Despite previous efforts, I don't know where I stand… So can I be on your list please, Squeers?

I'm fairly certain I can't be a moral vacuum, because people have told me I'm 'full of it'.

So you keep saying, Mr Nicholls

>>Atheism today is more than just acknowledging the lack of evidence for a god or gods which is roughly the position that atheism started with<<

But your justification for this position remains unconvincing.

Your arguments are perfectly circular. The only reason your organization exists is because you assert that your form of atheism is something new, and therefore, because it is new, your organization's existence is justified.

On examination, atheism itself has not changed at all - it remains the intellectual position that denies the existence of a supreme being or deity. At which point the need for "newness" evaporates.

So you need further justification:

>>It is the realisation that there is a great deal of harm done in the name of religion... [so] the AFA concentrates on the bad as it needs altering<<

So we can forget the atheism schtick. After all, you don't need to be a member of the Greens to object to chemical pollution in our rivers. In the same way, you don't need to be atheist to object to genital mutilation in Somalia, favourable tax treatment for Scientologists, the domination of school chaplaincy by the ACL etc.

And it would be reasonable to expect, would it not, that a group that identifies such harm as being the rationale for its own existence, would find it important to lobby against it. Yet you dismiss this approach, and by your own admission measure yourselves purely on how much you upset people.

You said:

>>Your priorities might be submissions to government but there are other ways to inform the Australian population that they are being had by religion. The AFA is obviously very effective at doing that as is seen by some of the inanity and fear induced comments emanating from a number of quarters including those that are religious<<

Yeah, right. Very effective.

Your organization seems to do nothing more than pontificate at great length, about how wonderful it is that we have an organization that, well... pontificates at great length.

A moment of self-awareness is, I suggest, long overdue.

I find it really interesting that I come onto a forum without a skerrick of worry where I know there will be the idiot self-serving factor for no good reason but the very same folk who express these traits have failed to take up my suggestion of going onto an atheist forum and expressing their uh hum, ‘ideas’ to an audience who may challenge them in detail.

I wonder is it insecurity, fear, stupidity, lack of self-confidence or some other factor at work? I guess we will never know but it is interesting watching the pointless shenanigans here. I’m sure there is an appreciative audience who would agree with me.

Pericles, having to explain something twice leaves me with no doubt you are incapable of honest thought.

David

WmTrevor,
I enjoyed your wit above and would be delighted to have you in my apparently exclusive camp. But one craves his lordship's indulgence withal; to paraphrase Wilde, the only thing worse than being patronised is not being patronised!

David Nichols,
clearly you're with the marketing department. If you're not organising book launches for your ideologues, it's Atheist Convention memorabilia, or it's trying to get the AFA on the social media register.
But if you're going to be successful in the marketing game you've got to learn to ingratiate yourself with the Hoi polloi of OLO.
I think it's a delicious irony that you haven't raised a murmur from the substantial theist camp here, but that you've made a great success of alienating atheists : )
Clearly you're a man of great charisma, but some atheists take their free-thinking seriously, and prefer to avoid personality cults.
Why do the New Atheists refuse to debate issues on OLO?
A few toothless attack-dogs were released recently but were quickly recalled and otherwise sent packing with their tails between their legs, unable to sustain any kind of defence of the New Atheist stand (which is what?), let alone offence.
I hope you're not intimidated debating the issues at OLO?
Do you really suggest dissenters would receive a fair hearing at your presumably stilted venue? OLO is at least eclectic.
Not that I'm intimidated, it might be amusing to sally forth, I just don't see why I need to repeat there what I've said already here.
OLO is neutral ground and by far the most suitable venue to ventilate your ethos.
But if the brethren are too timid, might I suggest you give notice, here on this thread, the next time something weighty is being thrashed out there?

Oh dear. I thought I was on the list. Never mind.

>>Pericles, having to explain something twice leaves me with no doubt you are incapable of honest thought.<<

Significantly, you harbour no doubts at all that it might be your explanation that was at fault.

Must be comforting for you, that feeling of infallibility.

>>...my suggestion of going onto an atheist forum and expressing their uh hum, ‘ideas’<<

There are such things? What can they possibly discuss? Presumably, they have already decided that gods don't exist, before they arrive there.

But by all means, recommend a couple, I'd love to take part.

Should I expect them to be inhabited by a whole lot of David Nicholls?

That would be fun.

I wonder, if Atheistic thoughts and principles could be quantified, anthropomorphised and miniaturised...
How many could dance on the head of a pin?
David, I honestly think the Abyss is having a long hard gecko at you.