We Need Grassroots Activism

[Anti-Creedance Front]

I've been pushing this for years. And it seems none of the people who are so upset with the state of religious affairs want to do anything about it. Letter writing doesn't work, and the ACLU doesn't handle Pat Robertson's bank account. Christian fundamentalists (and Muslim fundamentalists for sure if you live in a Sharia country) are out on the streets with signs, making campaigns, running for offices, and even becoming violent, as evidenced by the number of abortion clinic bombings and other acts of terorism within the last decade. I just don't see why nobody is interested in meeting these threats face to face, when our religious liberties are at stake. I know being liberal, or philosophical, or moderate, or a "skeptic" means to most people that you should be modest, but how modest are you when someone shouts in your face with a megaphone on the corner of Main and 3rd? Probably not much. You don't have to compromise your freethinking to take some action. So, what are we waiting for?

[Dr Rick]

http://www.alwaysbuying.us/XLP2/4.jpg

[Rusting Car Bumper]

Anti,

Great enthusiasm but non-theists problems stem mainly from social problems and not political ones.

If we need activism we need social activism and social image change more than political activism.

My view of course is not popular.

DC

[dangin]

Many of us have experienced the "atheists are bad" stigma in one form or another. If you want to have a concrete objective example to point to that disproves this, then get a humanist, secularist, atheist, bright group in your area to declare a weekend project. Go paint an underfunded retirement home, go clean the yards and fix the porches of some local shut ins, go clean up an abandoned block in an urban center. Make sure the media knows about it, print up t-shirts, and make in an annual event on that weekend.

Make this a national event. It's not herding cats too much, because it is under local control with local projects selected by the local group.

You have to get releases and waivers to make sure no one can get sued for injuries, or damage to property, but that should be a formality. I mean you are there to improve somthing, and the labor should not be dangerous.

This is something that four people could do with $50 dollars. But 20 withh $500 would really be something. Go to HomeDepot and Lowes and see if they will match your funds if you put their logo on the T-shirt.

If only there was a message board with members all over the US that could serve as a coordination point for something like this. . .

[Anti-Creedance Front]

Originally posted by dangin
Many of us have experienced the "atheists are bad" stigma in one form or another. If you want to have a concrete objective example to point to that disproves this, then get a humanist, secularist, atheist, bright group in your area to declare a weekend project. Go paint an underfunded retirement home, go clean the yards and fix the porches of some local shut ins, go clean up an abandoned block in an urban center. Make sure the media knows about it, print up t-shirts, and make in an annual event on that weekend.

Make this a national event. It's not herding cats too much, because it is under local control with local projects selected by the local group.

You have to get releases and waivers to make sure no one can get sued for injuries, or damage to property, but that should be a formality. I mean you are there to improve somthing, and the labor should not be dangerous.

This is something that four people could do with $50 dollars. But 20 withh $500 would really be something. Go to HomeDepot and Lowes and see if they will match your funds if you put their logo on the T-shirt.

If only there was a message board with members all over the US that could serve as a coordination point for something like this. . .

I'd be interested in doing something like that, but I don't think our image is that demonized where we need to do those things just to improve it. My concern is with fundamentalism, and with nobody taking physical steps to fight it. I'm not the type to be content with cracking jokes on a message board. It's fun and stuff, but secular activism is little more than a clique if that's all we do with it. If you're saying protesting or taking counter-active approaches would stigmatize our image, I have to disagree too. Most people I know are irreligious, and are quite annoyed by what they describe as "Bible banging lunatics". It might be because I'm young that I have ambitions to go out and take things to the street, but I've seen a good share of much older people than me protesting things. Hell, most of the abortion clinic protestors are 30+. (see http://www.maggotpunks.com)
It probably wouldn't be wise to go up against them as marked atheists/agnostics, but I am concerned with the Christian Coalition and Fred Phelps. I think it would actually be productive to voice that we look down on hateful individuals.

[wildernesse]

What type of physical action are you talking about taking against fundamentalism? Why do you think it would make any difference?

What are you going to do once you have 'Taken things to the Street'?

--tibac

[dangin]

Originally posted by Anti-Creedance Front
but I am concerned with the Christian Coalition and Fred Phelps. I think it would actually be productive to voice that we look down on hateful individuals.

