Friendliness is not appeasement and earnestness is not aggression. A polite argument is not a weak argument and a strong argument is not a rude argument. Determination is not militancy and patience is not passivity.

So regardless of our personalities we can all be friendly, earnest, polite, strong, determined and patient

and none of us need to be appeasing, aggressive, weak, rude, militant or passive.

I make a distinction between being intellectually engaging like PZ and Dawkins and being aggressively partisan (for lack of a better word). One of the above posters said button-pushing was what stayed with a christian. That may be true but so do insults. While PZ and Dawkins may push buttons that linger there are still a vocal minority who I believe give our community a black eye by perpetuating the stereotype of the bitter angry atheist. Instead of pushing buttons or being friendly this minority reflexively slings mud which turns off the would-be convert and gives the reader a bad impression of atheists.

I’m not defending the particulars of what Nisbet is saying. However I think we, as a community, should focus on encouraging the articulate intellectual activists over the poo slingers. It should be the community, as viewers rankers and commenters, that should work toward cultivating an image of intellectual integrity and respectful disagreement. We have the power to choose our mouthpiece, in other words.

And of course, I’m not talking about letting anything slide, or appeasing fundamentalists, or letting the Christians get away with a single irrational or bigoted idea. I for one just think it can be done without the immaturity that is seen in the far corners of the atheosphere.

August 10, 2008 at 11:10 pm

There are two kind of people in this world: those who make false dichotomies and those who don’t.

Actually there are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can’t.

But of course when you have that kind of ‘take shit from no one’ attitude AND you happen to be non-christian, you are automatically labeled as a rabid fundamentalist. (Or actually you get that label even by publicly coming out as an atheist.)

Of course in a society where people are offended by reality, those who have a low tolerance for stupidity are considered as intolerant hate mongerers.

The rabble-rousers gather the attention, the nice guys show the crowd that we deserve the attention. There’s a reason PZ’s blog outranks Nisbet’s in terms of popularity and readership, and it is frankly ironic that someone who champions the communicative technique of “framing” has done so poorly in framing his arguments for framing. It’s a bit like having someone try to teach you how to do gymnastics and they can’t even do a somersault.

I know, but I don’t think it’s a good metaphor. The religious right wants to use genuine force to impose their views on others. They want to use the government to put gays down, to promote their religion, and to force others to comply with their narrow-minded view of morality.

People are constantly trying to draw a false analogy between people like PZ Myers and people like Pat Robertson, calling people “fundamentalist atheists” who want to “force” their views on others. I think that’s BS. What PZ is doing is not force. It’s aggressive, in that he’s unapologetic and doesn’t care if he offends people, but he’s not forcing anything on anyone.

Agreed.

There are many thoughtful comments here. I agree that diversity of approach is wise.

Siamang, you show-stealer.

Any atheists done that… ever?

Maybe commies are a better example- ideology and all. Except the commies called for the overthrow of the government. Any atheists called for that in the name of atheism?

Do people bother reading history textbooks any more?

We need all kinds of atheists, and we need all of them to get more attention. We need the Myers and Dawkins of the world to incite change, to ridicule the ridiculous and inspire all of us to be more open. They are at the forefront of the movement, swinging sledges at the walls religions have constructed around themselves. We also need the Hemants to soothe egos and build communities. Without the latter we have a mess, without the former we have religious oppression.

I’ve yet to see the role for Uncle Toms who attack atheists in order to suck up to the religious power brokers. Nisbet may be smart, but he has lost his way and become deeply misguided. Shame as he could bring much to the table if only he’d gain some perspective and lose the ego.