Comments on: She That Is Not With Me is Against Me

By: Making a Religion Competitive « Rogue Priest

Making a Religion Competitive « Rogue Priest — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:19:11 +0000

[...] longtime readers I should point out I still think proselytizing is inappropriate, and that goes for Pagans too.) Tweet 'n' stuff:Like this:LikeBe the first to like this [...]

By: Drew Jacob

Drew Jacob — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 16:37:26 +0000

Good point Brandon. And let me ask you this—while it’s pretty obvious why “non-theism” sees no need to convert people, does strong atheism necessarily lead to wanting to convert people? Or do you feel that strong atheists can criticize religion without making a call to action for others to abandon religion?

By: Drew Jacob

Drew Jacob — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 16:35:03 +0000

Oh, I see. You think that any criticism of religion is the same as proselytising.

I think it’s pretty clear that I never said anything like that.

By: B

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 03:11:15 +0000

If, by unanimous agreement, without any exceptions or missteps, all of the atheists in the world follow a policy of never, ever trying to convince religious people to abandon their religions—then great. They can all hit “like” on this post and move on, because they and I agree that proselytizing is wrong (and counter-productive).

Oh, I see. You think that any criticism of religion is the same as proselytising. I guess you’re going to stop posting about the problems you have with, say, St Patrick’s Day then? Or with anything else?

Discussing one’s ideas in a public forum is not the same as proselytising.

By: brandonnewberg

brandonnewberg — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:22:27 +0000

It might be useful in this debate to bring up Jonathan Lanman’s distinction between “non-theism” (the lack of belief in the existence of supernatural agents) and “strong atheism” (the moral disapproval of and active stance against such beliefs).

By: brandonnewberg

brandonnewberg — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:50:21 +0000

This is a valuable post. As an atheist myself (technically an agnostic Humanist, but we’ll let that be), I never feel more embarrassed than when a fellow non-believer shoves anti-God in people’s faces. That’s one of the major reasons I left Christianity in the first place.

By: Drew Jacob

Drew Jacob — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:59:26 +0000

Your original objection was that an atheist blogger like Jen wouldn’t do something like that. I showed you an example of an atheist blogger doing exactly that. That doesn’t count?

But really, instead of me pointing out a bunch of examples to you, let’s put it this way.

If, by unanimous agreement, without any exceptions or missteps, all of the atheists in the world follow a policy of never, ever trying to convince religious people to abandon their religions—then great. They can all hit “like” on this post and move on, because they and I agree that proselytizing is wrong (and counter-productive).

But if there are some out there who do use conversion language, either by policy or by personal habit, it’d be nice if they could see it actually hurts their own cause. And that there are other ways of doing publicity and raising awareness. The way I suggested is just one.

By: B

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:40:43 +0000

As soon as we made a firm decision to never proselytize and never put down other belief systems, we began to blossom. In 6 years we went from a handful of people meeting in an attic to a community of hundreds with a beautiful traditional building as our temple space.

For a community that small, for a religion that isn’t focused on mass conversation, that sounds great. But the atheist movement isn’t a ‘fringe’ moment; there are millions of atheists living in London alone. Word of mouth can’t tell all of them that there are safe places, communal spaces, where they can be themselves. An ad campaign can.

It’s also unfair to claim that there are are ‘aggressive conversion [?] efforts by atheist groups’ and then cite some random blogger as your case in point. Discussing ideas (which are ultimately rejected) in a public space =/= aggressive converion effort.

And thanks! I think it went well.

By: Drew Jacob

Drew Jacob — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:02:44 +0000

I do, but when an atheist writer uses his atheist blog and a template of actual atheist ads to generate conversion-oriented content, case in point.

Good luck on the job interview by the way!

By: B

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:56:24 +0000

I have to run (job interview), but you do realise that the mean-spirited examples you linked there were never actually campaigns, right?