The only way to fight them is with education. Run for school board and make sure no fundy groups in your area get their foot in the door.

Phelps is a joke, I live 30 miles from him. His "congregation" is made up of his family, and two other families totalling 8 people not related to him. Men have been indicted for trying to run him over with a truck, and for blowing up pipe bombs at his residence. Both men barely got slaps on the wrist. I think one of them was sentenced to "time served" which was three days.

I think there is also a backlash brewing among the moderate republicans too. I think the christian coalition is going to implode. To much infighting, as there must be when everyone is working with a rule book that allows them to interpret their own rules.

[Anti-Creedance Front]

Originally posted by wildernesse
What type of physical action are you talking about taking against fundamentalism? Why do you think it would make any difference?

What are you going to do once you have 'Taken things to the Street'?

--tibac

Physical action would entail counter-protesting, distributing information (education) at fundy events, and in a MoveOn.Org fashion, keeping watch on their activities in Congress and other political areas. I'm not really saying we should be militant, that would make us fundamentalists. I'm just saying that writing letters to these people probably isn't going to work, and that if we confront them directly, maybe they will see we're not such horrible people. A lot of pro-war people were frustrated with me this year because they'd never "debated" any peace activists, much less seen any of us in person. I had to admit I hadn't talked with many pro-war people either, and that helped iron out aggression and xenophobic ideas. It's a slow process, but people find it hard to call you evil when you're standing right there talking to them civilly.

[Majestyk]

Aside from the analogy of herding cats, which I think is accurate, a "grass roots" campaign has effect because of the quantity of the participants. Considering the size of the atheist population we'd only be a weed in the lawn, roots campaign.

[GaryP]

Originally posted by Majestyk
Aside from the analogy of herding cats, which I think is accurate, a "grass roots" campaign has effect because of the quantity of the participants. Considering the size of the atheist population we'd only be a weed in the lawn, roots campaign.

That is probably true.

But if you think the law may be on your side, why not do something about it?

e.g., If your city is opening meetings with a prayer and you think the manner in which it is done or the content may not pass legal muster, why not call local officials on it?

And even if the law is not on your side, why not use your 1st amendment rights and go to the city and ask for permission to give the invocation yourself?

Perhaps others who agree with you will hear of it and offer support. That's how movements get started.

[Alonzo Fyfe]

Originally posted by GaryP
[B]That is probably true.

But if you think the law may be on your side, why not do something about it?

e.g., If your city is opening meetings with a prayer and you think the manner in which it is done or the content may not pass legal muster, why not call local officials on it?


Strategically, I think this is a mistake -- to use the law as a club to say, 'you can't do this' instead of making arguments to the effect that 'you should not do this.'

The effect of using the law as a club is only to cause people to hate the law. When we generate enough hatred, the law will be changed -- or ignored. And the battle will be lost. It is not at all difficult to see things heading faster and faster in that direction.

The only way to preserve the law is to promote public support for the law. This requires a public information campaign. This requires doing things that atheists just do not do in polite company -- discuss politics and religion -- with friends, family, and co-workers.

So long as our strategy is to use the law without actually defending it, we should not be surprised to find that the law may not be there for us to use in the future.

Even amendments can be changed, or re-interpreted.

[Note: Of course, 'defending the law' means 'defending it effectively' -- which is another area in which I think most people have problems. They get suckered into quote wars about what the founding fathers believed.

However, quote wars cannot be won. You will not find a person on the planet whose beliefs and writings were so fixed through their entire life, or who spoke so consistently, that you cannot find evidence for a variety of different views. Quote wars suffers a problem in that there are dozens of people making quotes as well. Anybody can find support for their favorite view, and nobody can win such a war.

Besides, what the founding fathers believed is ultimately irrelevant. What is relevant is whether they were right to believe it. That's the case that must be made, and it must be made in public. The general public will only seek to defend these laws only to the degree that they believe these laws are good laws. Failing that, the laws will be at best ignored, and at worst repealed.

I would argue against using the law to get these things changed. Instead, I would argue against an impassioned speech saying how people who endorse such practices are wrong to do so -- stressing how it is disrespectful to good citizens, unfair, and, in the past, has been the precursor to national divisiveness and violence. In this speech, it would be good to toss in a few famous quotes from the founding fathers. But the quotes in this context are reinforcement for a separate argument about what is right, they are not an attempt to argue, "the founding fathers believed X, therefore X is right."

