result in more people being reached with the gospel of skepticism. The skeptic community could learn a few lessons from Evangelicals on how to effectively have conferences and events that are priced right and reach a lot of people. As long as conference costs are high, working class people will not be able to attend.
Fifth, the skeptic community must realize that there is a part of the Unites States called the Midwest. Rarely are conferences and events held in the Midwest. The skeptic community seems to love the coasts, and while I understand this, I must point out that a vast number of people are being ignored by continually holding conferences and events only on the East and West coast.
Sixth, the skeptic community must become more diverse. Where are the Hispanic, Asian, and African-American skeptics? Yes, I know the few that are……and that’s the problem…they are so few every skeptic knows of them.
The skeptic community has fallen into a trap that I often saw in my days as a pastor. There are those speakers that seem to speak at every event. They become the royalty of the community and far too often their words are treated as god-like. In E.F. Hutton like fashion, when Richard Dawkins speaks everyone listens. Again, this reinforces the notion that the skeptic community is for a certain class of people.
How about mixing it up and inviting speakers that don’t fit the typical skeptic profile? How about inviting speakers that no one knows? Some of the best preachers I ever heard were men who pastored 50 people at a church on the backside of some hill in West Virginia. One preacher’s conference I attended made sure it balanced the program with big-name and no-name speakers. This sends an important message to the public……everyone has a voice that matters. Right now, in the skeptic community, it seems the voice of a handful of people matter. The rest of us? Sit down, listen, buy our books, see ya at the next gig, or so it seems.
Seventh, one the most effective means of outreach is the printed page, be it magazine or books. Every author or publisher wants their material read by as many people as possible. As a blogger, I want my writing to be read everywhere by as many people as possible. If the skeptic community really wants to reach out beyond the faithful then they are going to have to make their materials more affordable, even if this means less profit. Again, what is our objective as skeptics? Magazine subscriptions that cost 30-50 dollars a years are beyond the reach of working class people. I know it is expensive to publish a magazine, but somehow, some way, the subscription cost must become affordable for people who do not have the means to pay 35 dollars for a magazine published 5 or 6 times a year. Again, religious publishers have this figured out and they make their subscription costs quite affordable for everyone. The skeptic community must find a way to do the same.
Books must also be priced in a way that everyone can afford them. I went to Amazon today to order a book I read a review on in a skeptic magazine. The book, 300 or so pages long, was almost 40 dollars. Only the devoted skeptic will shell out this kind of money. If the objective is to have a book read by as many people as possible then the book must be priced accordingly.
In recent months, I have read several articles written by skeptics that suggest that religion is dying or becoming irrelevant, and that skepticism is rapidly gaining ground. While this kind of thinking reinforces what skeptics really, really, really want, reality, something we skeptics supposedly consider important, is far different.
Yes, the Reason Rally was a wonderful event. Yes, the census says more people are nontheists. Yes, books are flying off the shelf. All these things are good, great in fact, but let’s not deceive ourselves into thinking we have reached critical mass and the grand principles of skepticism will be embraced by all. The majority of Americans remain unreached by the good news of skepticism. We are still a Christian nation dominated by the Christian Bible. Recent polls suggest that the creationists and climate-change deniers are holding or gaining ground. For all our blustering against the Christian God, most Christians remain unconvinced. Maybe it is time to rethink our approach.
I am not suggesting we lie down and let Christians walk all over us. There is a time and place for standing up and fighting back. However, if we hope to reach our long-term goal of the Unites States becoming a true secular state where science, reason, and rationality are the norm, we must carefully consider our image, approach, and methodology. Above all, we must find ways to accommodate both the educated and uneducated. If we are unwilling to do this we will remain outliers, cranks, and critics, who have little voice in the affairs of our country.
I completely agree with you that conferences are far too expensive for most average or working class people, but maybe these people would not attend conferences even if they were cheap. They would be far more likely to go and see a comedy show or movie. Ricky Gervais and people like him can reach a very wide audience. Talk show hosts like Maher in the US and George Stromboulopoulis in Canada have also done a lot to put the message across in a simple, humourous and friendly way. The late George Carlin is another example.
People identify themselves as having limited intellect and manufacture a fear and hatred of groups of intellectuals. Why should intellectuals be hated?
This is a challenge: people should see that they should gain knowledge and try to do so, but the reaction to this challenge is to retreat from it and to speak out against intellectualism.
