Meh, overthinking. I'll just go on believe in God. Who is different from Tina Fey: Tina Fey is god.

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*Something about Russell being questioned on what if when he died, it turned out there was a god, and what would he say then? "Not enough evidence God, not enough evidence" (or words to that effect).

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At least, that's how I ended up as a religious studies major.

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@mfnher: Worse comes to worst, there's always Tina Fey!

@Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith: Heh. Imagine that - gettin' all sassy with God! And I think she'd be good natured about it, you know, the way Lydia Hearst is about Gawker. :-)

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(I'm pretty sure LH just does it to stoke the publicity though)

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I love religious trials, I always thought I would have made a grand inquisitor.

Also, you live in a country with Jedis?!? I now have so many more questions....

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I'm from New Zealand. And Lloyd Geering was not guilty, not that it made him any less notorious!

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So...what should it be used for? Because you're kind of going against a millennia-old tide if you want to use religion for something other that furthering an agenda.

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I can't really elaborate on that because I'm working with the pages Amazon has posted and not the real book, but if you've read any Tillich, you know he usually makes a pretty tight philosophical case. I really need a refresher on him.

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I mean, you never see a guy saying, "Religion is an essential condition of the human spirit, which is why I just made up my own to fulfill that need." It's always a theologian somewhere who's already part of a tradition who asserts the need to be a part of a tradition.

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It's funny, I was just talking to my friend Ed, who is a pastor, about this on Monday, and he suggested that it wasn't semantic bullshit to say that, and I had to argue that it is, in fact, semantic bullshit. It seems to me to be an attempt to redefine the term "religion" to also include non-religion, so that being religious is the necessary default condition of human beings.

But, if that's true, then the word "religion" doesn't really mean anything, because it applies to everything equally, and there's some other difference between the religious and the irreligious that explains the different thought modality, and we're really just arguing about that thing, instead.

This is a vocabulary shift, really, not a shift in argument.

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I mean, I'm not trying to move the goalposts here. I'm just wondering if we took a bunch of people of different faiths and managed to boil down what they got out of believing to some kind of overarching answer, and then took a bunch of atheists and managed to boil down what they got out of not believing, whether the two answers wouldn't be the same. I tend to think they would.

And I guess we could call it something besides "religion," if that did turn out to be the case. But there would have to be some way of acknowledging that, regardless of what the individual content looked like, it was the same quality in every person.

Anyway, I see your point. I will reread the book I cited.

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(Srsly? Do penguins even exist in the Northern Hemisphere? This is somewhat ironic, given that down here we usually go to the beach on Christmas Day).

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Similar ecological niches in the Northern Hemisphere are occupied by other birds, most notably puffins.

Yes, I am a geek.

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I won't even discuss celery sticks in this setting.

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At first read, that struck me as profoundly ironic, although I take it they didn't mean it that way.

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I guess you right, then. Since those people don't exist, Atheists should just chill out, and not stand up for themselves or fight back.

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The bottom line is zealotry, extremism in all forms is unwelcome. I have the same tinge of "uck" when I hear a militant Muslim, Christian, or athiest blather away. The problem is, they're all just as bad. And frankly, for the "athiest lobby" to fight fire with fire is, IMHO, pretty dumb. You cannot defeat extremism, but you can contain it with reason. This, to me, is just antagonistic, and raising the stakes.

That being said, Christmas has always been pretty pleasant for me, and for my many, many heathen friends.

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Not really marginalized then, so much as they are well-funded and highly organized!

And, frankly, I'm starting to wonder if there's any way to fight fire except with fire. The problem being that extremism isn't a reasonable position, so it plainly can't be fought with reason--after all, if the people that hold extremist beliefs were susceptible to reason, they wouldn't have extremist beliefs in the first place.

Extremism is the product of good advertising. Advertising a contrary position seems like a pretty viable approach to me.

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I don't think these are great ads, but I think the idea behind them is still right.

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The problem being that extremism isn't a reasonable position, so it plainly can't be fought with reason--after all, if the people that hold extremist beliefs were susceptible to reason, they wouldn't have extremist beliefs in the first place.

That's a bogus argument. "Extreme" views (however ambiguous that term is) are not necessarily beyond reason. I can be an "extremist" Socialist, but you can reason with me. It's when my specific view eliminates debate and argument (which some, but not all views do) that I move beyond the world of reason. Most Christians I know are not there, and it's a minority (not a plurality) who are. The silent plurality might just be going with its gut (for example, against gay marriage), and it's up to you to convince them against/for whatever positions you're advocating. But shaking your fist and cursing all Christians is futile. And as for fighting extremism with extremism, you're the same bucket of crazy as the crazies you disdain. May all of you piss each other off to the natural end point of such an "argument."

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Take it from someone who's done this: basing a church/state argument (even only in part) on the inner beliefs of T.J. and G.W. is a loser. I understand the appeal (it's a convenient argument), but you're wrong.

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"...but leave it to the courts and the various groups actively lobbying Congress to pounce each time the balance is upset (one way or the other). Don't sit at home knitting in silent agony over the separation between church and state disappearing."

Am I supposed to leave it to the courts and the various lobbying groups--which would entail me, presumably, sitting at home knitting in some kind of agony, anyway--or am I supposed to lobby with them? You need to make up your mind here.

