Deep Rifts in Seattle


This is fast becoming the theme of news stories about atheists this year: that there are differences in tactics in the atheist community, with some people being more in-your-face about it (yours truly takes a bow), and others wanting to be more conciliatory towards religion. Well, how surprising that a movement of diverse freethinkers who value critical thinking, skepticism, and open argument, and which lacks either a charismatic central leader or a hierarchy of control, might have members with diverse views…

Here’s another example of journalists jumping on the bandwagon: a story about the Freedom From Religion Foundation meeting in Seattle, in which different people have different tactics.

Ho hum. Let me know when the atheists appoint a pope and start erecting monuments listing dogma and doctrine. That will be news-worthy. The revelation that atheists are a fractious bunch? Not so much.