Hear, hear.

David, Great piece it is appropriate that this view should be aired. Sadly as one can see already the old adage is true there are none so blind as those who WILL not see (think!). Your piece was about atheism and already the Dogmas of extremism are attempting to hijack the conversation from the point.
I wonder why it is that most Atheists will respect the choices of the Religious as a personal choice yet the reverse is rarely true.

The mistake most people particularly religious people make is that humans are binary i.e. They either subscribe to their version of religious doctrine and are (morally) good or they’re heathens and therefore (morally) bad. This despite history like your piece discredits this comprehensively. I would add that People (regardless of religious persuasion) as an entity are neither but fall in distributive curve from the worst (?) at one end to the best (?) at the other. More accurately this distribution applies to every subject imaginable separately. The key point is that the correlation between one subject’s rating to the next is moot at best.

As a Secular Humanist I am also an atheist and less inclined to indulge in a seeming campaign of religion busting than Richard Dawkins appears to. Further to that I doubt that he intends to force conversion to his perspective only that rationality prevail a desirable requirement (if not mandatory) of ALL successful human contact (regardless of religious stance or acceptable philosophy).
More prosaically put every one is a combination of varying shades of good and bad.

Generalizations are grossly superficial and tend to lead towards simplistic and inaccurate judgements about individuals. Society is comprised of individuals not absolutes even groups contain a diversity of values and opinion. Even when applied to marketing it is of dubious human value.

Therefore I reject any system of thinkiing that relies on absolutes that require generalizations therefore terms like secular Humanist, Christian, Muslim, atheist are vaguely descriptive (almost ajectival) rather than absolute (definitional).

I think this article nicely shows how atheism leads to a loss of rationality.

Atheism can be considered a functional religion (it is a system of belief), but not a supernatural religion (Belief in something greater). This is clearly evidence by the fact that the first 2 secular humanist manifestos identified it as a religion.

Atheists may donate to charities, but they donate less that the conservative religious.
http://magicstatistics.com/2006/11/17/religious-conservatives-donate-far-more-than-secular-liberals/

Atheists do not have horns (nor do many people think they do), but they do tend to devalue things like honesty, kindness, concern for others etc compared with religious conservatives.
http://magicstatistics.com/2007/10/13/atheists-less-likely-to-think-interpersonal-virtues-important/

Indeed, religious freedom, which the author seems to value, is strongly correlated with the Christian tradition, as opposed to atheistic or islamic nations.
http://magicstatistics.com/2007/07/14/most-religiously-free-countries-have-christian-backgrounds/

It seems reasoned argument is not the bullwark of Atheism. Not only has reason been thrown out the door for propaganda, so has honesty. Citing Gregory S Paul is an even more egregious example of this particular atheists lack of reason or honesty.

Gregory S Paul's article is so thoroughly pathetic that only the atheists magazines dared reprint them.

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3094
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-10-061-r

Responses by George Gallup Jr provide a clear understanding of just how specious Paul's article really is.

But even appearing in the same journal as Paul's article, this thorough refutation shows the intellectual bankruptcy of Paul's article.
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2006/2006-1.html
"Paul does not provide the reader with a meaningful opportunity to evaluate his findings, for he provides no correlation coefficients. He also fails to determine or report the significance of these correlations, so the reader is left to trust Paul’s judgment that a negative correlation between theism and indicators of societal health has been established. Statistics exist so that we are not required to trust the subjective judgment alone, particularly in regard to matters as weighty as theism, democracy, and the social good."

I think that says it all. And anyone who positively quotes Paul is so biased as to lack the proper intellectual discernment for rational discussion.

If we are all born atheists and there is in fact no God, I would question how the idea of religion ever entered our head.
The fact is that humankind has a need to seek a higher power and that is why we have all the different religions.
I don't have a problem with people who follow religions that differ from my own, or for that matter people who have no religion at all. All I ask is that you respect my right to follow my own religious views.
I do have a problem with people who are intollerant towards other people's beliefs and that group mostly includes athiests, Muslims and some born again Christians.

Steel Mann, I am not a human being that "seeks a higher power." I'm not religious, but don't consider myself an atheist. I believe a lot of the blame for religious bigotry lies in the fact that for some unknown reason, mankind need to pigeon-hole others into various boxes. You're gay, you're straight, you're black or you're white, you're male or female, Liberal or Labor, rich or poor.........the list is endless.

My desire is to see tolerance from all sides. Humans like myself are just 'clever' animals. We're born, we live our lives and we die. No mystery in that. I believe that just like any other animal, when you shut your eyes for the last time and the "lights" got out, that all there is. Game over! Anyone out there care to try to pigeon-hole me?

Aimee

'Anyone out there care to try to pigeon-hole me?' Confused!