I recently read Frank Schaeffer’s book “Crazy for God” and enjoyed it immensely. I’ve also seen him in a interview on “GRITtv'”, a Dish Network channel, in which he talks about his new book “Patience with God”. In the interview he cautions Atheists to tone down the noise and not to sound so much like the crazies on the right. His concern is that if Atheists start to sound like the far right, then there is a danger that the more liberal voices may be no heard.
I think he has a point to some extent. If we, the non religious, rant and rave like the right then I think we will have an even more difficult time getting our message of reason and sanity across to the majority of Americans that are religious and Christian. But on the other hand Atheists and Agnostics only make up 10% to 15% of Americans so maybe our noise level has to be a little higher.
Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and others need to be heard and if they offend some of the religious among us, so be it. Everyday we are assaulted by the God believers with their world views so we need to make sure we can be heard above the background noise.
It bothers me that the religious seems to get very upset if a non believer publically questions or ridicules their beliefs. As a case in point, look at the Muslims who get freaky when someone draws a cartoon supposedly showing the Prophet Mohammed. Besides how do we even know what he might have looked like? If you make two drawings and label one Mohammed and the other has no name, which one will Muslims get upset about. Mainly the one with the label Mohammed because that what you said you wanted to depict.
I think the Atheists and Agnostics and the Humanists need to continue to speak out. We need to continue to have this discussion and sometimes we need to speak up a little to be heard over the drum banging of the Religious Right.