I have to agree with the folks who are saying no to a new "challenge" and suggesting educational/outreach ideas instead. Recycling Bibles or Korans is ultimately a waste of paper and only symbolic. RRS and atheist causes have enough attention right now that, if our minds are put together, we can actually change something in the US or Europe. Another showy gimmick would just delay real change.

How about burning the bible on youtube? have each of us explain why the bible is disgusting and burn it on camera.

so, anything sticks out as a possibility?  we gonna have an opinion poll?

What about something like "Find an atheist"?

Then again, maybe it would be too dangerous...

No offence guys, but I think a lot of people are taking the wrong angle here. What are we trying to do? Change people's minds or just chase publicity? The RRS has got plenty of publicity recently - what is doing things solely for the purpose of publicity going to achieve? We need to use what we have now to start making a difference! The bible recycling idea would be great if feasible - it would combine both. I think we should be doing more to either raise funds for worthy causes or trying to dispel misconceptions and educate the misinformed with a large scale project. It's the average Joe Christian's poor understanding of issues like stem cell research and evolution that allows church leaders to mobilize them to work against the progression of science and society - that is what we should be trying to change!

82abhilash,

While I support you in flagging these listings, should it make you feel better, I don't have a problem with the listings.  People are perfectly within their rights to search for a room mate that meets all of the traits they desire.  You have the right to think less of those people as a result, but I don't see the need to attempt to restrict it.  People have the right to prefer certain people over other people.

 

I agree, indeed religion is a topic that may come up in any discussion with regards to getting a room-mate, but then again so is the question of whether your future room-mate is a porn star - perfectly legal, but socially not preferred. After all, it is a person you are going to live with and you need people who can at least respect each other before you live with them. 

 

However, declaring it before hand publicly in an ad is obvious bigotry, especially when it violates the letter of the law. After all no one tolerates a personal ad or a room-mate ad with a 'whites only' or 'no coloreds' sign. Indeed in the past age of racial tension, you could have used this argument to facilitate people who discriminated by skin color, I think it must have been. 

 

 

This is similar because, you are publicly declaring your intolerance and your pride in it. You are judging a person, largely by the accident of his birth and not by the content of his character. People of different religions who come together are usually not fundamentalists, few people are, most just admire fundamentalists or tolerate, some even hate them. The tolerance of this behavior will impede people from coming together and talking about real issues, that supersede their religious differences.

 

As private behavior, you are entitled to it, some people still are privately racist, I wouldn't want to live with them, and if they express their displeasure when they see me, I will politely remove myself from their company, you and me will do the same if we get the inkling that the people we are about to live with are too devoutly religious, people are already finding polite excuses not to stay with gays and I AM OK WITH ALL THAT. It is a private belief and people are privately choosing their friends and partners and living mates based on language sexual orientation, race, gender and a lot other things that as a society, we do not tolerate. People have and will continue to have rights over the own private opinion and some control over how they consequently arrange their private lives.

 

But you cannot openly say 'no Gays allowed' in a public forum, that is bigotry, like that this is bigotry, too. In a public forum such behavior must be condemned, because it is against the letter and spirit of the law of the land and corrosive to the concept of a society based on equality.

 

I fully embrace the notion that people can look for desirable traits among people they choose to live with. However, if the desirable trait is against the letter of the law and our common spirit of fairness, they must have the decency to obey the law and express their preferences in religiously-neutral terms in a public forum. I sense that this is the essence of the Fair Housing Act. 

 

Consequently, in this case, I only have a problem with people expressing such bigoted views in an open forum. If they want people who support their views why not join a forum that is exclusively for such people? Or use informal networks? Religion creates highly cohesive societies, is that not what they say?

 

In the real world everyone must play firstly by the rules that we all must abide by and that is the letter of the law. Craigslist is open to everyone so such ads must have no place there. And sense it is community driven, we must take the first step in upholding the law there. You can stay with anyone you choose, but please don't express your bigotry on a public forum.

Here's an idea I was talking about with one of my friends tonight.  How about a scholarship program for Atheists?  Supporters of the RRS could donate some cash and we could come up with a scholarship for $250 or $500 and give it to an Atheist student that comes up wins some essay contest.

