(Due to technical difficulties XNeeOhCon was unable to post his diary, therefore I am posting it. This is his work, any tips should go to him.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, Progressives and Trolls, take off your politics hats and don your polemics and epistemology togas. It’s time to kick off the Atheist summer blockbuster diary series. I, your humble host, have gathered some of the finest thinkers on Daily Kos (that would return my emails) to bring you a three week long odyssey into the mind of the Atheist. We will explore the many facets of controversy that tend to erupt within Atheist diaries posted here. I have seen many, and I felt an attempt at a comprehensive approach would be interesting and hopefully rewarding. If any of you want to participate by contributing a diary on atheism, or a counter-argument to one of our diaries, please email me and I’ll see if I can accommodate your involvement.
It should go without saying, but I would encourage everyone to treat your fellow Kosians and Koseists with the utmost respect. Arguments should be rational and non-emotional. A thoughtful, respectful argument against a belief system is not the equivalent of attacking its individual believers, even though, instinctively, it may feel like a personal insult. While I know that it will be virtually impossible, I would like to try to encourage everyone to stay on the subject of the diary. If you have an argument about a barely related topic, try to save it for the most appropriate diary. A list of diary topics and dates will be posted below.
One of the first questions that comes to mind while reading this might be: "Why are you doing this?" Is this an attempt to ‘convert’ all of us to Atheism? Is this some kind of "we’re better than you" parade? The short answer is no, but I’ll elaborate. I think it’s generally agreed upon that Atheists are far more accepted in this community than by society in general. Despite that fact, I think there is some strain and enmity surrounding religious differences here that we hope we can mitigate. If there is such a distinction to be made between "Militant Atheists" and "Live and Let Live Atheists," we are not attempting to be the former. We are trying to open up our ‘chocolate factories’ to let anyone interested in a tour discover the inner workings of how we make our candy. If you do not like candy, or aren’t interested in a tour, or just think Willy Wonka is creepy and don’t want to be around him, that’s cool. Just move along and enjoy your life as you see fit. If you are curious, or want to pontificate (ironic word choice, I know) a little with some fellow Atheists, then by all means join us.
We want to promote understanding of our perspective to facilitate good communication about religious and secular issues so we don’t end up talking past each other. And, as much as anything else, we love do discuss this stuff. Just as most of you here love to discuss politics, whether or not your doing so results in any tangible change, we love to discuss theology and philosophy. It’s just fun. So join in, and help us make it, and keep it fun.
Now, I’ll have to restrain myself from jumping right into this material. So I’ll proceed with the schedule of events:
(These Diary Titles and topic descriptions are subject to change by their writers. Schedule is subject to change and will be updated as diaries are posted if a change occurs. Diary Post times are left to the individual diarists to allow for flexibility in their schedule but should be between 8 AM and 6 PM PST.)
Sunday August 2nd – Introduction by your MC: (XNeeOhCon)
About the series, a schedule of events, and a topic overview for each coming diary. We discussed the idea of ‘militant’ atheism vs. ‘live and let live’ atheism, in the context of a discussion about the reason for the diary series (That being informative and entertaining, not proselytizing).
Tuesday August 4th – Topic 1 – Semantics – (Chicagoa)
We need to establish that without common definitions of key terms these conversations can spiral out of control with long tangent threads of people flaming each other the meaning of just one word. That is what we hope to accomplish in this diary. We need to have everyone understand the definitions we are working with, why we define these things in that way, and that it’s okay to disagree with our definitions, but everyone needs to understand them if they are to focus on the nuts and bolts of the debate.
Key words defined in this section:
*Atheist/Theist (fun with prefixes ‘A-’ and ‘Anti-’)
*Agnostic/Gnostic
*Spirituality vs. religion
*Scientific Method/Science
Thursday August 6th – Topic 2 – Belief – (Something the dog said)
We need to discuss the fallacy that Atheism is a belief that requires faith. Several of us have tried to tackle this one, and it is most certainly daunting, but we need to focus just on the frames people view the debate from, and how they shape their opinions in this debate. This picks up where our discussion of semantics leaves off.
Sunday August 9th – Topic 3 – Science, and Scientific Method - (Rfall)
There are a lot of people misinformed about this. Scientific method is often spoken of as something people have ‘faith’ in (again, a clever attempt to draw false equivalence between science and religion). We will attempt to clearly establish that science is a method and not a belief. Science is always in search of new information to expand and refine existing knowledge, as opposed to the religious impulse to prove that knowledge is finite so we therefore must rely on faith in some version of the unknowable to fulfill us.
Tuesday August 11th – Topic 4 – Religion’s Successes and Failures - (Something the dog said)
This diary is an Atheist’s view of the history of religion. What positive benefits it may have on society, and the negative side of organized religion, and unorganized spirituality. This is discussed with the caveat that no positive result of religion equates to a reason to believe in a god. This is religion as sociology, not theology.
Thursday August 13th – Topic 5 – Evolution – (Rfall)
We probably won’t get a lot of arguments about the validity of evolution from the Daily Kos community. However we need to discuss evolution in the context of scientific method, emphasizing the consensus between different fields of science, and the real meaning of the word ‘theory.’ Also, we’ll add a little about creationism in schools, the Kitzmiller v. Dover school board controversy in ’05, and the creationist museum.
Sunday August 16th – Topic 6 – Common Arguments and Misconceptions about Atheists - (Superbowl XX)
We run into some of these pretty frequently. A big one we need to discuss is "morality comes from religion." Another we must tackle is the "U.S. was founded by Christians/based on Christian principles" myth. We are reassuring Christians that we are not out to ‘get’ them and eat their babies, and discussing why we even need to reassure them. We will address irrational fears that Christianity is somehow being oppressed by ‘militant secularists’ and the gays.
Tuesday August 18th – Topic 7 – Creation, Cosmology, Deism, and the Space-Time Continuum. - (Chicagoa)
Chicagoa: This will be "a diary on cosmology - physics, logic, and theory - to explain to the haughty deists why we don't accept their First Cause or Kalam Cosmological arguments for the existence of a non-interventionist designer deity." This will possibly include a discussion of the philosophy of infinite/finite time and space, and explore the common misperceptions of Einstein’s and Hawking’s views of "God."
Thursday August 20th – Topic 8 – The Other Side of the Fence: Faith and Spirituality, (Rebuttal?) - (Colorado is the Shiznit)
Colorado is the Shiznit will lead the charge on this one, because the rest of us aren’t really qualified. We would like to have some discussion on what benefits many feel they get from faith and/or spirituality, and why they hold these beliefs. We would also like to get some kind of survey of religion/spiritual people’s perspective of Atheism/Atheists.
Tuesday August 25th - Conclusion; ‘Why We Care So Much’ - (XNeeOhCon, with input from all)
This one is pretty simple, but needs more attention. We need to make everyone see why we are so ‘obsessed’ with religion and what it really means to be Atheist in the United States. Within this section we will restate why we felt like participating in this series, and what we hoped to accomplish. We’ll try to tie up as many loose ends as possible and we will get some brief concluding statements from any of those who participated that would like to submit them.
In the Comments I would love to hear the thoughts and input from the Kos community about this series. Are we off the deep end? Naïve? Evil geniuses? Some other adjective or euphemism? Here’s your chance to flame away: