I think we need some new slang. We need some slang that gets right to the issues with a good metaphor or analogy.

Here's one: Religion is like cooking. If religion is cooking, then atheists are raw and uncooked. We have not been cooked by religion. There are many different recipes, most of which require cooking. We happen to like our food uncooked and raw. Many people use pre-packaged mixes for their food recipes, but they don't want to know the ingredients. They think there's a special sauce that cannot be figured out. But atheists have looked at the ingredients, including the special sauce, and have concluded that the ingredients are unhealthy and unappetizing. They choose not to cook their food with these pre-packaged recipes and unhealthy ingredients. Some people cook on their own and invent their own recipes. Atheists have no problem with that except when they mix in some secret sauce and try to force other people to eat their food. Secret sauce tastes really good, but it's not good for you. In fact, as a public service, we should eliminate secret sauce from our state-run cafeterias. If a private citizen wants to eat secret sauce, then like smoking he should be allowed to. But when your secret sauce starts affecting the health of other people, that's when we need to call the health inspectors and get the secret sauce out of there.

The above metaphor is not perfect, obviously. In fact, I just came up with it as I wrote it. You can see that I start the metaphor as 'atheists are uncooked', but later talk about only how atheists 'like our food uncooked'. That is the metaphor evolving from the initial idea to a more accurate metaphor. It's okay to play with ideas like this and let them change over time. We don't have to get everything right the first time, and we don't have to pretend that we have it exactly right now.

Why is the cooking metaphor a good one? Because it cuts through bullshit arguments with a common-sense, intuitive understanding. Theists tend to see atheists as arrogant and foolish. But if religion is like your favourite food, then who are you to tell us atheists that eating uncooked food is arrogant and foolish? And no, I've tried your secret sauce and I don't like it, thanks. (Secret sauce can be 'faith' or 'supernatural' or any specific belief or ritual that to a theist 'tastes' nice, but to an atheist, we've investigated it and found it harmful or misleading, much like the special sauce you might get on a Big Mac.) Etc. People have no problem with letting other people have their own favourite foods without bothering them, but when it comes to religion somehow they see things differently.

I think if we're going to make a significant step forward in shifting people's opinions, we need to develop intuitive metaphors such as this one, try them out, and see how effective they are. It's a kind of memetic engineering in a way. We are creating memes and trying to see which ones are 'fit' in the cultural environment we live in. As we learn what memes work and spread on their own, we can take them and mutate them further to produce better and better memes. The great thing about slang is that it is natural for young people. I remember being in school, and me and my friends would come up with new slang just to play around with the language and take ownership of it in a way. Some of the slang even survives to this day, and it influences people's perceptions of the world.

So, even if this cooking metaphor doesn't suit you, I hope it might inspire you to start thinking about memes and how we can all spread good ideas by making them catchy and interesting with intuitive metaphors.

Cooked - fixed in thought or philosophy, dogmatic, close-minded

Recipe - holy book or doctrine, prescribed way of life

Ingredient - specific belief or tenet

Tasty - emotional/intuitive belief

Healthy - rational/pragmatic belief

Special Sauce - a tasty 'mix' whose ingredients are not known to most, and which may be unhealthy because of hidden ingredients

Food - personal beliefs, personal way of life