 I don't know about how to get a RRS scholarship listed with all the others but it would serve as an outreach for those Atheists who are experiencing the freedom of higher education to find out that there are Atheist communities out there.  A scholarshp, albeit small, would be a positive impact on someone's life.  In return the RRS would get bragging rights for doing something positive and contributing to a person's eduction.  Fundies often beg for cash so they can spend it on material posessions while the Atheists are giving it away for a public good to finance the next Richard Dawkins.

TONS.  I think there's a church for every individual in this county.   As an out-of-the-closet atheist, I couldn't exactly do this incognito.  I would be very worried about repercussions because I'm under the thumb of fundies (long story).

Could I cross-dress and introduce myself as "Fred"? 

I thought it was a good idea.

Also, I really can't see how advertising who you want and don't want to live with is displaying pride in bigotry. If anything, it makes the process more convenient and efficient. The results will be the same regardless, so you might as well let it out from the get go.

I like most of the ideas.
Sorien's in particular, but also the others.
The ones involving setting up booths and raising money didn't appeal to me, perhaps I'm too lazy for such active activism!
I'd be up for drawing Muhammad, (I've actually got an idea for a 3 frame comic strip) but I'd probably want to do it anonymously. I live in a city in England that has a large amount of Pakistani and Indian immigrants, which is fine only the odds are that there will be atleast one group of fundy militants, ready to take me out!

Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid and lacking faith in my own authorities but Muslims have managed to kill in England before (there have been odd honour killings), not that they got away with it or but I'd rather not die, even if they got sent down for it!
We saw how angry they got last time a cartoon was drawn.

I still think that we should do it but try to remain as anonymous as possible? It's how the anti-Islamic websites like Ali Sina's work too. The thing that concerns me is that even if each entry was anonymous, the challenge itself would be traced to Brian and while your address isn't revealed, they might find a way?

Just be sure not to use copyrighted music on this one, otherwise the video might be taken down for hate-cri... I mean copyright violation!

I think that's a pretty good awareness-raising idea. We'd have to find a way to mass produce simple items that can be given out (like clothes patches, buttons etc) or sold very cheaply (t-shirts, hats). It would have trouble getting wide enough attention unless there were a very large number of people who owned the clothes, as not many people will wear the same couple of t-shirts every day, so making it cheap enough for any student walking by would be very important.

Clothes patches (that you sew or iron on) would be fairly easy to produce en masse and give away, I think. People can put them on backpacks and take them to uni every day, with symbols like the evolve fish or whatever. Because those sorts of patches aren't very big, you couldn't fit a bible verse on it, but you could give the book and verse number on a plain background or something, then churchy-types would pull out their bibles and see it in their own books. Just an idea.

A few could be made and just given to high profile celebrities who support science over superstition.  Should they be seen wearing them in public then the message could be seen by millions and adopted by groupies.  Copying celebrities tends to be the way these fads are started.

If we follow this route the message should be small and simple so it can be easily read from a photograph.  Something like, "A moment of science".

The campaign would be simple but I don't see how it would be as effective.  There are millions of Jesus fish trailing the ends of cars but not exactly influential in itself. 

Not to mention the fact that there are millions of theists like myself who do not see science and faith as mutually exclusive.  Whether you agree with this position or not, the effect of this sort of slogan campaign would be lost on such people.  On those who propose a literal interpretation of Scripture (read: Young Earth Creationists, etc.), I think that a scientific slogan campaign would not have the desired effect, but would instead only inspire such people to ramp up evangelizing efforts to the atheist community. 

Which leads me back to my own suggestion, which is if you wish to engage theists about their so-called "irrational beliefs", then the only real effective way to do this is through rational debate with the religious community's more learned apologists, not through PR stunts and ad campaigns.

The Saint

Now here's a way we can get reality out to 50 million people.  Some of you may have heard about Al Gore's Current TV where they broadcast viewer made shows called Pods:

http://www.current.tv/make/vc2/pods

Essentially they are the stuff that's put on Youtube but the people vote on whether or not it's good enough to be put on the air. Unlike Youtube you'll get paid for acceptence.

It could be a project in it's own where someone makes a short documentary or it could be used to promote whatever issue the RRS decides to take on.