The natural response to this will be, "The law is on our side. We have a right to use it."

This is true. For as long as the law is on our side. My questions are: How long will that be? And do we want to keep it that way?

[wildernesse]

Originally posted by Anti-Creedance Front
Physical action would entail counter-protesting, distributing information (education) at fundy events, and in a MoveOn.Org fashion, keeping watch on their activities in Congress and other political areas. I'm not really saying we should be militant, that would make us fundamentalists. I'm just saying that writing letters to these people probably isn't going to work, and that if we confront them directly, maybe they will see we're not such horrible people. A lot of pro-war people were frustrated with me this year because they'd never "debated" any peace activists, much less seen any of us in person. I had to admit I hadn't talked with many pro-war people either, and that helped iron out aggression and xenophobic ideas. It's a slow process, but people find it hard to call you evil when you're standing right there talking to them civilly.

Fundy events such as. . .

Their activities in Congress such as. . .

Counter-protesting fundamental protests such as. . .

Who are "these people" exactly? Who do you have in mind?

And if you think that civilly speaking to a fundamentalist face to face will make it more difficult for them to believe that you are not a minion of Satan/evil/going to hell/unpatriotic, then I forsee many years of discouragement for you.

--tibac

[capsaicin67]

I agree that it's a social problem more than a legal one, and that what the majority feels and believes is at least as important as what is true or legal. When we can affect the populace/majority at the feeling/believing level [by successfully promoting what is also most factual or best from our perspective and arguably the stronger position] the other pieces will be more likely to fall into place and or be dealt with more easily and effectively.

Currently we are in the minority both in numbers and in finances. Organizationally we are substantially fragmented, underdeveloped, and amateurish. We have limited access to the public with our views and message regardless of it's merit. In the public's eye, we are perceived as buzzkills and wet blankets at best, evil at worst. The majority have little understanding of how our stance "contributes" anything positive to the greater community, and they feel it in fact subtracts from same.

Demonstrations will work against us in many instances as they will primarily advertise our weaknesses rather than our strengths---measly numbers, poor organization, "againstness". Larger numbers would be a different story. But we are not even close to a critical mass, IMO.

I have "witnessed" my nontheistic stance to many persons 1:1, and in spite of the fact that those persons often were eyewitnesses to my personal integrity and dependent on same in some volatile situations---my expereince is that it was extremely labor intensive and their prejudices were very resistant to reform based on the social reinforcement of those biases being held in accordance with the majority pov. I would say that I made some impact---and that's good, and important---but it was definitely peeing into the ocean which has major, major currents actively working to transform cultures in bulk. Both are viable strategies, but the mass marketing of superstition and prejudice against nontheists has a gob more energy and impact than the one at a time stuff. Both strategies together is powerful stuff in my opinion, but the 1:1 stuff will be an exercise in futility without acknowledgement of, and effective action on, the macro level, IMO. It'll take both and I think we are fairly anemic in both strategies right now.

Only by building and experimenting with a larger community/organization will the scenario change. Then we'll have a better idea of our actual numbers and our potential. We'll have greater leverage culturally and financially. And thus we'll be able to engage in other tasks and development more professionally and effectively. Our community needs to deepen and expand, otherwise I think we will continue to observe and be run over by a slow, but steady, erosion of our interests and protections.

In my mind building a vibrant,positive community is the place to start and focus our meager resources. And that's not to say I'm doing as much as I could to make this happen either.

[ajmilne]

Originally posted by Majestyk
Considering the size of the atheist population we'd only be a weed in the lawn, roots campaign.

Okay. It's just begging to be quoted:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

-- Margaret Mead

And I really have to say I suspect this is probably especially true of secularist movements, naturalistic thinkers in general. So while I'm sympathetic to the general sentiment that yeah, the numbers are a bit scary, let's not sell ourselves short.

I've read historians commenting on the separation of church and state in the US whose view is it was being challenged before the ink was even dry on the first amendment. There have always been enormous forces, enormous numbers, and enormous wealth arrayed against it. And when you read a poll that suggests the majority think religion (and usually, their religion) is what makes their nation go round, and thus should duly be recognized in law regardless of what the constitution says, no, it's not that these are unusually dark, uneducated, unreflective times. This is probably pretty much the historical norm.

Given all of that, it sometimes seems incredible the separation of church and state have survived as well as they have in the US, and, for that matter, that secular governments have survived anywhere. But they have, and they do.

The point, to close this circle: secularists, naturalists both have long loomed much larger on the cultural and political scene than their mere numbers might lead you naively to expect. Why, I can't say. Maybe they're generally smarter. Maybe it's just the ideas they defend really are so much obviously better. But take this as encouragement: get out there, and you will very probably punch well above your weight. We're hardly a lone weed among the grassroots. More like a patch of clover. Tough, hardy, lush, adaptible; not particularly prone to *rapid* spreading, but does spread slowly. And is incredibly difficult to get rid of, where established. End thoroughly milked metaphor.

[Anti-Creedance Front]

The only thing stopping us is our reluctance to do it. People have this idea that we are a minority in this country, but for the most part, amongst my many friends, co-workers, etc. they've expressed disregard for religion in general. Not all are atheists, most lean towards agnostic/secular and don't know it, but what binds atheists and agnostics together is our mutual disbelief in organized religion. If people aren't secular, they're liberal Christians. This is not a conservatively religious country, and you should know that from experience.

I mean no disrespect, as you are all fellow secular people, but... when you pose the question to me "What would this solve?" I have have to ask... What would it hurt? Or what are other people doing to halt the fundamentalist presence? No group has ever gotten larger by backing into a corner. Christian fundamentalists, especially in our government, like John Ashcroft, are working aggressively against us and other religious "minorities". They don't keep to themselves, I've seen them disrupting things like Weedstock and a pagan art fair before my own eyes.

In a spur of the moment thing today, driving through a small town near us, my brother all of a sudden started shouting out the window, and I looked over to see a huge banner being held by people saying "HOMOSEXUALITY IS A SIN". It was "Wisconsin Christians United". I've been keeping track of this group's website, stumbled on it one day, but didn't think they'd show up this close to me. We went and bought some posterboard and made protest signs, but they were gone by the time we got back. This is their website, as an example of how hateful they are: http://www.wcuweb.com/ It's almost like Fred Phelps plus abortion protesting.

It would be in our best interests to just show that we're here and we're "not ashamed", as evangelical Christians are apt to do. The difference is that they aggressively evangelize and have a persecution complex, and our name is actually spit on by fundies constantly. They have to learn that not everyone around them is going to stay quiet and put up with their crap. And besides, as I said, the majority of agnostics and atheists don't even know what they feel. I was never religious, but I never had a word to describe it. I knew I wasn't an atheist, but I thought agnostic described my feelings nicely. So our goal right now should be to inform those people that we are out here and they're not alone. It could be simply with shirts that say "Atheist and Proud", "Agnostic and Proud", or something to that effect. It might be touchy, but it makes a simple, profound statement. The second agenda would be to stop fundies from blemishing ours and others' beliefs with stereotypes and demonizing, but it's still very important.

[ohwilleke]

At the grass roots, I think that the message is the messenger.

Simply being "out" and doing good things changes the terms of the debate. This is especially true of prominent people.

[Alonzo Fyfe]

Originally posted by ohwilleke
At the grass roots, I think that the message is the messenger.

Simply being "out" and doing good things changes the terms of the debate. This is especially true of prominent people.

So, the holocaust, inquisitions, crusades, the near genocide of the American Indians, slavery, segregation, and all existed merely because its victims were not willing to be 'ought' and doing good things?

No. Society can easily and often does form hatreds of minorities regardless of the behavior of the members of those minorities. It does not matter what you do. It matters only what you are perceived as doing -- and it is not difficult to perceive just about anything one does in the wrong light if people are sufficiently trained to do so.

[Majestyk]

Alonzo has started this thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60961) focusing on changing opinion on the 10C's. I voiced my support for his OP there. Focusing on the individual issues, changing the opinions at their root, and doing so in a manner that requires the least amount of organization is worthy of consideration.

Perhaps we can put together our own little booklet of suggested issues and tactics that can be executed by individuals or small groups?