I'm glad to see one of the atheists at DailyKos say this, because I think it needs to be said. I am a Christian, and have been for longer than I've been a Kossack, and while I have no problem with advocating for the Kossack line, I do sometimes feel the wound when one of my fellow Kossack disses on religion.
Make no mistake, they should be free to say as they please, but they should understand that the message they send is probably the wrong one to be sending, at a time when what we really need to develop, is a political alternative for Christians on the left.
Sometimes it helps to reduce things back to basics, to step back from a generalized picture of what motivates the people you seek to persuade or debate. I think if people step back, they might see a greater variety of subjects where they have agreement with Christians, than they otherwise might.
If I berated atheists on this site, my bet is, I probably wouldn't win many converts. Things like Religion are deeply personal choices, often an integral part of their identity. Atheists identify themselves with equal strength regarding their lack of religion. To them Christianity and the whole rigamarole doesn't make sense.
To persuade somebody to become an Atheist or a Christian from the counterpart position wouldn't be the work of one comment or one column. It would be the result of a long series of answered and asked questions, raised and settled objections. It took me over a decade to go from being a flat atheist to being a full-fledged, churchgoing Christian.
I'm glad this country and God gave me the freedom to find my own way. I'm glad that liberalism is not incompatible with Christianity, at least any more so than conservatism. But what doesn't gladden my heart is Christian bashing. I believe that's beneath us, and should be.
In this world, there will always be people shoving their perspective down your throat, waving it in your face. Especially in this country. You're going to have idiots burning Qu'rans, people trying to force public policy to fit their religious outlook, and of course proselytizers and believers of all stripes knocking at their door.
Relax. Go back to your basics. Remind yourself why you believe what you believe, then remind yourself that not everybody's had your same experiences or encounters in life. You are your own person, and so are they. They can't make you choose anything, not in this day and age.
And you can't make them chose anything, either.
So, if you bombard them with atheistic sentiment, and they bombard you with monotheistic sentiment, your respective fortresses of thought will hardly show a mark after a typical round of artillery strikes.
The likelihood is, people are going to tend to be religious in this country for some time to come, and that's not going to change too quickly. Which means, of course, we have to learn how to live with them, and they with us, or neither side's going to have much peace. And really, what happened to that country where there was room enough for us all? I'd like to think there is. It only helps the Republican Leaders and the Christian Conservative leaders if it has to be one group or the other, and only one can prevail.
We don't need to be reaffirming this idea of a divided America, we need to be deconstructing it, and showing it for the political manipulation it is. We need to be making the question of politics in America a non-sectarian one again.
Here's the thing: because of the First Amendment, the vast majority of public policy barely touches on religion. Where it does, there is also a civil and secular interest at play, and not always in a contradictory or contrary fashion.
That's where the focus needs to be.
You need to find where you can appeal to Christians politically, where you can also demonstrate your basic core values to them, and show them that they are much the same. My sensibility is that Judeo-Christian Ethics, though not the sole foundation of American society by any means, is part of what shaped this society at its beginning. So, too, are the values of the enlightenment, and of British Common Law. Point is, in most Americans, there is a mix of those enlightenment values, and of the Judeo-Christian values as well. You don't have to be a full fledge believe in either to have these common threads because you were born into a society that grew from that mix.
We need to make most people aware of this mixture, aware of how it effects their lives, and present to them a vision of a land where you can expect the best from your government regardless of what God you pray to, or don't, where your atheism poses no threat to their freedom to believe as they please.
I don't say this out of naive idealism, but out of practical experience. My experience of people is that most of them are fine, so long as you don't discuss politics or religion. There's a connection we have, just walking around, interacting with people, that seems to get eclipsed when we discuss these partisan (in the old sense) beliefs. One moment, a person's really friendly, and then, all of a sudden, they're in a box, the defenses thrown up, and you on the other side.
The challenge is drawing people in, getting them to agree before the defense go up. I think by appealing to people on a basic level, we can reframe the argument, breaking the old oppositional arrangements that Republicans use to keep people locked into their views.
The question is not how we live ourselves, for we all have the freedom to determine that for ourselves. No, the question is how we live together, and to live together, we don't necessarily have to all fall to one side or another on every issue.
It's time to find the new unity, not just with the Christians inside of our party, but with people beyond it, and the key to doing that is understanding and being able to explain the virtues of our policies at a basic level that transcends religious, anti-religious, and political dogmas.