Today, Jeannette and I saw Hemant Mehta, author of "I Sold My Soul On eBay," at the latest Minnesota Atheists event. He gave a really good talk on positive atheism, how it can be used to dispel myths of atheism. He gave some good examples of how to utilize media to establish a dialog between believers and non believers. The key is respect. It's important for atheists to see from the point of view of believers, and to resist getting angry. Part of that anger can come from not being able to clearly describe your point of view. To do so, you often have to cite historical examples, and know a bit about science. You really have to do some homework if you want to counter the believer's argument, "How did we get here?" Their answer, "God did it." Your answer isn't as simple, and takes more work.
The meeting went really well, and Jeannette and I talked with members over dinner for almost three hours. It's amazing how much stuff people have to talk about. It's also amazing how many atheist are sci-fi geeks.
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