I was raised in the Church of England and would now regard myself as an agnostic. That’s not just a default position. It’s not just a half-way house to coming out as an atheist. No-one in the UK cares if you are atheist or not.

There are atheists who are not skeptics and there are skeptics who are not atheists.

I understand why an atheist in the US can take a different view. You folks are under attack and intimidation in ways that we only really see in the fundamentalist Muslim community. But there is a subtle as well as an overt danger in that. Your religious right see themselves as fighting a cultural war. They want you folks to build yourselves a ghetto. You NEED allies and your natural allies are agnostics and thinking (as opposed to fundamentalist) religious types.

There’s a place for sharp-edged atheism. I love George Hrab’s work and we of course have the estimable Dawkins. But don’t be fundamentalist about this. Skeptics don’t have to be atheists and if you say they do then it serves neither movement very well.

Not that evidence shown to me would be simply discarded by in the way believers seem to do when things don’t seem to add up . If there was evidence, that could be proven, I would be fasinated and drawn to it like the Holy Grail. But once again, I don’t see that ever coming to pass, without an occurrence of stupendous magnitude.

But at the same time, I don’t find it in my heart to believe that I am therefore given a right or bound to any Crusade to turn people around to my thought. I truly believe that the only people that can become an Atheist, are those people that have approached and accepted the concepts themselves.

We can never win the religious argument, because too many people use the concept of God to defend themselves from the fears, realities, inequities and prejudices of the world. Remember, they are looking for the same answers that we have searched for as well. Don’t simply use stereotypes or paintbrush tactics. They are narrow minded concepts and we should be better that all that. But we can, through reason, slowly win many hearts and minds that are now looking beyond religion. And remember, force only creates resentment. Rationalism and reason will create change.

I just came across your blog via The Young Australian Skeptics.

You’ve got some nice posts. I look forward to reading more.

Bye :)