Priorities

Pickled Politics has another post on the anti-theistic tone of the British 'National Secular Society', who I've also complained about in the past.

I'm an atheist, and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon. But it's pretty obvious that religious belief, in its many forms, isn't going to just disappear off the face of the Earth in the near future. What groups like the NSS need to do is look at and promote ways in which everyone, regardless of their metaphysical beliefs can live with minimal conflict. The fact that key figures in the organisation seem to prefer pissing off non-atheists at any opportunity seriously damages their credibility in doing that.

Secularism, like humanism, isn't an exclusively atheist position: many religious believers also want to see freedom of thought defended against authoritarian and intolerant organisations. The NSS only weakens its position by pushing them away.

QUICK UPDATE:

Just spotted this on the 'Atheist Ethicist' blog and thought it was appropriate:

Bigotry consists, in essence, in creating a ‘group’ category and condemning or praising individuals in the virtue of their membership in that group, regardless of individual contributions.

Read the rest.