What's New at Other Atheist and Skeptic Sites.

As many of you are aware, A-News has begun an effort to facilitate a civil dialogue between Atheists on either side of the current internal conflict. To ensure the success of these proposed talks we are partnering up with other organizations. Amanda and Adam Brown of www.weareatheism.com have pledged their full support to this effort and have agreed to join us. Flash Kellish, a VP of the National Atheist Party, has also agreed to participate and give the support of his organization.

Flash had the following to say about this effort:
“There is an incredible movement happening in this 21st century, and for the first time in history reason and critical thinking are becoming the norm instead of faith and religion. But as happens far too many times, we as a race are shooting ourselves in the foot. This grand and amazing thing we have helped create is being tainted by the emotions and irrationality of a select few that for whatever reason are willfully ignoring the purpose of our mission and hampering the intent of those that have worked so hard to get us where we are. This infighting between such brilliant minds simply must cease for the sake of our cause, our children and our future, let us not forget about what is truly important here. Please join us in our attempt to reconcile these differences and get us headed in the right direction.”

We have been asked repeatedly why we are making this attempt. In short, many of our bloggers and activists have wasted a great deal of time and energy on these uncivil arguments with one another; time and energy that could have been spent making progress in the fight that brought us all together in the first place. Not a day goes by without a story about why the Atheist community seemed interesting and inviting at first but then became a turn-off when the infighting was revealed. This conflict is pushing away many who would be our allies, not because either side is right or wrong, but because there is a great deal of irrational mudslinging from members of a community that claim to have the final say in rationality. Let us also not forget that all sides are gaining numbers. With more and more being drawn into the conflict, many fear the conversation may shift in totality away from the very thing that brought us together, our Atheism. If there is to be a conversation between Atheists about other important issues and how they effect our movement, let us facilitate it to ensure it is a civil and rational one, and encourage a new spirit of cooperation between all Atheists.

The first of our proposed talks will be focused on a discussion of the points of contention and what we can do to bring about an end to this conflict. We are planning to have two participants from each side.

Amanda Brown and Aron Ra, the American Atheists Texas State Director, have agreed to be moderators for our discussions while we at A-News work to organize and facilitate it. We have secured participants from the various sides but we are still looking for more interested and involved parties to join us.

If you would like to participate in these discussions feel free to email me at Theatheistnews@gmail.com

For details on how you can watch these discussions and updates on our progress you can subscribe to us on Facebook