Now here's a scenario dragged from personal experience.  Local churches were paying to get "In god we trust" posters in public schools.  As a result I went to speak at the local school board against these promotions of religion.  Everyone who spoke that day was against the posters including Christians.  Nevertheless the fundy on the board told me I was wasting everyone's time and that I should be focused on the war effort and children were starving (therefore the best option must have been hanging the posters up).  It turned out to be a failure.

Now if I had documented on film the entire event from the initiation of the problem to the final remarks of the fundy it would have made for a great short documentary.  The little drama, if done well enough, could have been broadcast to millions and people would have learned why such a phrase became our national motto and why it is unconstitutional, and you just made $500.

Even if it isn't chosen then you made a nice documentary. 

You want to go after Islam?  Start by making sure EVERYONE sees this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2_akih-Xks

How about something simple like a condom drive to send to the people of Africa?  We all know abstinance education isnt doing the job to help prevent the spreading of A.I.D.S.

Christian missionaries teaching abstinence and the evil of contraception (Catholics) instead of real sex education and simply not providing condoms is a huge contribution to the problem.

The US in unique in having such a high rate of STDs, abortions and many other signs of poor societal health of all developed western democracies - this coincides with being uniquely religious! HIV and other STD's spread in the US so well because of the taboo on sex education and promoting abstinence instead.

I'm not condoning sex at an early age, or promiscuity - in fact I'm very much against them (grumble grumble, kids these days...) - but face it, people want to f*ck, and no amount of money spent on abstinence programs is going to overcome human nature. Besides, even when people decide to be 'abstinent' they end up bending the rules to have oral sex, which still spreads many diseases. 

Hello, I have been an atheist for 28 years, but have only recently discovered the internet. I think what you are doing is beautiful and I wish I could donate , but I can't even keep my crappy car running (shh...can you hear the violins). Anyway I would love to let my kids listen but for the "fuck" here and the "pussy" there so I was wondering if you had ever thought about doing a kid friendly version of the show. not dumbing it down or  lightening it up even a little  but just no cussing and maybe a  little more explanation on scientific terms... say for kids 8 to 12 or so. the sooner they begin to hear things that challenge thier indoctrination the better the odds that they can be saved FROM jesus. I realize thats a tall order especially coming from a guy with a crappy car but I hope it gets the hampster wheels turning. thanks for your time, no one.

I was looking at evolvefish.com the other day and noticed they had some books on parenting for humanist.

Since the subject of attacking the creation museum came up, I was wondering if anyone was aware of the Unicorn Museum? - http://www.unicornmuseum.org/

They want to get a billboard for "The Unicorn Museum" posted across the street (or near) the creation museum. It's something started by the This Week in Science science radio show (and podcast). Maybe we should help them out?

If nothing else, it might be cool to get them on a show to talk about it. 

 

If the idea is to create media buzz then we need to use emotional issues as much as is possible. Two I have been playing with are linking Christianity with rape and with child abuse. Now, I realize this is not a *far* stretch in light of the behavior of *way* too many Priests, but I was thinking that something more closely tied to the fundamentals of the religion would work better. After all, they can always say it is just a few bad apples that like to sodomize little boys (though it is harder for them to talk around the fact that they told state authorities in the recent case that *they* had not yet decided how they were going to handle the matter - as if Church law some how trumps *state* law).

Actually, now that I 'say' it perhaps harping on this and pouring salt in this wound is not such a bad idea. I’m sure they would *love* for this issue to fade away. Perhaps we should do our best to keep it alive and in the media? 

That being said, here are a few of my ideas. 

Associating the concept of Rape with Christianity: I have always disliked, and I am sure most here dislike as well, folks coming up to me on the street or, worse, to my door, and  proselytizing to me. This is a rude interruption of my personal space and an unwanted intrusion into my personal business. A rude interruption is defined as a violation or as violating and to violate is synonyms with to rape. Therefore, I submit to you that to proselytize to me it to rape me, or more specifically, my mind, since you are forcing unwanted knowledge upon it and *in* it.   I really think that this is the kind of association that folks like Bill O’Reilly will go absolutely ape-shit over. 

