Not my words, more's the pity.
"At the Reason Rally last weekend Richard Dawkins plead with those in attendance to rid our world of religion. But it wasn’t enough to preach to the choir (hehe) and reaffirm their atheist beliefs. Dawkins urged the 20,000 in attendance to ridicule religion and show contempt for religion.
This is further than previous calls to action by atheists. It used to be enough to challenge believers to debate, publish books and articles, but now Dawkins wants atheists to verbally attack religious people. Let me get right out and say it, this is really really bad idea.
Now, I do sympathize with many of the ideas that Dawkins teaches. I think that politics and government policy should not be decided by religious beliefs. This is not because I think religious beliefs are inherently bad or wrong, in fact, I am in favor of many religious beliefs. I am a religious person myself. I think religion can and should play a strong an important role in our lives. But I don’t think it is fair or correct for one particular religion to rule our thinking and public policy. Every religion has mutually exclusive beliefs and all religious beliefs are exclusive of atheist beliefs. Our government should not favor one over the other. On this, Dawkins and I somewhat agree.
But now Dawkins is pushing harder. He is no longer simply concerned with eliminating religious beliefs from government, he wants to eliminate religion. Period. Not only does he want to eliminate religion but he wants atheists to be confrontational and to mock religious people.
There are a few problems with this proposal.
First of all, in my experience very little comes from confrontation. Most people reinforce their beliefs when confronted or ridiculed.
Second of all, if the platform of atheist is reason and rationality then mocking others hardly reinforces that notion. Stick to your principles, don’t resort to bully tactics.
Third of all (and most importantly), there is nothing wrong with people holding religious beliefs! People are free to believe as they choose. Several studies and talks discuss the importance of religion in people’s lives even if it would be shown to be false! The issue is not whether people should believe in God or hold religious beliefs. The issue is whether those beliefs should play a prominent role in a melting-pot society. There are excellent arguments to be made on both sides of that issue. Ridicule is not an argument.
Frankly, I am disappointed by this development. Hopefully, atheists and believers can come together to create the best possible society for everyone; a world free of mockery and ridicule.