Cowardice seems to be the vice of our time.
No, no, no, you are so wrong– You say, ”People identify themselves as having limited intellect and manufacture a fear and hatred of groups of intellectuals.” I reply that intellectuals manufacture among THEMSELVES a fear and hatred of groups that are poor and hard-working, who have no time to read and study and indulge in “the life of the mind”– because they are working 18-hr. days to put food on the table and pay the rent, who spend their entire “free” weekend (meaning they have both Sat. and Sun. off from work) installing a new fuel pump in their 20-yr. old car so that they can get to work on Monday. They don’t have TIME to read books and study and debate and simply THINK, because they are too busy just trying to stay alive. This is the type of family that I grew up in, and religion was their only respite from the nonstop work and worry of the real world. And then, in turn, they are treated like idiots and sneered at and looked down on by people like you — intellectuals– who see them as stupid, xenophobic, cowardly hillbillies.
“Cowardice seems to be the vice of our time.”– really? It seems to me that intolerance and ignorance and a false attitude of superiority are the vices of our time, indulged in by religious fanatics and intellectuals alike.
No one wants to spend time with someone else who acts as though their poo doesn’t stink, and it doesn’t matter if said person is a scientist, a preacher, a cook or a football player. There is a difference between having an education and flaunting an education and I bet you also dislike being around people who regularly use $10 words when a fifty cent word will do. After all, who but an arrogant twit would tell someone “The illumination system on your internal-combustion powered automotive vehicle is still engaged” instead of saying “You left your headlights on.”
I also like to give credit where credit is due. In some segments of society, churches have historically been the main organizing force that seeks to give people a voice or a sense of community at all. This is especially so in minority communities. I think it’s also true in other religious backgrounds. Many in the Catholic community would say much the same.
Maybe we need other structures that make certain segments of the population comfortable, you know? Not necessarily involving skepticism, but that would offer a sense of community. An alternative.
Preachers who lied about what they believed by continuing to preach when they no longer believed do not fill me with confidence.
Way to stay classy, Trina.
“Sixth, the skeptic community must become more diverse. Where are the
Hispanic, Asian, and African-American skeptics?”
American Asians [at least here in the North East] tend to be Evangelicals, or Baptists. I think there aren’t many Asian skeptics because Asian immigrants try their best to raise their children to be as American as possible. I’m half-Japanese, my father wanted me to be raised as a Catholic so I’d fit in better. Americans believe in Jesus, not the Kami.
This piece dovetails in an interesting way with your post re: your local community. As many of us have experienced on a personal level, making our skepticism public is a choice fraught with real challenges and sometimes real dangers. Bringing a conference into a demographic area that is unwelcoming and possibly hostile to folks who unabashedly proclaim their lack of faith in the locally revered diety presents the same challenges. Who would show up even if it were free? Even in the large, west coast, mostly progessive city I currently live in, the actual turnouts to such events at a local university and other venues are relatively are small. And many of the skeptics I have met deal with exactly the same issues of hostility in the city, their neighborhoods and families as experienced by others in smaller communities.
The voices and lives of those that come from the working and middle class who have deconverted will be a more important catalyst than the best books or conferences. That is why I love your blog so much. It is also the benefit of sites such as exchristian because so many of the posters express their process of facing doubt and embracing reason in layman’s terms. Finding out I was not alone in my doubts and questions was a powerful thing. Facing the consequences of losing my faith within my family and community has been made it a bit easier knowing I am not alone. Being at the tail end of my 50′s, it is also extremely helpful dealing with the depression and guilt I can easily fall into over “wasting my life”, to know others are navigating these same troubling waters, learning to find joy in this life, in this moment.
I agree that we need to keep things simple and affordable. The reality that people can’t write and speak for nothing if that is their main activity has to be balanced against the fact that people have limited resources and great responsibilities to themselves and those dependent on them. It’s a problem without any easy one size fits all solution.
When I write, I try to use terminology people of average education level can comprehend. I hope I’m successful, and I also hope I don’t come across as haughty or superior. Keeping the balance is not easy. Strong feelings tend to get expressed in strong ways.
Most of the current big time speakers in the skeptic community already have good paying jobs and many of them have best selling books. Granted, I don’t think people should do things for free. After all the Bible does says the laborer is worthy of his hire.
I saw a lot of preachers become quite wealthy on the conference circuit. They pastored a church full time, had a good salary, and then raked in the cash doing conferences.
When I was a pastor, I studied as an academic but when I preached I made sure that I spoke in the language of the pew. The average working class person works hard, struggles to make it from week to week. They have homes to take care of, children, and must do many of the things that people of means pay others to do.
When I was a younger man I used to get upset with the people I pastored. Why didn’t they read more, study more,know more? Of course, I finally realized I had the dream job for someone who liked to write and read. I could spend hours with my nose in a book.
I had the liberty and leisure necessary to study and read. My parishioners didn’t. When I finally realized this, my expectations for those I pastored changed. I pastored a lot of people who hadn’t read a book other than the Bible since high school. They simply didn’t have the time to do so. So they put their trust in their pastor to tell them what they need to know. Not ideal, to be sure, BUT it how it is in many working class churches.
I am a Bart Ehrman fan. He has been a real help to me over the years. That said, I do find some of his writing to have that air of superiority you talk about. I have this, this, and this degree and I am this, this, and this. His recent decision to start a special membership only site on his blog troubled me.. On one hand, it is America, and he is free to do what he wants. On the other hand…..he has made a good bit of money from his books……why not keep his insights and writing free? It seems the greater goal should be for his writing to be as widely disseminated as possible.
The problem, Bruce, is that there is no way to reach out to them. By being atheists, automatically anything that comes out of our mouths is blasphemy. It really doesn’t matter what we say. It’s all offensive.
What I do, effective or not, is let them be. As a Christian many non-believers put up with me and let me be who I was. So I do that with Christians nowadays. If they want to tell me that the Lord is wonderful, I listen until I get tired and then excuse myself.
I can’t agree more.
It’s kind of a dead-end. Getting rid of religious thinking requires education, and education only comes with , guess what, education. Looks silly, but it’s true.
Most of the “uneducated class” probably passed the point of no return. The only way is to reach the young with education and hope that the child indoctrination from religious parents get weaker and weaker.
It’s very hard to convince an educated believer. Tell me about convincing an uneducated one.
To reach them, maybe only with another religion… using the same brainwashing techniques…
The younger ones, yeah. That’s why I decided to come out of the atheist closet. The younger ones know exactly where I stand. They know I don’t believe. They also know that I put up with the preaching. If or when they start doubting, they’ll who to go to.
Give these a going over:
Sam Harris gave a speech at the Atheist Alliance International (AAI) conference in 2007:
“My concern with the use of the term “atheism” is both philosophical and strategic. I’m speaking from a somewhat unusual and perhaps paradoxical position because, while I am now one of the public voices of atheism, I never thought of myself as an atheist before being inducted to speak as one. I didn’t even use the term in The End of Faith, which remains my most substantial criticism of religion. And, as I argued briefly in Letter to a Christian Nation, I think that “atheist” is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people “non-astrologers….”
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3588
Evemerist vs. Mythicist Position
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2160
The Mythicist Position – video (please read the links in the info box)
I’m finding the above quite fascinating!
A lot of great points in this post Bruce. I struggle with this issue. I am not sure where to sit on the continuum between accomodation vs. not sacrificing the integrity of your position or message. It is an issue that every teacher struggles with.
As an analogy, when I teach university students, on the one hand I have to speak to them in the language expected in university, I have to present the ideas at a university-level of education, and when I mark their work I have to demand a high quality of writing and of work. Anything less would dumb down universities (which has already happened enough in my opinion!). However, I also have to constantly be aware that I risk losing my audience if I speak at a level to far above them. A mentor of mine has told me never to dumb down your message to the level of your students. Keep your message a bit more advanced than they are. Force them to stretch a bit in their learning.
Of course, the interaction of skeptics in society is not exactly like teaching at a university. Unlike professors, skeptics don’t have all the answers! But, there is an analogy there, I believe. If someone is even remotely interested in what a skeptic has to say, they likely won’t let cultural, class, and educational differnences get in the way. If they are not interested in what a skeptic has to say, then bridging those gaps isn’t going to help anyway.
It is a tough issue though. I am a stubborn person who has gained a huge amount through my own education, and I am biased in thinking that everyone else should put the effort in getting the same level of education as I have and educate themselves out of ignorance and poverty as I did (arrogant, I know). But, in reality I recognize that your suggested approach is likely more functional and effective.
