Monday, December 17, 2007

What can Atheists and Christians agree on?

The last time I genuinely had a "debate" with an atheist was in high school. Back then, I had not really learned tact and made some obvious errors in approach and tone... and frankly made somewhat of a fool of myself. Since then, I had tried to be more respectful of the atheists I have met, and for the most part have been surprised how few REAL atheists there are out there. Most so-called atheists are actually agnostics who admit there COULD be a God, but are turned off by either organized religion or overbearing Christians.

But since 9/11/01, there has been a mini-movement of aggressive atheists looking to "convert" as many believers as possible to the ranks of the anti-God. I have found these folks mostly on chatrooms online, and not in person. But it is only a matter of time before each of us finds these folks. And this article, written by a former atheist who has returned to religion, makes the argument that atheists and theists have a good basis for discussion, and that there are simple rules to keep any discussion civil and instructive. If we could apply such simple rules to political discourse as well, we'd all be better off.

Fair warning: The author displays a number of images from the web which illustrate offensive religious people and offensive atheists. DO NOT click through if you will be upset by such images.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Nomad said...
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Nomad said...

FYI, I deleted a few inappropriate/offtopic comments that were flamebait.

Anonymous said...

flamebait?

Anyway, that guy had some really funny posters!

Why does it seem that the farther to either side you get, the people get increasingly more stupid?

Anonymous said...

Flamebait is a message posted to a public Internet discussion group, such as a forum, newsgroup or mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame") or argument over a topic the troll often has no real interest in

- The Mad Definer

Anonymous said...

Thanks