Hello everyone once again. After chatting with sapient, I decided to go a different route with this blog.

Instead of a bunch of links to various articles, which would be better in a newsletter format. We decided to pick one story in the news and comment on it. So here it is, in a recent issue of the economist they posted this article, linked here, in which they said.

"But another failing of the irreligious movement has been its tendency, frequently, to pick the wrong fights. Keeping the Ten Commandments out of an Alabama courthouse is one thing. But attacking a Christmas nativity scene on public property does more harm than good. Such secular crusades allow Christians—after all, the overwhelming majority of the country—to feel under attack, and even to declare that they are on the defensive in a “War on Christmas”. When a liberal federal court in California struck the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, religious conservatives rallied. Atheists might be tactically wise to accept the overwhelming majority’s comfort with such “ceremonial deism”.

While a very polite route to take imo, the ONLY way for american atheists to get into the news these days is by using these exact tactics, I would love to see american media report on how ministers in africa have said on the record that condoms cause aids instead of helping prevent it. I won`t hold my breath on that happening anytime soon however.

Happily, in the op-eds, Lori Lipman Brown makes the same point here.

"However, in response to your advice about "branding" our nontheist constituency, we don't intend to avoid issues that anger the religious right, as you suggest. The fact is, this group is angered every time we raise our voices - be it our concern over the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance (something you consider a red herring, but which has actually been used to torment schoolchildren in parts of the Bible belt) or proselytising in the military (an issue you view as legitimate). "

I guess us atheists CAN agree on something afterall.