Bruce, can you or someone fairly immersed in the writings and gatherings of skeptics tell me about this: Is there much talk about, much seeming interest in the various developmental stage theories that relate closely to what you are discussing on this post? The most broad and encompassing of these would probably be Ken Wilber’s work, especially in “Integral Spirituality.” Sam Harris should certainly be up on these developmental systems, studying as he is (or was) for a PhD in neuroscience, but I’ve not followed him enough to know.
I think I’ve heard a couple people address this area, maybe John Loftus being one. The reason I raise it is that I believe Wilber, James Fowler and others are onto some very important things and I find their stage explanations and the processes of change/growth to be very helpful…. But then I have lots of background in psych, human development, etc., so maybe it’s more a “thing” of specialists and serious philosopher-types.
Regardless, there are lots of important insights there, and one of them from Wilber is this: It is largely up to our religious systems (mainly Christianity in the US), and creators/conveyors of the great magical-mythical beliefs to mature themselves at least modestly (one level in his system, or more, ideally), and bring along at least a good number of their followers. That, at least to the extent that we actually CAN “all just get along” (in society and internationally).
I actually believe this is going on in Christianity–”liberalism” opened the way and brought us to greater rationalism within “faith,” and I see now that, here and there, “Process” thought is helping some of us solve the stubborn inconsistencies and limitations in both rational “liberalism” and materialistic science. (And along the way, supernaturalism is put aside!)
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Michael Dowd has been bringing the science to the church. Have you heard of him?
I have, Not sure “what” to think of him but he does bring a new/different approach to science/religion.
Bruce,
First of all, I hope by now you’ve experienced some relief from your most recent flare up.
Second, I want to explain briefly why the methods you propose will never ever work, and it’s really quite simple. God really does exist and He is a living reality in the lives of His people. You can change your tactics all you want but it will never accomplish a thing. Jesus has already informed you in John 10: 4-5;
“When he (the shepherd) has brought all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice.”
Take special note of verse 5;
“They will NEVER follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize the strangers voice.”
They will never follow you Bruce because they’ve been born of God, and as such, do not recognize your voice.
My friend, you’re not fighting Buddha, you’re not fighting krishna, you’re fighting against the true and living God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. You can’t win. The most you will be successful in doing is planting a certain amount of doubt in the minds of true believers. That’s it. But Jesus gives a solemn warning against doing that in Matthew 18, so I don’t recommend it.
I could share more with you but I’ll just leave you with this;
“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Acts 26:14
-Rob
Rob,
No you can’t share more with me. You think I have never heard this before or that most of the readers of this blog have not heard this?
Just because you say, God really exists, does not make it so. You believe, fine. I don’t. You can’t respect this? You, on one hand, feign concern, and then, on the other hand, threaten me with God’s judgment. This shows how much respect you really have for people like me.
BTW, my name is Bruce, not Saul. You do know this, yes?
You are living in denial of you think people like are not having an impact on Christianity. A small one, to be sure, but every day Christians walk away from the faith, deconvert, and become what you say they can’t become. Quote all the Bible verses you want, tell them they never were real Christians…the facts remain…they once followed the shepherd Jesus and now they don’t.
You say I can’t win. Why then, do you bother to preach on this blog? If I can’t win, wouldn’t your time be better spent doing other things?
If I can plant doubt…that’s good since doubt is the first step to freedom.
Rob, I am not afraid of your mythical God, so why don’t you go find someone else to threaten with your mythical God’s power?
Bruce
Bruce,
Sorry for any offense. I guess what I was really trying to say is that the enterprise you are engaged in will only succeed if God definitely does not exist. Now if this is what you’re saying , you’ve gone far beyond any atheists I’m aware of. On the other hand, if God does exist, you’re going to a lot of trouble to cause trouble for yourself. So unless you have incontrovertible proof that God doesn’t exist, I’m just suggesting you may want to tread a bit slower, that’s all.
btw, my concern was genuine. I’m truly sorry you feel otherwise. And yes, I do know your name is Bruce. I originally wrote “Bruce, Bruce.” But because the passage goes on to say, “why are you persecuting ME”, I thought it might read a bit awkward since it was the last thing I wrote before signing my name. So I just stuck with the actual citation.
I really do hope you’re feeling better.
