All 3 points boil down pretty easy: don't be so obnoxious people dismiss you out of hand, pick your battles, and keep an open mind. Advice we could all do well to live by.

I may be self-imposing here. I think he's saying (among other things, and if I saw the speech in person, I'd have a better take) is that it's not some kind of movement, it's just a definition that doesn't have to be brought out unless specifically called for. Really specifically. I don't shy away from the term, but unless someone says "I"m a ____, what are you?" I don't go out and publicly self-identify as atheist. I think he doubts the purpose of things like that, the ridiculous "bright" thing, for example.

I don't have a problem with the word, per-se, like he does, it communicates a meaningful state of being. I think he's trying to say that we just are, we don't need a movement, just live your lives. By obsessing about labels, you unnecessarily product your own label? Or something?

Yes, wendell, the rhetoric is sloppy, but I think if I was there I would have mostly agreed with the man.

How dare he claim that belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster is "ridiculous?"

Heh, when I saw the title in Reddit early I was expecting an Atlas Shrugged-esque plea for atheists to deny the rest of the world their talent. I'm glad it was something more reasonable.

This dovetails well with the idea of "apatheism" that chuckdarwin brought up a while ago (though chuckdrawin himself seems to wear his atheism on his sleeve).

don't be so obnoxious people dismiss you out of hand, pick your battles, and keep an open mind. Advice we could all do well to live by.
Amen.

Yes, what TPS said. Peace, sistah?

SISTAH!

::shakes dreads::

::dreads the shakes::

Consider the unique features of Mormonism, which may have some relevance in the next Presidential election. Mormonism, it seems to me, is--objectively--just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas. For instance, the Mormons think Jesus is going to return to earth and administer his Thousand years of Peace, at least part of the time, from the state of Missouri. Why does this make Mormonism less likely to be true than Christianity? Because whatever probability you assign to Jesus’ coming back, you have to assign a lesser probability to his coming back and keeping a summer home in Jackson County, Missouri. If Mitt Romney wants to be the next President of the United States, he should be made to feel the burden of our incredulity. We can make common cause with our Christian brothers and sisters on this point.
...
To be even-handed when talking about the problem of Islam is to misconstrue the problem. The refrain, "all religions have their extremists," is bullshit--and it is putting the West to sleep. All religions don’t have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists. And in the Muslim world, support for extremism is not extreme in the sense of being rare. A recent poll showed that about a third of young British Muslims want to live under sharia law and believe that apostates should be killed for leaving the faith. These are British Muslims. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should be brought to justice. These people don’t have a clue about what constitutes a civil society. Reports of this kind coming out of the Muslim communities living in the West should worry us, before anything else about religion worries us.

Firstly, I'm pretty skeptical of the poll saying a third of "young British Muslims" really think apostates should be killed. It seems to come from a dubious self-described "centre-right thinktank", but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of apostates actually being killed.

Secondly, the UK has blasphemy laws against insulting Christianity. I'm confused as to why a British Muslim who thinks his religion should be protected by law from insults is worse than a British Christian who thinks so... and has the laws in place.

The article seems to be somewhat xenophobic to me.

I think you need both the shouty atheists and the quiet atheists.

This dovetails well with the idea of "apatheism" that chuckdarwin brought up a while ago (though chuckdrawin himself seems to wear his atheism on his sleeve).

Yeah, there's that whole theory/practice bugaboo.

The article seems to be somewhat xenophobic to me.

It also seems very Ameri-centric (look, I made up a word!).

The article is written by an American, in a U.S. publication, about a national issue. That's not Ameri-centric, it's just an opinion column in an American newspaper. Just like this isn't Anglo-centric - it's just an opinion column in a British newspaper.

It's just an opinion column in an American newspaper

I realise this; I called Ameri-centric because it's irrelevant in Europe. Atheists don't need to hide here.

But he cites evidence from a British survey about the opinions of British Muslims.

That to me suggests it's not just about a "national issue". It's an attempt to write about a global issue, weakened by a lack of knowledge about the global evidence he's citing.

Basically he's saying, "we atheists must oppose Islam and fringe religions more strongly than Christianity, because they're worse than Christianity".

Yet some of the evidence he cites for why Muslims are worse than Christians, is that they think Islam should receive the same legal protection as Christianity does in the nation they live in.

Other evidence for why they're worse? Well, we polled Muslims and they say disturbing things, but we didn't poll Christians, so Christians are better.

I agreed with the part at the beginning about the superfluity of the word atheist, and was cool with the bits at the end about contemplation & whatnot. But as the type of atheist who would hate it if everyone else were to be atheist too, I was unconvinced by some of his other points.

I didn't get that he was telling atheists to hide - my understanding was that by calling oneself 'atheist' one is defining oneself in terms of theism, which means living by the rules of religion at least to that extent.

If this were Mefi then we'd have had at least a dozen people spelling it as 'athiest', so well done folks.

So, let me make my somewhat seditious proposal explicit: We should not call ourselves “atheists.” We should not call ourselves “secularists.” We should not call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.” We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.

Sounds like he wants us to hide.

there doesn't seem to be any evidence of apostates actually being killed.

No, but the fact that some percentage of people think it's acceptable is a problem of itself. I don't think there's any doubt that these beliefs are more prevalent amongst young Muslims than young Christians, even though the media exaggerates them.

Secondly, the UK has blasphemy laws against insulting Christianity.

Yes, but in the last hundred years there's been about one successful prosecution. Nowadays, the blasphemy laws have no actual effect, and certainly no 'chilling effect'. Just look at the recent Jerry Springer opera - it's hard to imagine something being more blasphemous, yet no prosecution resulted. It's like the Test Act which bars Catholics from the monarchy - it's unpleasant, but since it has absolutely no practical effect it's not something we need to worry about.

"If this were Mefi then we'd have had at least a dozen people spelling it as 'athiest', so well done folks."

We'll just test that.

Just one, so far, and it's a joke, so perhaps things are looking up... :)