My response as to why should religion not be left alone.
Offline I am trying to make a well sounding and comprehensive arguement as to why religion should be criticised and not a life and let live thing. I would like some criticisim and some critques please 
. Here is what I have so far. If you feel like something should be added that would help too.
Do you respect the views of the insane man on the street how lives in his own imaginary world, screams into the night at people who are not there? Respect what is respect worthy and religion is not. Religion shouldn't be respected simply because people have it. That is like saying you should respect a culture that would subject its people to some mutilation in order to make it into adulthood, or sells women to bonds of marriage against their will. You don't get respect unless you have earned it. Religion should be scrutinized, and should be held under a microscope (metaphor). You don't give a kid candy for a missing leg and say we've done something to help and you don't say God did it to solve anything. To be satisfied with not understanding the world around you that is what religion is. Respect where respect is due.
You should be free to criticize any religion and to poke fun at its ridiculousness, for the simple reason that is had such a hold on the mentality and quality of life of the individuals its is inflicted upon.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
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So far so good. Since you made the relation between the crazy man and religious people, perhaps you should meantion something along the lines of mental illness. For example, delusions are a symptom of something not being right in one's head. However, for people of faith, they have delusions every day.
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I like the points about the subjugation of females. I would also add the politicalization of religion. We've seen even in modern times what theocratic states can do to people and how oppressive they are. In the U.S., the republican party has been hijacked by religious fundies who want to legislate morality. They talk about the "culture of life" but only as it applies to American females and their fetuses. It doesn't include brown people in the Middle East and South America.
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I don't think it is as simple as ridicule or even argument every day or all the time. Of course you should not respect irratiional beliefs. But you should respect the people who hold them sincerely. For that reason I would never be the aggressor and innitiate a discussion on religion. If someone gets in my face of course I respond (rationally . . . seems to me that is why this place is called "rational responders"
. That's the time to make your arguments, when someone tells you how they think you should live. But it is a different thing to seek out arguments on a subject of such deep seriousness for many people. If you want to win people to your side you will fail with an aggressive approach. Respond with all the ammunition you have, but if you fire the first shot you have lost already. Religious people, because they believe they "know" the truth, will often try to open the subject, thinking that they can "save" you, or at least put you on what they think is the right path. That's the time to use whatever tools you have. I still hesitate to use ridicule, however, unless the other person is unduly aggressive. If you want to convince people, you have to do it gently. You are unlikely to change anyone's mind in one conversation. You have to pursue the subject over a long period.
I agree that religion should be challenged and I believe that people with a religious belief need to be shown how to look at the bible with a rational mind.
This is very tough because the religious people I have talked to do not want to see reason. If you try to ridicule a persons beliefs then they are immediately going to shut off. Wouldn't it be a better idea to have a debate where both sides of the argument get put across and while you are unlikely to convert somebody there and then they might walk away with something to think about in the future.
Even a small chink in the armour of religious belief could cause a person to look at other parts of their holy book with a critical mind. It took me several years to become an atheist from a christian and it wasn't one event that converted me to atheism but a large number of small events.
I've been working on a comprehensive speech as well, Magus.
I think the hardest part is avoiding anything that can be construed as an 'attack' in favor of something resembling a 'challenge'.
There are three key audiences to appeal to when considering an overall reasoned argument for addressing religion in my opinion. If you're just speaking to atheist activists then it is 'preaching to the choir'. lol.
1) The religious - almost anything besides a defensive posture will garner 'haters' from this crowd.
2) The indifferent - The hardest to convince that tolerance of beliefs can be negligent. I used to refer to them as militant agnostics. lol. e.g. They don't know and you better not try to reason it out with them.
3) The ignorant - They have never heard of anything besides their own ideology. Thus a great degree of factual information is needed to illustrate your position.
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Why not to attack religion post:
I think "attacking religion" is a horrible term and would be an aweful way to approach things. As you said, if you want respect, you have to earn it. You do not earn a Theists respect by attacking the things they hold dear.
Theism has many psychological benefits - I would argue that it's become a form of mental evolution (as ridiculous as it sounds). The coping mechanisms and subsquent support groups that form from being in a religion are absurdly powerful. Something bad happen? God did it to help you grow, add character, test you, blah blah blah. Powerful stuff it is.
I would go so far as to aruge that some people need religion. People would not partake in the religion delusion if they did not get something from it.
Note: I've been laughed at for being an Atheist. "Oh the kid is 26 years old and thinks he knows enough about the universe to be an Atheist". Some Thesists believe it's all so simple (Occam's Razor) God made everything - bam they explain the whole universe around them. To them, we are the ones making hasty decisions because humanity knows so very little of all the things there are to know.
If I were to try and justify "aggresively seeking debate": to seek out minds that are ready and capable of living in a world free of religion.
I would like to think that one day, the world will be religion free, but I do not think that enough of humanity will ever reach the mental prowess that is required to live without religion. And heck, it's really friggin profitable.