-Rob
In other words, watch out – because the boogie man might be real
I have no need to tread slower. When it comes to YOUR God I have weighed him in the balances and found him wanting. Why should I tread slowly when it comes to beliefs that I think are myths? I have no fear of your God, your Bible, or the prayers of Christians. Many are praying for my salvation, my death,my repentance, my whatever. Yet, here I am. (I know because your God is loving and long-suffering, right)
By taking the approach you did in your last comment, you totally ignored the fact that I was in the Christian church for 50 years, a pastor for 25 of those years. What are you going to tell me that I have not heard, studied, or preached? (that is a rhetorical question)
So, you said what you did to:
1. Convince yourself that you are right
2. To warn others who read this blog
If it was number two, you surely know that many of the readers of this blog spent decades in the church like I did. Some were pastors, teachers, missionaries, deacons, Sunday School leaders, or worship leaders. Most of them were devoted followers of Jesus. What are you doing to say to them that they have not already heard?
So, I am left with, you said what you did to convince yourself that you are right. I think this is the case for 99% of the Christians who comment here. (why do they come here at all?)They have doubts about their own faith and try to bolster their faith by trying to put the atheist in his place. There are a few exceptions like 1Lloyd or some of my readers who are Christian but do not associate with the organized Church.
Your comments started out with questions, questions I answered. Like most Christians who comment here, your last comment moved from questions to preaching. Questions are welcome. Preaching is not. I certainly want to be understood by others and I will answer any question I am asked. Preaching or quoting Bible verses? I tolerate them about as much as I do a mosquito buzzing around my head.
Bruce
Preach Bruce! I found Rob to be typical of those Christians who come here, wanting to FORCE people to believe their way, and not showing ANY kindness or love. (Well, he seemed to have passing concern but his agenda was more important.). Funny, I used to believe that is what Christians did, love people into the church. Well, ones like Rob here don’t care really, they just want to change people to be like them, and threaten us if we don’t become like them.
Hopefully not too preachy. I just wish Christians would realize this approach NEVER works. Whatever I might believe or not believe about the Christian God, threatening me with judgment/hell is not the way to “reach” me. Love, compassion, decency, respect, kindness, sincere no strings attached engagement, are much better ways to “reach” people like me. I may never believe in their God but I might at least admire their faith.
Sorry to interject, Rob (well not really sorry) but if you say God exists then the burden of proof rests with you. Disbelievers don’t have to prove God doesn’t exist.
Being Irish I believe in Leprechauns. There are many books about them, one of them (the book of kells) is even older than the bible and the Egyptian “book of the dead”. My evidence is older than yours, how does that suit you?
Now where’s me pot o’ gold?
Please let me know when you find the pot o’ gold. So far, all I have been able to find is the pot.
People shouldn’t be taught to worry about spirits and afterlifes and unseen realms etc when there are more than enough real things to worry about in life – disease, murder, war, economic woes etc. Isn’t life hard enough? Christianity just heaps more burden onto peoples shoulders.
Hi Bruce,
I think I see your point but there are some good resources such as http://atheist-experience.com/ which is a group in Texas. They host a TV show with some very good content.
I think one of the reasons why doing free “atheist rallys” or even cheap conferences is that in general Christians will want to talk out of turn and disrupt the conference. I’ve seen this happen before many times. It’s not that it’s bad for them to ask questions, but its that it is assumed the attendee will have a basic level of logical reasoning. In cases where conferences are free, every man and his dog will turn up just to have random foolish debates ans waste otherwise productive time, reducing the conference to kindergarten levels.
There’s an atheist alliance in Ireland which hosts conferences exactly like you suggested, but there is a catch, only responsible Christians are allowed to attend (and for free) if accompanied by a responsible atheist. Christians wouldn’t expect an atheist to attend their church and heckle the preacher, but they don’t reciprocate the sentiment or respect when there’s an atheist conference. I’ve experienced this first hand on both sides.
If an atheist heckles a pastor it’s persecution, but if a christian heckles an atheist it’s like watching Neanderthal throwing rocks at the moon.
Ken
Rob, Bruce isn’t asking anyone to follow his voice. I imagine he just wants people to followthe voice of logic and reason. I did, and when it led me away from christianity and god I found a peace and happiness I did not think was possible.
As a lawn care operator I identify with the working man. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan were inspirations.