Associating the concept of child abuse/child endangerment with Christianity: For this I will just cut and paste from my MySpace blog. I had been working on this idea when I first saw the video of the debate on this site and that is when I realized I was not the only one who thought like this.  

<begin blog text> 

Princeton (and others) defines terrorism as follows: "The calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear. (the bolding is mine)

So, based on this definition, threatening little children that with an eternity in hell if they do not follow the path of Christ, or believe in God, etc and that they, as well, must believe in the Bible or they will, again,  be damned to hell is tantamount to terrorism.

You can hardly deny the logic there.

Because of this, I think it makes sense to begin rounding up Christina parents and charging them with, if not child abuse then, at least child endangerment. After all, their choice of religion is obviously putting their children in harms way since, if the child does not believe then they are at risk of burning in hell for all eternity. So, we should strip them of their children, place the children in Atheist homes, and send the parents off to be educated. Once their parents have renounced Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit (and passed some sort of yet to be determined science and evolution course) then they would be eligible to have their children returned to them.

Stop terrorizing your children folks.

 <end blog text> 

Anyway, I think you can see where I am going with this. I’m working on t-shirts and bumper stickers, posters, etc right now.  

Also, I would like to see some sort of Judaism challenge, but I have not figured out what yet. I’m working on getting out some “I killed Jesus and I’m PROUD of it” t-shirts (many Christians blame the Jews for the death of Christ and, as a child, I even got into fights because of parents instilling this belief in their children. Eventually I just decided to embrace it and thus the idea for Christkilla was born.) though this is not really the type of challenge you are looking for.

Perhaps something along the lines of “I embrace my Jewish Heritage as a *race* of people but I denounce the Idea of it as a religion”. It’s just a rough idea and it needs to be fine tuned. I’ll keep looking for something better.

My parents always went out of their way to point out to me that being Jewish was not just about the religion but that we were a people, a race, they were correct in this so I think we have to be sensitive to this fact in any campaign that might be carried out to separate Jews from their particular brand of mono-thesim.  (I'm proud to be a Jew in the sense of the race of people but I find the religious beliefs antiquated and silly).

So, those are my thoughts for the moment.  Comments are welcome.  

Also, as a side note, I’d like to start a chapter affiliation of RSS out here in Arizona.

Awesome, awesome association/analogy/juxtaposition there.  Love it!

Hmm, not as hot on this one.  STILL love the thinking though.

 

ROFL.  I'm not Jewish, but it makes me want to be one.  Talk about shock factor.  A shirt like that would be money.

 

I dislike the implications of race here, and somewhat disagree on that.  I prefer embracing Jewish heritage as "culture."  You aware of Humanistic Judaism? http://www.shj.org/ Rabbi Sherwin Wine, RIP.

That's what I like to hear! Drop by the Stickam chat room and tell Sapient or someone. 

I came up with another idea after reading FTPedia:

There are still many places in the US where it's illegal to blaspheme etc. like Massachusetts, so why not try to (in the way that will get you the most attention possible) bring attention to these archaic oppressive laws, and try to get them abolished by challenging them on the grounds of being unconstitutional and suppressing freedom of expression?

I think the most public way of doing this would be trying to get ourselves arrested for it by doing lots of demonstrating and LOUD blaspheming in public places, outside of mayors' offices, city halls, police stations and similar places. Doing this all over the country in places which still have these crazy laws would get alot of attention I'm sure, and if people did get arrested and things went to court it would be a pretty easy case to win if the judge didn't throw it out immediately.

I'm sure at least one of the national atheist or secular organisations would be willing to help in organising people who live in or nearby these cities or state capitals.

Regardless of whether the laws got changed or not it would hopefully bring to the public's attention the ridiculous unconstitutional opposition to atheists' (lack of) beliefs by law in many places.

What do you think?

zarathustra, you beat me to it! Anyway, I looked through this thread, and I didn't see anyone respond to his/her idea about 'Earth's Greatest Lawsuit'.

Not exactly sure what to do with it, but there could be some ideas that could pertain to the suit. However, as Brian said in his video, court proceedings are more the forte of organizations such as the ACLU, so then again this could be a dead end. But anyway, I think people should be aware of this site:

http://www.earthsgreatestlawsuit.org/