Hello John,

There are plenty of atheists expressing themselves respectfully and tactfully on the Web.  Perhaps they address an audience that fits your definition of mainstream. My content, however, is additional to that and is designed to stretch the envelope of expressing discontent of established views regarding religion so as to contribute to a paradigm shift that sees religious faith having as much validity as superstition.  There are six ways to breakfast -- some atheists choose art or music to get the message across.  Basically anything that brings the subject into conversation (even propaganda) will have a countering effect on the foundation of religion and will hasten the paradigm shift.

Darwin Bedford
www.atheists.net


At 02:46 PM 4/11/02 -0500, you wrote:

Hello, Darwin.  Interesting first name for an atheist, by the way.  Bet
you've never heard that one.

I came across your site as a process of a personal search I have been
conducting for over 10 years now.  Raised Catholic, I underwent a period
where I had several questions for the leaders of our local church which they
could not answer.  Given that the Catholic Church is monarchic and obedience
is required, eventually I became disillusioned with the church specifically
(I left for good in 1992) and, over time, with common understandings of
spirituality in general.  Reading some of the writings on your site gave me
greater peace to be more comfortable with the idea that there are no
"spirits or super spirits."  Thanks for putting this information out there.

I do, however, have a very big problem with the manner in which some of your
ideas are presented.  A lot of the text on your page is riddled with
profanity and language which is disrespectful of religions, Christianity in
particular.  As a citizen of the US I appreciate the idea of free speech and
welcome the opportunity for anyone to respectfully voice their opinion. It
is this lack of respect which I find offensive, in principle.  The core of
this offense is that some of the material on your site rails against the
"oppressive" Christian society which tries make atheists feel like second
class citizens (if citizens at all).  I agree with a substantial portion of
what I read, but in the interest of trying to present your arguments so that
they might be respected by the mainstream don't you think it might be a good
idea to present these arguments as intelligently as possible?  Perhaps your
goal is not to be accepted by a Christian society, but if that is your goal
I don't think you'll get there by marketing t-shirts showing people throwing
crosses into trash cans.  I liken that to the Black Panthers or Nation of
Islam wondering why folks don't accept them.  The simple answer being that
those organizations are perceived as a threat.  I would argue that some of
your material reads like propaganda and would put most people off.  Some of
it put me off, and I am not a religious person.  I'd appreciate you
comments, some of which I might be able to find on your site but I lack the
time to wade through the diatribes, rants and emotional catharses to get to
some substantive information.  I look forward to your reply.

John