Atheists & Agnostics

Those trying to steer the masses toward dark places will always appeal to religion. If the counter argument for a more enlightened outcome begins with a dismissal of religion, then you've begun by telling people they're stupid. You're simply never going to win, or get to steer, in a country filled with stupid and stupid-adjacent people by going that route. It's better to learn to wield religion without necessarily believing in it, IMO.

For a bad example, when the news of the existence of AIDS took hold of the public consciousness decades ago, right wingers and televangelists came out of the woodwork, calling it retribution from God and using religion to stoke fears -- much to their own egotistical and financial benefit. One liberal after another tried to shoot down those claims by appealing to reason. They failed to convince much of the country.

A much better approach, IMO, was to steer the conversation to the position of reason by engaging people's religious programming rather than fighting it. It seems to me that the more effective counterargument to the "curse from God" hysteria was to propose that God didn't send AIDS to punish us, but to test our compassion -- to see how we treat our own people when they are in gravest need. Do we turn our backs, or do we embrace them, and commit every tool given to us to find a cure? And of course, the coup de gras -- what would Jesus do?

Admit it, even some of you die-hard atheists had a little well-up at that last part, right?

The same way of arguing works for any liberal agenda item, but most liberals seem reticent to go that way. I'm not. I'd rather get to steer than stand at the side. Satisfaction due to not stooping to religiosity is of little comfort when the ship is heading for the rocks.

That's my take, anyway.