Best way to deal with street preachers. Ask them to look up Matthew 6:5

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

-Jesus Christ

I realized that once I agreed to be interviewed for the New Times that they would do whatever they chose with the material, but I agreed because it seemed like a potentially good way to spread the message that “you can be good (probably better, I would say) without God”. Niki did sort of squeeze it in at the end. Naturally these alternative news weeklies do sensationalize these pieces (the photos are a case in point), and to this end, the article contains a fair number of (what I perceive to be) exaggerations, oversimplifications, and outright factual errors.

At first I was upset about the misrepresentations, but ultimately I think that the overarching idea that it can be okay to openly scrutinize, question — and yes, perhaps even ridicule — dogma is more important than the perhaps false details about how it all goes and has gone down.

In truth, I perceive that the atmosphere of Mill Avenue, this microcosm of the world, has indeed changed as a result of our actions. It used to be you couldn’t walk down here on a Friday or Saturday night without getting sermonized at on any number of street corners. Now at least the fundamentalists know, if they do choose to set up their soapbox, they can expect some exuberant opposition. And, in fact, more recently it seems they don’t come at all, or if they see us coming, they pick up and leave.

The signs have been designed to evoke a response. We have a fair number of them. I try to make them pithy and thought-provoking. My goal is to open a dialogue, which I would much prefer to do than trade insults via bullhorn. And with the Evangelicals quieting down now, it is much easier to do. Incidentally, the latest one reads “Godless 4 goodness”. Not surprisingly, the responses to that one are more reserved.

This article mentioned only the “Damn God America” sign, which was certainly the most provocative. It was intended to be a spoof on the “God Bless America” bumper stickers, but a fair number did unfortunately associate it with Reverend Wright’s remarks. Some people see someone with a sign on a street corner and won’t talk to you regardless of what it says. But the ones who are likely to stop and ask a question or make a comment or suggestion are sometimes more likely if the sign is more reactionary. And sometimes not. And the ones who are likely to tell say “You don’t believe in God? Fuck you!” (that’s an actual quote) will do so anyway.

So another aspect of the story the piece only incidentally mentions is the way this little movement has evolved. In the beginning it was enough to be confrontationally distracting, but that by and large (at least locally) seems to have achieved its immediate objectives, and now a more approachable, interactive, friendlier approach seems to be in order. So we are trying to do that.

I would never have used the phrase “preaching atheism” and I have never claimed that I am trying to convert anyone to anything. I do consider myself a devangelist, and I am prepared to talk about the failings and fallaciousness of Biblical literalism and religious belief. I care about truth and universal human values that are independent of superstition and dogma, and I would like it if others did too. I like to have conversations about it, and in truth, I get a lot out of the interactions that I do have. I would say that the responses and feedback are pretty evenly divided between positive and negative. Anyone who is willing to talk to me usually concludes that I have a respectful, if different view. The ones who don’t want to talk to me are perhaps not interested or prepared to have their viewpoints questioned, and that is OK too.

We can’t be advocates of reason without being reasonable ourselves. I’ve discovered that astonishingly many people today mistakenly assume that without a god, you must not care about anything; what I care very much about is illustrating that this simply isn’t true. I believe in Love, Life, Truth, Beauty, Science, Justice, Goodness, and zero gods. This is my message.

And I think his pictures are appropriately hilarious.

Probably most people are not particularly religious, they just accept the surrounding social standard, or what they think it is, to avoid having problems.