Funny cartoon on Friendly Atheist, starring Greta Christina, Minister, Focus on the Family.

The rest of the cartoon is equally funny. Wait ’til you see what Matt Dillahunty and PZ Myers are up to!

Oh, and if you don’t get the joke: Here’s some context.

This piece was originally published on AlterNet.

Why should religion, alone among all other kinds of ideas, be free from attempts to persuade people out of it?

We try to persuade people out of ideas all the time. We try to persuade people that their ideas about science, politics, philosophy, art, medicine, and more, are wrong: that they’re harmful, ridiculous, repulsive, or simply mistaken. But when it comes to religion, trying to persuade people out of their ideas is somehow seen as horribly rude at best, invasive and bigoted and intolerant at worst. Why? Why should religion be the exception?

I’ve been writing about atheism for about six years now. In those six years, I’ve asked this question more times, and of more different believers, than I could possibly remember. And not once have I gotten a satisfying answer. In fact, only once in my career do I recall getting any answer at all. I’ve asked this question more times than I can remember… and with one exception, what I’ve gotten in response has been crickets chirping and tumbleweeds blowing by. I’ve been ignored, I’ve had the subject changed, I’ve had people get personally nasty, I’ve had people abandon the conversation altogether. But only once have I ever gotten any kind of actual answer. And that answer sucked. (I’ll get to it in a bit.) I’ve heard lots of people tell me, at length and with great passion, that trying to persuade people out of their religion is bad and wrong and mean… but I haven’t seen a single real argument explaining why this is such a terrible thing to do with religion, and yet is somehow perfectly okay to do with all other ideas.

So I want to get to the heart of this matter. I don’t want to bring it up as a side point in another discussion: I want to focus on this question alone. Why should religion be treated differently from all other kinds of ideas? Why shouldn’t we criticize it, and make fun of it, and try to persuade people out of it… the way we do with every other kind of idea?

Can a Republican be an atheist?

Of course.

Can a long-time operative in the Republican party be an effective executive director of a national atheist/ secularist organization?

That’s a different question.

And can a long-time operative in the Republican party be an effective executive director of a national atheist/ secularist organization… when they respond to serious questions about whether their values are in alignment with the atheist community by evading, spinning, telling flat-out falsehoods, and generally treating with contempt the very community they were hired to represent?

That’s a very different question indeed.

When I first heard that the Secular Coalition for America had named a long-time Republican political operative, Edwina Rogers, as their new Executive Director, my first reaction was extreme skepticism. To put it mildly. Actually, my first reaction was the top of my head blowing off. But then I thought, “Calm down. Maybe this is one of those ‘only Nixon can go to China’ things. Maybe a Republican could be uniquely effective at pitching secularism to Congress, and to America. The people who hired her aren’t idiots. This is worth considering. Keep an open mind.”

But I did have some serious questions about her. I knew that other people in the community had serious questions about her — many of them the same questions I was having. And the materials I’d read about her seemed somewhat dodgy, not addressing any of these questions in any serious way. Ditto the interview she did with Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist. So when I was given the opportunity to interview Rogers and ask her these questions, I took it.

And I have come to the conclusion that this is a disaster.

Atheists are becoming a force to be reckoned with. They are a powerful ally when inspired to take action — and a powerful opponent when they’re treated like dirt.

Why would any organization or social change movement want to ally itself with a community that’s energetic, excited about activism, highly motivated, increasingly visible, good at fundraising, good at getting into the news, increasingly populated by young people, and with a proven track record of mobilizing online in massive numbers on a moment’s notice?

If you need to ask that — maybe you shouldn’t be in political activism.

And if you don’t need to ask that — if reading that paragraph is making you clutch your chest and drool like a baby — maybe you should be paying attention to the atheist movement.

The so-called “new atheist” movement is definitely not so new. Atheists have been around for decades, and they’ve been organizing for decades. But something new, something big, has been happening in atheism in the last few years — atheism has become much more visible, more vocal, more activist, better organized, and more readily mobilized — especially online, but increasingly in the flesh as well. The recent Reason Rally in Washington, DC brought an estimated 20,000 attendees to the National Mall on March 24 — and that was in the rain. Twenty thousand atheists trucked in from around the country, indeed from around the world, and stood in the rain, all day: to mingle, network, listen to speakers and musicians and comedians, check out organizations, schmooze, celebrate, and show the world the face of happy, diverse, energetic, organized atheism.

Atheists are becoming a force to be reckoned with. Atheists are gaining clout. Atheists are becoming a powerful ally when we’re inspired to take action — and a powerful opponent when we get treated like dirt.

Thus begins my latest piece for AlterNet, Why Atheists Have Become a Kick-Ass Movement You Want on Your Side. To read more, read the rest of the piece. (Which has also been reprinted in Salon.) Enjoy!