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In my experience, people with the "don't criticise" attitude aren't so much worried about their beliefs, but are sticking up for people they like. They don't like their friends to be 'disrespected'.
I personally think that the best approach (think Sapient uses this) is to point out if you respect somebody then you'll criticise them respectfully. The retort to the "don't be disrespectful" might be?
"I'm being disrespectful? I'm just providing healthy skepticism. You're the one who says that these guys are incapable of reasoning rationally and must be protected from criticisms that might help them learn better!"
Ofcourse, if you want to play the "I'm the one being respectful" card then you want to word your arguments carefully. Words like irrational and delusion do imply a kind of disrespect. Even if they are true words, I'd avoid them because it makes people feel insulted and that will distract them from the rational side of the argument.
I thnk I made it clear that I don't respect religion. When someone stabs me with a knife I remember it. 0nce you show respect for something you kind of validate it. I guess I see you point of getting your foot in the door, but really once you are in the room you are really just trying to break things, so why not start with the door.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
Reading this work by Joseph Lewis some years ago turned this [already] atheist into an activist against religion with enough "arguments" to last my lifetime:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/lewis/lewis03.htm
"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." ~ Abraham Lincoln
Thanks for that link. It says pretty well what a lot of us are trying to put into our own words. I'm going to look up the book on Amazon. I hope it's still in print.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
No one said anything about being 'live and let live'.
There are plenty of religious beliefs that I don't respect.
Our point is, even if you disrespect their religion you must still respect them as a person. If you aren't respecting them as a person then they have no reason to listen to you. If you insult them they will just feel insulted and see you as a rude person.
If you want to properly criticise them then you have to do so rationally. Otherwise you're just being rude. When you call Christians irrational, you're not criticising their beliefs or religion, you're criticising them. It's a personal attack. Now maybe you just want to vent some frustration at some people who wind you up, but it you want to give them a rational response then respecting them is a necessity.
If anybody here has read any books on the art of persuasion you would know that infact "debating" these issues will accomplish nothing. Even if you provide a "deeply religious" person with tons of reasons why his god cannot be true, they will simply ignore the facts and go running back to "the FACT that the bible is the word of god" they will study the bible and become MORE religous because they overcame a challange to their faith. So the only people atheists can really win over (of course there are some exceptions to the rule) are people who are either seeking out an alternative world view. Or non church going theists. The most effective thing an atheist can do in this "war" vs irrational theism is simply make atheists out of "non religous types". I think once someone comes to the realization that there is "no god" or atleast no logical reason to believe that there is one. It is unlikely that this person will embrace theism later in life (teach it to their children etc). The best approch to "strong believers" is embarrass them if ridiculed they will be less likely to express their silliness in the public domain and become more and more on the fringe of society. I know for example i will openly critize religion in my classes at college, i will often say "its ridiculous that 46% of people in american dont believe in evolution, those people are ridiculous". Or "I dont know why Christians have such a big problem with abortion when a biblical argument can be made that god values fetus's less than regular humans, but can you believe we cannot even stone our children for being disobediant"
Overall the best way for a rational world view to spread is amongst people from 18-24 when many of them can actually be won over.
Quite the contrary... I'm an Atheist living in the Bible Belt and a member of the UAW. They say a prayer at the opening of Union meetings. You think I like defending these people?
I'm trying to imagine what the world would be like if we phased religion out. I think the best way to illustrate this is to give an analogy: Taking religion away from some people would be equivilent to walking up to a cripple and kicking the crutches out from under their arms.
I'm sure that's insulted some people, sorry don't mean for it to be insulting, just seek the meaning behind it.
I believe that religious people do not have the necessary tools to operate in a religiousless society.
However, I'm starting to believe more and more that it may become necessary for this shift to Atheism to occur... maybe one of these days I'll be inspired and write a nice long list. Until then.
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I remember somewhere on this site, someone said that insulting religion/god was, to some theists, like insulting their beloved mother. Because many believe in a personal god, it's like an insult to a family member.
But I agree wholeheartedly that it's a crutch in many cases. Just think of all the things that might be accomplished if people thought for themselves and believed in themselves instead of letting their imaginary god do it for them.
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Lol! The fallibility of induction strikes!
Even so, I think that counter examples such are yourself are too rare to refute my rule of thumb. I've not heard many people defend Christianity for this reason.
Agreed. We have to replace it with something better.
The idea is to wean them off their crutch onto a more rational outlook of the world, but in order to do this we need to open their minds to such an outlook, and this needs us to atleast break the idea that their beliefs are infallible. That's why I don't think that RRS is an effective tool against moderates at the moment. We have the tools to criticise claims of truth, but we haven't done much in the way of promoting a replacement. I think the reason for this is that we aren't so much for promoting atheism as we are about breaking the strangle hold that certain religions have. The whole point is we want to set people free to explore for themselves rather dictate them new dogmas.
If America was like England then I bet the RRS would never have existed. I know that I certainly wouldn't be here if American-style Evangelicals at my Uni's Christian Union hadn't told me I would burn in hell for disbelief.