Atheist decides to start a Looney Tunes colony.

[Kitsune]

I find this deeply amusing and hysterically comical. (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/opinion/12DENN.html)

Here's a nice light rebuttal piece. (http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000239.html)

Yeah, there are some insensitive and close-minded quacks who won't allow atheists or agnostics their lifestyles out there, but the worst way to handle it is to turn it into something that mirrors some of the evils of organized religion. Sheesh.

In any case, strange days we live in, eh?

-Kitsune

[XPav]

I'm just wondering if "bright" will become another word that can't be used the way it used to be because it became associated with a movement, like "gay".

[Jason McCullough]

Crooked Timber rocks.

The concept of basing an atheist movement on the connotation that they're smarter than you cracks me up.

[Angie Gallant]

Honestly, I have no idea how to handle it. I was raised in a household with an agnostic but deeply spiritual mother and a Baptist father. In the name of tranquility, I was raised more or less entirely without religion. I was sent to Vacation Bible School in the summer to get me out of the house, but never at any point did it occur to me that it was more serious than Vacation Fairy Tale School. I didn't get the concept of religion as a serious issue until about 3rd grade, and even then I didn't understand how deeply it affects people.

I'm an atheist. Not a hardcore one. I have no problems with how other people live their lives as long as they aren't hurting others. I've no desire for theological debates. But when I was invited to church, I turned down my schoolmate and explained that I wasn't a religious person and I wasn't interested. This year to years of harassment and phsyical abuse, as teachers and parents turned their backs, and eventually drove me out of the public school system entirely.

Sometimes I wish we were more organised, so we could be more open about who we are. Most of the time I am deeply glad that we're not... atheism is a very tiny thing to agree on, since we all create or adopt our own ethical codes and traditions. But the wounds of the McCarthy era run deep, and just one lone atheist living out their life in a good way while others remain deep in the closet doesn't seem to be healing them any faster.

So I don't find it too laughable of an idea. Maybe I'll sign up to be counted, though I certainly won't be calling myself a "bright". I just don't know what else to do about a situation I find intolerable.

[Kitsune]

My parents made a very risky move to California to try and spread Shintoism out of Japan (not supported by many in Japan, either, since people Shintoism is Japan and meaningless outside) and support Japanese (or others who would partake) outside Japan with Shinto weddings and birth ceremonies. They've recently had to scale back their plans, because its just been too long without going well, but they stick at it.

I remember when I still lived there with them, once we had a demonstration of how to make several different types of Shinto artifacts. It turned out pretty well and one of the people there said she was a teacher and asked of a grammar school kids and wandered if I could come and teach how to make wish cards to her class. I remember it pretty well, because I was going to get two Tuesdays off from my afterlunch classes to do it cleared by my parents! :!: So I went across town and with paints and the traditional paper showed them how to write their wishes in English or if they preferred, I could help them write in Japanese. The kids really liked doing it, drawing pictures around the sides and stuff. I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened. I didn't get to return to next Tuesday to properly set off their wishes once they had dried and done, because some mother of one of the kids found out and called the school threatening all this bunk and how she would remove her kid and stuff if they didn't stop "teaching witchcraft and the occult."

Funny thing is, I don't even remember telling them a thing about Shintoism, just about Tanabata and New Year's, and O'bon (Japanese holidays where this type of thing is done) and some of my family's silly wishes. :?

So yeah, there's some right quacks out there. Let's just not create any more outlets for them to convene on the "other side."

Certainly, the idea -- establishing a group or movement that simply unites people in the belief system -- isn't so bad. I definitely wouldn't be laughing at it if it weren't approached so badly.

I think the best idea is to attack the appalling criticisms right at their level: have a society or an organization of sorts that promotes the same things churches do without the religion, you know, places to hold public meetings, volunteer work, a loyal fellowship of people. Certainly it would be hard to quantify what exactly one needs to believe to be in it, and it would have the bad effect of bringing in some of the err, elements atheists tend to want to be rid of. On the other hand, it shows that atheists can be and often are just as societally productive and upholding as religious people in a very quantifiable, real way. (Its harder to say, for instance, that every atheist in the society lives a pretty much "moral" lifestyle coming from the standpoint of very fundamentalist, black-and-white people who most like to dog atheism as wrong.)

If nothing else, it at least builds up a political entity that can speak up with clarity when these issues come up. Its much harder to dog a whole host of people in a group than one clear thinker who gets the message hard and clear, right? What other reason does their need to be than to come together and make life more pleasant and less honery for fellow atheists? Make sure future atheists don't have to put up with that shit? Even if the belief in err, no religious beliefs ( :wink: ) is apathetic or weak, if the societal impulse is strong, just as one needn't believe too profoundly in the value of reading to contribute something to the cause for a volunteer weekend or whatever. Do you not think people would come together for that? Not only there's no need for this silly, "We're bright, intelligent and FREE, compared to you guys who just blindly follow this God guy" but not much of a need for an all-encompassing belief shared among different atheists except that they shouldn't be bothered about their beliefs and have it interfere with their lives?

-Kitsune

[Skies]

To paraphrase, Its better to have ideas that beliefs.

[quatoria]

To paraphrase, Its better to have ideas that beliefs.

Oh, is that what you believe?

[Skies]

No, its just an idea :)

[hermyhermit]

No, its just an idea :)


Skies: 1

quatoria: 0