"That's a bogus argument. "Extreme" views (however ambiguous that term is) are not necessarily beyond reason. I can be an "extremist" Socialist, but you can reason with me."

Okay, sorry, no. This is a bogus argument, because by putting "extreme" in quotes and calling it ambiguous necessarily means that you can't make universal statements about it. If you can't decide what "extremist" means, then you can't positively say that I can reason with an extremist.

Now, what I was talking about was this: that extremist positions are necessarily unreasonable ones. That's what makes them extremist--that is, they take an ideology and push it past its reasonable limits. Or rather, beyond the extremes of its reasonable limits. Therefore: by definition unreasonable. If you mean something else by "extreme," you could at least have the courtesy to let me know what that is, rather than just arguing as though we mean the same thing when we plainly don't.

"And please, don't conflate social issues that are informed by religious positions with the church/state issue."

Sorry, but I haven't done this. I'm opposed to extremist Christians making laws in support of their ideological beliefs because I believe that those beliefs are wrong--though I think it's a fair bet to say that a state making a law that specifically supports one religion's attitude towards homosexuality does, indeed, constitute a violation of the Establishment clause, I'm not the one that brought up the separation of Church and State. You are correct in saying that it's up to me to stop these people, and quite right to suggest that I should not be making laws prohibiting their religious freedoms, nor should I (practically speaking) be simply shaking my fist at them.

That is why I believe that a campaign of advertisements, carefully designed, planned and implemented, as a way of undermining people's faith in the religion that produces such deluded views, is a superior course of action. Advertising, as we know, does work and, surprisingly, it works a lot better when it doesn't try to be reasonable--lending credence to the theory that, in fact, most people believe what they believe not because it's reasonable, but for some other reason, and that if you want to change their minds then tapping into that other reason is the important thing.

Finally: no one gives a shit what religion the Founding Fathers were except for Christians. Of the existing Ten Commandments, only one can be said to even vaguely resemble anything in the US Constitution. Five do not appear anywhere at all, and the remaining four are specifically contradicted by it. If the Founding Fathers were interested in weaving their religion into the fabric of the new republic, they could have done a hell of a lot better job than that.

Moreover, if their religion was right, then they could have appeared to us as angels in times of need and informed us about what they really meant.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they haven't done this. Yet.

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Am I supposed to leave it to the courts and the various lobbying groups--which would entail me, presumably, sitting at home knitting in some kind of agony, anyway--or am I supposed to lobby with them? You need to make up your mind here.

Do whatever you want. You can lobby with them, or don't. But crusading against Christians will have no effect. Shoving the "THERE IS NO GOD" line down my throat will have no effect on any kind of social progress. I'm speaking practically: you can be engaged by staying in the loop as courts weigh it out, or take appropriate and direct action(s), or just sit pretty. It don't matter to me - but attacking religious beliefs? Attacking "Christmas," whatever it has come to stand for? Futile.

Extremism

My putting it in quotes and saying the term is somewhat ambiguous was just a little CYA for both of us. My main point is that the full meaning of "extremism" essentially varies with belief(s). An "extreme" Buddhist represents something different to the world than an "extreme Christian" or "extreme Muslim." You can't divorce the "extreme" from the creed/belief/faith. Frankly, the world would probably be much better if we had extremist Buddhists running around. That aside, I don't think fighting extremism with extremism is ever good. It leads to polarization, entrenchment, and basically squashes the possibility of progress or compromise. Yet what we have here is an escalation by the militant athiest lobby aimed at what is - IMHO - an already secularized beyond belief holiday.

I'm opposed to extremist Christians making laws in support of their ideological beliefs because I believe that those beliefs are wrong...That is why I believe that a campaign of advertisements, carefully designed, planned and implemented, as a way of undermining people's faith in the religion that produces such deluded views, is a superior course of action.

No, it's an utterly daft course of action. You have to realize that folks don't sit there and go through the thought process of "So, gay marriage. Hm, I'm Christian. My beliefs are based on the Bible. It condemns gay marriage. Then I am against it." Your argument basically presupposes that this is the thought process. It's not. For social issues like gay marriage, and, to some extent, abortion, it's a gut reaction. It's not a theological issue. Shaking one's belief in God will not, contrary to your position, alter one's position on gay marriage. And frankly, these ads are hardly "carefully designed, planned and implemented." I could think of much better ads (for either side) that would do the trick better. These are pointed, hamfisted, and as I said earlier, attack an already secularized holiday that is at best nominally theologically significant at this point.

Finally: no one gives a shit what religion the Founding Fathers were except for Christians. Of the existing Ten Commandments,...

Uh, who said anything about the Ten Commandments? The bottom line is the religion influenced the founders' views, and the way they laid out the groundwork for this nation. Period. I'm not saying I want to drop an Old Testament obelisk in front of any court houses, just that this is an inescapable fact that you simply need to deal with. Does it mean we need to legislate or rule one way or another? NO. But it's a fact, and it's part of the reason Christmas is a holiday, and religion plays the role it does in this country. I know this gnaws away at you (and others, with good reason), but fist-thumping and campaigns like this won't change it.

Moreover, if their religion was right, then they could have appeared to us as angels in times of need and informed us about what they really meant.

Nice, because that's what Christianity is all about. God love the Hitchens in you!

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I'm guessing that my understanding of how a State recognizes a wedding officiated by a religious cleric is probably wrong though (and where the above line of argument would fall apart).

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