Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic

I think it is important to note that not all atheists are skeptics. I know a few who are anti-vaxxing, alt-med, conspiracy driven tools (especially after they attacked me for getting my H1N1 shot).

I agree with you a bit here, I'm still supporting the drive to show that atheists are human beings not monsters but the drive for science and reason is far more interesting (and needed) in my opinion.

Nathan: Bill Maher for example!

The efforts to blur the lines between atheism and skepticism will gain atheism very little and sharply limit the appeal of skepticism to a broader audience.

I'm with you on that... it gets boring after a while. But I do get crotchety at Catholicism once in a while since that was a major theme of my childhood, and I do enjoy discussing atheism/non-belief/agnosticism with genuinely curious believers.

It is important to keep atheism separate from skepticism and science outreach, since for the most part, it doesn't even matter to the subject at hand!

Hear Hear, I agree with you. I'm liking this whole skep 2.0 movement, and the burgeoning understanding that trying to shame and scream people out of their beliefs doesn't work (egads! really?).

Bless your heart, eh?

Skep 2.0? I can see I need to pay more attention. But it's pretty natural that atheism is boring (can you be an -ism if you don't believe in something?) since technically, that just says you don't believe in God. If you're defining 'skeptic' as 'non-believer', then I guess they are the same but actually, just because you don't believe in God, doesn't mean you don't believe in anything. I guess it's what you believe instead that is interesting. Isn't it?

Funny, I have always found atheism a somewhat boring topic and don't even recall a point at which I drew the conclusion that there was no supernatural being. Lately I find myself more interested, though.

The anti-science of creationists pisses me off as does the effort the religious right puts into convincing non-religious conservatives that the country was founded on christian principles. I am also dumbfounded by the way in which people claim god is responsible for everything good that happens.

I do not, however, promote atheism. It's all I can do to promote critical thinking.

By sticking to describing faith as a choice or value rather than a failure of critical thinking, I can actually use a student or family member's faith in ways that promote critical thinking. I don't find it all that difficult and I emphasize that the important thing is to recognize that faith is blind (by definition).

I'm so with you on this. My local nonbelievers group is the core of the local Drinking Skeptically but I want to talk about things OTHER than religious. I volunteered to talk at a regular meeting about it. It can be frustrating. I also wrote about it here: http://idoubtit.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/no-fraud-no-god/

http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/deist_skeptic_not_a_contradiction/

At the Global Atheist conference in March, 2010, I'll be talking about the research which reflects how there are indeed atheists who are not skeptics and vice-versa.

However in response to the commentator you mention - I think that yes, there IS indeed a need for philosophy. Being 'snotty' and dismissing it is dismissing the need for education. There are many ways people can work and to think that discussion and investigation does not have a place in changing things is misleading.

Just to be clear, I still see the value of philosophy and of the atheist/humanist disciplines, and indeed, I find them fascinating...I was steeped in some Bertrand Russell just a few weeks ago.

It's just that these days when I sit down and decide how I want to spend my activist/writing activities, the immediacy of alt-med in my own backyard takes priority. I'd feel like if I talked about god and atheism during time that I could be spending fighting alt-med's encroachment into Canadian legislaturea, that I'd be intellectually dishonest.

For a political economy guy like myself, intellectualism means nothing without praxis. The atheist project, as sympathetic as I am to it (and I am, a great deal) is spreading me too thin. I also fear that organized skepticism needs to sheer many of the dubious and artificial connections to atheism/humanism/secularism or be in danger of committing tactical suicide and being culturally ostracized (and skepticism is indeed, a largely cultural project).

I get tired very early when I get into a long discussion with the atheism-focussed contingent at SitP. Skepticism is SO much more than "there ain't no sky-daddy."

Yet on a certain level I think that religion is our biggest opponent. Who gets in the way of scientific education the most? Creationists! Anti-vax has a significant ally in Christian Science. Hell, there are even those who REALLY REALLY want bigfoot to exist so as to help explain the existence pre-sapient hominid fossils. Their filthy foolish fingers are in everything is seems sometimes.

When it comes down to it, it depends ont he circumstance, setting and my mood. Some days I too am bored stiff with atheism. It's not the be-all and end-all of skepticism - though for some people it seems it is. And other days I wake up wearing my Militant Atheist suit (with it's designer Dawkins tag) and want nothing more than to see the world rid of their often (though, you are correct, not exclusively) childish ignorance and irrationality.

A separate point...

Not to pull a SicPreFix on you, but... and I may be misreading you, but I personally do not see a distinction between the ridiculousness of people who want to rid themselves of thetans in order to get closer to Xenu, and that of those who believe in torturing a zombie to premptively forgive everyone who will ever live of their sins. As far as I'm concerned, they're all remedial morality.

I could rant on, but if I would, it would be better to just do my own damned blog post.

The key difference between the transparent cults and the major mainstream religions is not the theories behind them, but the systemic edifices built around them.

I was born, and baptized catholic. When I was in grade 8 I refused to get confirmed, and by the end of high school, I no longer considered myself a catholic (despite going to a catholic elementary and high school). By the time I started university, I was full-blown atheist.

The catholic church has never once tried to bully me, sue me, threaten me, or bankrupt me or my family. Unlike Scientology, the Branch Davidians, or the Raelians, I'm perfectly free to leave.

Just like the theory of homeopathy is meaningless compared to whether or not it can deliver the goods. Same goes for religion: who cares what the theory behind it all if most of the rank-and-file are more concerned with community and family? Even if their pope comes down with some crazy jibbery-joob, if the majority of Catholics reject it, then I'm going to stand clear of criticizing the church for something the pope says. If the pope tells people not to get vaccinated, and they don't, then that's a problem with the pope, not the church.

That's where I draw the line. And I find that skeptics can easily fall prey to reducing complex social and cultural mores into numbers and equations with a common denominator.

Already, I'm bored talking about this ;)

Reed you are absolutely right about Bill Maher. That man is not a skeptic, not after all the ridiculous comments he makes about toxins and "western medicine".

There is a place for activism of both the atheist and skeptical varieties but the overlap isn't as broad as some would think.

I agree that it's tactically advantageous for skepticism to separate itself from atheism.

That being said, I can't seem to accept the idea that the thoughts and principles behind skepticism and theism are compatible. Regardless of whether or not there are theistic skeptics.

Mitchell I think if the theist can come to terms with their beliefs not being grounded in evidence then it doesn't matter. Not all denominations though make it that easy.

Now I probably sound like a condescending ass for the way that came out.