Funny how you’ve written off the supposed “movement” because “it is a little bit of human arrogance to say I KNOW there is no god”. If you’re familiar at all with the definition of “atheist”, you would know that the word means someone who does not believe in a god or gods. It does not mean someone who has knowledge of the non-existence of anything whatsoever. In fact, the only group commonly proclaiming knowledge either way is believers who have had some kind of compelling personal experience and who KNOW there IS one. And if you have actually read “The God Delusion”, you would have come across Dawkins’ belief scale, and would have read about the fact that not even Richard Dawkins himself is a Level 7 strong atheist who is “100% sure there is no God.” In fact, very few people are.

I would argue that it is more than a little bit of human arrogance to contemplate the universe and to conclude that there is a loving God who created everything for our benefit, gave us eternal souls, and is so concerned with what we think of him that he decides whether to eternally reward or punish us based on whether we accept him or not. That’s true arrogance, in my book. But perhaps that doesn’t fit your definition of the three-letter word “god.” But see, that’s what atheists are concerned with: the fact that most people who use the word have something like my concept in mind, not a wishy-washy amorphous Taoist concept like yours. (“Collective unconscious”? Give me a break, hippy!) Good for you, you’ve successfully discarded all of God’s traditional and harder-to-defend traits so that nothing is left but a poorly defined, uncontroversial, and in practice nearly meaningless nice idea. And if I still reject that, I guess I should just go out and spend all the money I make from my dead-end job at the strip club, huh?

How many people at shelters, animal rescues etc. do you question their religious beliefs? I know the Society of Edmonton Atheists organizes blood drives routinely and brings out a dozen people (for a group with a membership floating under 50 still).

Not saying atheists are evil, lazy, self centered or anything…. but it is a little bit of human arrogance to say I KNOW there is no god… I think this speaks volumes for the whole movement.

After all god is only a 3 letter word written in english… its definition can be different for everybody. If your looking for a bearded man who lives in the clouds, spoke to a talking snake, and judges you when you die… well yeah thats probably quite foolish. If your looking for a name for our collective unconscious, or the ‘end result’ of a culmination of our own decisions… than the word ‘god’ works quite well… is Taoism it might be called ‘The Way’. Oddly enough even most of the religious teachings dont seems so crazy when you remove the fairy tale nonsense and human stupidity that has been injected over the years.

I find it highly unfortunate that many atheists on the left spend so much time bashing religion, attacking the judgment and character of believers (after all, moderates enable the crazies don’t they) rather than understanding that it’s not what you believe–it’s what you do. And there are many Christians, Muslims and Jews that are resisting the powers that be in much more tangible terms than many left activists.

I’m a member of the NDP, just to make that clear.