X-Message-Number: 20513
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:13:21 -0600
From: Jeff Dee <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #20504 - #20507
References: <>

Joesph A Zarka <> wrote:
> 
> Yvan Writes, The only solution, kill them when you can!
> 
> No Yvan that is not what atheist activism is about, and is
> nothing I condone. Atheist activism lobbys legislators for 
> fair laws for all and educates the public about the myths of
> religion, ALL religion. Just to name a few.


On top of being unethical and presumptuous, using violence to combat religion 
simply doesn't work.


If killing theists were an effective way of ending religion, religion would 
already be extinct. Theists have been killing EACH OTHER for millennia.


Obviously the meme has evolved survival mechanisms against that kind of threat. 
Christianity's pre-emptive declaration of persecution is one good example: when 
violence is used against Christians, they claim that since the Bible predicted 
that their religion would annoy people, it's proof of the Bible's miraculous 
prophetic powers (rather than merely proof that Christianity annoyed people even
in Biblical times).


The key to stemming the spread of religious superstition can be summed up in 
three words: education, education, education. When one is knowledgeable about 
even the mere basics of astronomy, physics, and biology it becomes awfully 
difficult for a meme carrying baggage about talking donkeys, fermented water, 
and "souls" to find a foothold.

-Jeff Dee

-- 
"It is as morally bad not to care whether a thing is true 
or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to 
care how you got your money as long as you have got it."
-Edmund Way Teale, "Circle of the Seasons", 1950

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* * * AA #1355 - Knight of the BAAWA since 10/26/99 * * *

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