Voted live and let live, but I need to provide a qualifier here. It is apparent that religion is doing a fine job of killing itself off without our help, hence the let live element. However, let live does not include acquiescing when they (the religions) attempt to gain political power, or control of any kind over social endeavor. In this regard they are to be actively resisted at every turn.

Additional note: We should seek legislation barring religions from running indoctrination programs for children. That is to say, nothing in the form of religion run elementary and secondary schools. Advanced college level education is fine. What the children learn from their parents and whatever services/rites they attend is fine, but it should not extend beyond that. Further, all religious institutions should be subject to the same tax burdens as any business except for activities demonstrably used for the assistance of the poor, the ill, and refugees. Such outreaches should also not be allowed to push their religious agendas on the people they aid. They've used this avenue for the purpose of recruitment far too long.

I voted #1 but would change it a little. There is no need to limit the furthering of equality, diversity and love of knowledge to within the movement. To pursue this with all people, because these are good causes in general and without presenting it as an agenda of Atheists, would work towards undermining the hideous underpinnings of organized religion.

Multiple beliefs existing peacefully?

When has that EVER happened? It never has, it never will - religion is fundamentally devisive, fundamentally judgememtal, and fundamentally harmful.

I hope that I can ‘be’ the change...energy is precious and I want to spend mine, standing up when necessary and allow others the freedom to live what they believe...unless they are deliberately hurting someone else!

Do no harm. I would not have put up with anyone telling me what to believe, I had to come to my conclusions on my own. Agnostic/Atheist is not a movement, it is letting go of fantasy and opening my eyes to reality. I don't follow anyone's rules or mandates and I sure as the sun rises will not pledge loyalty to a movement.

Religion will always adapt as the last hundred years have shown, there have been many concessions made to accommodate societal changes to keep their followers.

When someone has questions then I will do my best to answer honestly, otherwise I will not force anyone to change their beliefs.

I don't really feel that I am part of any movement, I am just myself along with friends and people who are not concerned with gods. I don't know where the 'movement' is moving and I don't want to be part of a club or even outside a club that doesn't want me as I am. I have been godless all my life -no big deal in fact no deal at all - so its a non starter for me to imagine being in a group that fights when I can live quite peacefully with anyone who needs a god.

It has become a war and the extremist religionists have created it. Their rabid attempt to take over the country needs to be forcibly fought and many are willing to risk their lives for this.
My late partner was an atheist from the day she could reason. She thought religion was silly and couldn't understand why people followed this nonsense. She immigrated here from Iran in 1977 and 2 years later the revolution hit and religion took over and she saw what religion can do to a country. She said moving to the US saved her life because if she had stayed and with her mouth she would either be dead or in jail. Now it is our turn to fight. Here is another Iranian woman who feels the same as my partner. She spoke at the last FFRF convention in Madison, WI. This is starting to happen here. [maryamnamazie.com] What is happening in this country today is only a preview of what will happen if we don't stand up to the religious bullies.

Religions are divisive and dangerous and we need to keep challenging it. It worries me that the religious don't worry about the future of our planet because "it is the end times and Jesus is returning so I can keep polluting all I like".

I think it is important that people keep making the points that a) the biblical God was not a nice guy, b) given the state of the world, no god could be all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving, it becomes a contradiction in terms, c) seeing all the world's mythologies, why would the judeo-christian myth turn out to be true, d) in modern terms ancient prophets would seem to be suffering from mental health disorders.

We need people to champion the atheist cause, the right to not believe in a religion that makes no sense to you.

I for one am not a militant Athiest..more like a live and let live sort.
However this does not mean I advocate complacency against the fundamentalism of right wing Christians and Radical Moslems.
We must defend our rights against these groups.

I'm not sure that Live and let live or the create a world options are viable as religion is so sure it's right! None of them want to allow any other group to exist outside of their dogma.

An overwhelming number of people make life decisions based on emotion....on how they feel...rather than on facts, evidence, and logic. IMO religion brainwashes people to accept life decisions on emotion......accept it on faith....
We are headed for disaster unless people start using their brain and thinking, and evaluating evidence to make crucial decisions.

I don't fight against religion, but will fight against religious privilege.

If there was a way to coexist peacefully, it would be ideal. Unfortunately, that is not the case and we need to keep up the fight.

