Anyone care to discuss encouraging/ helping others to believe what You believe vs. MAKING them?

Because to my horror, I see a lot of fascist comments on this thread!
One of the reasons I embrace atheism is what i thought was its "Live & let live" outlook..........freedom to believe, or not.

To address your opening point: my cable also includes about 30 "sell me something" channels, about 10 kiddy channels, 8 or more sports channels, about 15 Chinese and Spanish language stations. So what? "Live and let live", anyone?

Just as I am free to Not enter a place of worship, I am free to change the channel. I hear fully selective packages will be available soon, so just hang in there!p

The Assumption that we are at war (war?!?!) with another group over private beliefs is IMO both divisive and dangerous, not to mention pretty silly. Sorry, but I have better things to worry about.

We must eradicate the idea that we can "Go To War" with a concept. It lends credence to the belief that we can win a War on Terror, or a War on Drugs or a War on Poverty. It's a dangerous perversion of language that has gone far beyond rhetoric and manipulates people into supporting violence, oppression, imposition of force and the relinquishing of cherished freedoms to accomplish the impossible.

I look at religion in a very simplistic way - Religion is simply a control mechanism, a tool, like money, politics, etc. . Attacking religion, is like attacking a sword as opposed to the sword-wielder, you are just wasting your energy, it's a distraction that takes the fight away from the real target. BTW I am a pacifist, but, I support fighting the enemy in a non-physical way.

We should begin YESTERDAY. I think that most non-believers are so logical and generally peaceful, that we dare not think about waging war, but as you said, they have been subjugating and killing us for centuries,so eventually we'll have to fight back. I just want religion to be put in its place, out of politics and public education. If we don't force our schools to teach evolution from the early grades on, there will be no hope of abolishing these foolish ideas.

I think in time this may be viable but for now the atheist population needs to be much higher to make a significant enough impact to cause change. Atheism is more common among educated peoples so the more educated people become the likelihood of change.

I genuinely believe that education to a high enough level as well as more socio-economic prosperity would do the trick. Also, things like rationalising slavery wasn't only done through religion, nor was relegating women to secondary status. Science had a part in rationalising slavery and while religion did play a part in relegating women, you can't just pin the whole thing on religion. I think from the point that they actually start harming people then it is justified to use force against them, but that isn't to say you use force against the whole religion, but the do-ers of harm.

It does not have to be violent. In Canada religion has been losing power over the last 50 years - We are becoming a secular nation.

Education is changing minds.

I think we should help it along by showing what we are, and standing up for our rights. We are successfully taking on every school one at a time to stop prayer, and its working. Atheists are stanidn up and it is changing . America.. not so much

The goal is to rid ourselves of harmful practices imposed on us, not to harm, humiliate, or dominate others. The goal should be to grease the skids as that religion will become obsolete and do itself in.

Nope.

YES ABSOLUTELY!!!! I love talk like this. I am a militant atheist, not an apathetic atheist. What can we DO to create the secular society we all crave to live in?? I don't believe in violence but almost everything else is fair game. So I want to go into a constructive verbal war, a legal war, a war of economics, a cultural war, basically every type of war without bullets we can engage in to end the poison that is religion and those who perpetuate that evil.

We shoudl defend ourselves, but not be aggressive like they are being.

I agree with silvereyes. I don't like the term "war," either.

Regarding your last question, you mustn't make martyrs of them, so no. If you burn a church, it inflames the martyrdom complex which only strengthens their hand. The only time I might envision something like that would be if the church was (say) violent white supremacist and the government had declared it the official religion or close to it. If it were to get to the point where the govt was endorsing racist religious institutions, then, yeah, a defiant act of arson might be called for, just like the Reichstag Fire in 1933. But, note, van der Lubbe's fire was a miserable failure. In fact, the Nazis exploited it to justify a slew of emergency measures.

If atheists are people of reason, we don't need war of any kind. Remember in the 70's we said "war is like fnking for virginity"? I think we need to learn to better articulate our peaceful engagement with believers. Listen to them carefully, as they hang by such a thin thread that they need to recite their holy books because they fear that reality will leave them feeling abandoned by all hope. Articulate love, joy and beauty. Lead by example. Be a positive role model. Take on responsibilities to make ours a better planet. Small works become big works. If we earn the trust of wild animals, we can do this too. That is civilization. The first man to hurl an insult rather than a spear was the founder of civilization. ~ Sigmund Freud