{"id":2344,"date":"2011-07-01T07:34:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T12:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2344"},"modified":"2011-07-01T07:34:48","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T12:34:48","slug":"atheists-boots-on-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2344","title":{"rendered":"Atheists Boots on the Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Atheists often joke about how Mormons and Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses go door to door pushing their religion. Yes, it is incredibly annoying and no one likes it. But even though it annoys people, it also gets their message out there. People don\u2019t even have to listen to what they say, the fact that they are there reminds people of their message. Maybe atheists should start putting some boots on the ground too\u2026 but in our own way.<\/p>\n<p>One of the great things about the door to door evangelists is that they give you literature (if you can call it that) which has their church address and meet times listed on the back. I don\u2019t like annoying people who don\u2019t deserve to be annoyed. So I don\u2019t support going to random houses to talk about atheism the way Mormons and Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses do to talk about God. But since churches love to spread their message using these means or other annoying tactics, maybe we should pay them a visit\u2026 about ten minutes into their services.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKnock, knock, anyone here? Oh, you are in the middle of something. Can I take a moment of your time to tell you a little about reality?\u201d Or, if you don\u2019t want to be rude the way religious people like to be rude, you can wait until right after or right before the service. Or my personal favorite is right when they start passing the collection plate. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>Seriously though, we need to start engaging the religious in everyday life. There are many atheist tracts available online. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ffrf.org\/shop\/nontracts\/\" target=\"_blank\">Freedom From Religion Foundation<\/a> has a lot of them. However, most of them are rather wordy and it might be tough to get religious believers to actually read them. So I was thinking of creating some tracts of my own.<\/p>\n<p>I want to create a series of tracts. Some should be very polite and friendly while others should be harsh. Some should be humorous while other should be direct and to the point. But they need to be easy to read (i.e. not wordy) and invoke thought. Because the fact is that no one reads a tract and then instantly de-converts. The idea is to get people thinking. I am open to ideas. In the mean time, here is an old video that I love dealing with door to door atheism:<br \/>\n<object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"430\" height=\"352\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/CMXD4iwklcI?version=3&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"430\" height=\"352\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/CMXD4iwklcI?version=3&amp;hl=en_US\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>P.S.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/atheism-in-national\/godless-banners-to-fly-on-independence-day\" target=\"_blank\">Godless banners to fly on Independence Day<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/atheism-in-philadelphia\/independent-from-gods-on-independence-day\" target=\"_blank\">Independent from gods on Independence Day<\/a><br \/>\nHappy Independence Day Weekend!<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><\/p>\n<div class=\"addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style \"><a class=\"addthis_button_facebook_like\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button_tweet\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_counter addthis_pill_style\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#pubid=xa-4dc93595546a5520\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2315\">Vote Atheist!<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2307\">The Myth That Atheists are Unelectable<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2320\">Atheists as a Political Force<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=8657f583-0f25-4ebc-8d69-89a67d6e2ae4\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2344\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Atheists often joke about how Mormons and Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses go door to door pushing their religion. Yes, it is incredibly annoying and no one likes it. But even though it annoys people, it also gets their message out there. People don\u2019t even have to listen to what they say, the fact that they are there [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,44,166,1147],"tags":[2215,1722,1457,1362,1594,1363,2214,1325,1721],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2346,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344\/revisions\/2346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}