Jeffrey Slater

I'm floored by the complete lack of support that you get on those threads. It is not even as if the people there are posting trivial differences they have with your arguments, they all seem to disagree on a fundamental level. I wonder if part of it has to do with a feeling that, since they have worked their way to atheism through science / logic, they now see themselves and everything they believe as being logical and well thought out. I am starting to think that, in certain ways, the atheist movement might actually be less receptive to the message of freedom than some other groups, simply because they believe that their positions are well thought out. Like, because all of the mass media intellectuals agree with them, there must be sound arguments for statism. Whatever the case may be, I am not willing to give up that easily. Still, I doubt we will see Stefan speaking at the American Atheists Convention any time soon.

Sure, count me in!

I have always believed that, regardless of what the real definition is, people define 'love' as 'however their parents treated them'. I mean, today's society has this meme that 'no matter what your parents love you.' Like you are saying, when people come from abusive parent-child relationships, a lot of times they will grow up believing that the abuse is somehow loving- like 'well, they have my best interests at heart' or 'I'm a worthless sinner, and so I should be punished for my sins.' It is not surprising that, if they never deal with that kind of parasitical thinking, it would be very easy for the state to step into the authoritarian role of that relationship, once god and parents are out of the picture. I wonder, do you have links to the conversations you had on the ThinkingAtheist forums? I can remember listening to a few of his podcasts, and when he stays away from politics they are pretty good. I'd be interested in seeing the kinds of arguments, or lack thereof, that they are putting forward.

I think I can agree with that sentiment. However, I can't help but think that in the grand scheme of things, they are still working towards the good. Even though they espouse statist solutions to some problems, they still advocate for reason and evidence as the one and only sound means to truth. I think in order to someday achieve the goal of rational anarchy, a necessary step will be to minimize the power of the church, and that is something that the new atheists are working hard to achieve. So, I wonder whether it is worth it to go and have some discourse with them, and see if they are open to our side of the argument. Have you (or anyone else reading) had any experiences with this? I personally have visited the atheist community of Austin here in my local town, an organization that also does a Sunday callin show. The discussions never really veered towards politics or ethics (and I admit that I am not the most forceful personality in a large room), but the few times I went I got to meet some interesting people, including Darrel Ray, author of 'sex and god', who talked about the sexual habits of the bonobo apes (believe it or not, a very fascinating subject) and Sean Faircloth, a former congressman from Maine who gave an interesting lecture on an insiders view of how little separation there really is between church and state.

Hello All, Sorry if this has been covered by another post (if so please point me in the right direction), but I was hoping to get the community's views on the New Atheist movement, being spearheaded by many state scientists and philosophers such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye and Lawrence Krauss. On the one hand, I love their work in regards to exposing the fallacy of religion. Listening to speeches by Dawkins, Dennett, and the late great Christopher Hitchens are what ultimately broke the spell that religion had on my thinking processes. On the other hand, due to the nature of their work as professors for state schools (or journalists for the mass media, as was the case with Hitch), these people could not possibly hope to have a meaningful discussion about ethics, morality, or the nature of the state. In fact, more often that not they are actually in favor of expanding the sphere of government control. I feel like the line is being incorrectly drawn between 'libertarian christians' and 'statist atheists'. Can I hope to find allies in the ranks of the New Atheists, or is it a waste of time to go to their events?

That's a really tough situation to be in. Being from a small town in Texas myself, I can totally understand how you could feel like everyone around you is devout. I am still in the process of 'coming out' as an atheist to all of those around me. It is really intimidating, and I don't even have a wife / kids to worry about on top of it all. I wish I could say 'it gets better,' but the reality is that there just aren't that many openly atheist people in Texas. Still, I think being honest is the best way. The people in your church may avoid you, but I doubt they will go out of their way to make your life miserable. Plus, you might even find that some of them feel the same way, or that at least that they aren't willing to sacrifice their friendships with you over theological differences. You will only know if you have that conversation first. Good luck. -Jeff

Hi Everyone, I am Jeff. I have been a listener for about 1 year now and am finally a donator! Stef's message has really challenged me and has reshaped the way I look at freedom. He has made me see that the issues surrounding freedom are not political problems, they are not economic problems, rather they are, fundamentally, moral problems. He has made me realize that wasting time hoping for change in the libertarian / Ron Paul movement will lead (and has led) to nothing but dissapointment. Instead I am now working to improve myself, better my own self-image, and striving to 'know myself.' This is how I hope to achieve what freedom I can in this lifetime. So, a little about me, I am living in Austin, TX, was born and raised in Houston TX. I was raised to be a devout christian, and struggled with that a long time, until I finally 'gave up the ghost' near the end of college (about 5 years ago), with the help of some good friends and my brother (who was also obviously raised christian and gave up the faith). I am still working on some of the issues with that, but hopefully in time I can heal all of the psychological damage that was inflicted on me as a child. It has been difficult, as none of my family members (save my brother) support my efforts, and in fact actively undermine my efforts at self improvement. I have discussed these things at length with my parents, and they have made it clear that they don't see anything wrong with their beliefs or with how I was raised, so it has been very difficult deciding how to deal with them. Well, that about sums up where I am at in life right now. It has been a tumultuous 5 years, but I am lucky (or maybe skilled) enough to have a good job in a good city, and so things could definitely be worse for me. Things get a bit lonely at times, since most of my old christian 'friends' have stopped talking to me, and most of the new people I meet in Texas are very shallow and actively try and avoid having meaningful discussions with me about their lives and their place in the world (I have stopped thinking they are dumb, because I have started to realize the subtle ways that people steer conversations away from topics that intimidate them, or that they don't want to think too hard about- there is really a perverse sort of art to it). I look forward to going to some of the liberty events around here so that I can meet some of you face-to-face and actually have a conversation that doesn't make me want to slam a board against my head like those monks in Monty Python.