I must admit that I never really thought of atheism as a sort counter-congregation to the religious ones. Part of the enjoyment of being a freethinker came from this very freedom not to compress my thoughts through any filter. I see a religion free platform as a sort of mental safe zone for those who escaped from their religious concentration camps.
Perhaps the best compromise would be a religious particle collider surrounded by an antitheist field.

Yes I do agree that Hitch had his faults, but I did, and still do admire his speaking out against religion. Sorry that he died, he was an insperation to the Atheist movement. I was never a believer in god or gods, but it was people like Hitch, Dawkins and other Atheists that showed the true nature of just how toxic religion really is. For me though, it's not a matter of just not believing in a god. I like those who promote Science and math, engeneering, biology, etc. rather than religion, Like Richard Dawkins, Neil DeGrass Tyson, Lawence Krauss and such. Thanks to places like Youtube, Their words spread far and wide to people that didn't know any better than what their preacer told them. Hitch was one of those that paved the way for others to be out spoken about religion, and I will always thank him for that.

By continue fighting I mean to just present the actual facts and history, and make sure the information is always readily available to anyone.

Though voting support for the second statement, I strongly disagree with the notion that a 'movement' is either desirable or necessary as the means of thwarting theological fanaticism. Theologies are themselves movements within which people are organized by self-appointed, self-aggrandizing males issuing theologically based 'marching orders'.

Rejection of gods and presumptuous men claiming to represent them is an individual choice. What theological and political manipulators (in the forms of movements) fear most isn't as much rejection as the assertion of individuality at it's root. They are in fact rather comfortable with sheep rejecting one herd and choosing another as a given; as a matter of competition that in no way jeopardizes the herd system.

Among atheists, since it is merely rejection of gods, many different reason based notions about our reality can thrive and find common agreements among others with no necessity whatsoever of becoming movements. Some of us might sense or reason as individuals a life energy or even intentionality beyond our grasp. Others might reject those notions. Some fellow atheists also consider ghosts and planetary influences to be possible. Many other ideas abound within the category of those who share only personal rejection of gods.

Movement phenomena, if you reflect on them, always have one or more promoters; usually claiming some form of superior knowledge or sagacity with which they deign to license themselves as your 'betters'. It is seduction with sweet sounding ideas around which to rally into a movement that always empowers leaderships and almost always enriches them. The first order of business in any movement is establishing doctrinal (substitute ideological if you will) boundaries within which constituents must volunteer to confine themselves.

It is, for me, one of the most disturbing trends among other atheists to see self-appointed gurus of alleged science attempting to define who is and is not a real Atheist. Science can be as slippery a basis at times as theology for founding movements, if for no other reason, because these elitist definers of what is and isn't don't stop at defining you. As leaders, they also consider themselves to be arbiters of questions about what is or isn't real science.

It is really about establishment of orthodoxies by those who are uncomfortable with too much individuality; too much wrongheadedness, as they see it, displayed by lower forms. Curiously, or maybe not so, these priggish colonizers of your intellectual independence are almost always male.

I must admit that I never really thought of atheism as a sort counter-congregation to the religious ones. Part of the enjoyment of being a freethinker came from this very freedom not to compress my thoughts through any filter. I see a religion free platform as a sort of mental safe zone for those who escaped from their religious concentration camps.
Perhaps the best compromise would be a religious particle collider surrounded by an antitheist field.

The world needs counciling

I adore these. I would love to see a breakdown based off of gender race geographical location excetra excetra, and maybe have a sample size of about 10 million more LOL. Anyone have thoughts of making that happen?

Atheism is definitional, not organizational or ideological. It's not a "movement". It's a bunch of individuals whose only thing in common is not believing in even one deity. Full stop. End of story.

But quite apart from atheism, we can and should create a world where people are entitled to their own beliefs (though not to their own facts). I would say that's something everyone, atheist or not, can agree on in principle. Except maybe fundamentalists, who are chronically obsessed with their own rightness and everyone else's wrongness.

Atheism isn’t a movement, it’s a personal choice.

i am not part of an atheist movement. i want a world (good luck to me!) where people are logical (that eliminates religion to a large extent, though people CAN compartmentalize; the trouble is, fewer and fewer people do) and kind. i prefer something like the freedom from religion foundation, which concentrates not on turning other people into atheists, but on making sure we have equal right, to a crusade to eliminate religion. maybe some day all religion will be seen as an historical phenomenon about which much literature exists not to convert or convince but to examine, socially, and to entertain, much as greek mythology serves us now.

g