[Blogs] Positive Atheism gets Positive Write-up

[Hank]

Positive Atheism gets Positive Write-up
         

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/11/atheism-a-posit.html NOTE:  Meet Margaret Downey at our Winter Solstice Party!

By Tom Krattenmaker

Being an atheist is not easy in this age of great public religiosity in America. Not when the overwhelming majority of Americans profess some form of belief in God. Not when many believers equate non-belief with immorality. Not when more people would automatically disqualify an atheist for the presidency (53%, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll) than a gay candidate (43%), for example, or a Mormon (24%).

(snip)

Mindful of atheism's reviled reputation, a new current in non-belief is intent on showing the public what atheists are for. You might be surprised by what's on their short list. Because, save for the belief-in-a-deity part, it sounds a lot like what most Americans value. Care for one's community and fellow human beings, love of country and cherished American principles, the pursuit and expansion of knowledge — these are the elements of the new "positive atheism."

A new face

The reputation of atheists has not been well-served by the surly attacks on religion by some of atheism's highest-profile torch carriers. From the best-selling atheist manifestos of recent years to Bill Maher's new Religulous movie, the loudest voices of non-belief have exhibited much of the same stridency and flair for polemics as the religious fundamentalists they excoriate.

But if Margaret Downey keeps making progress with her campaign to show a different face of atheism, it's possible to imagine the day when avowing one's non-belief will not be political suicide. (It seems to be just that today, given that only one member of Congress, Rep. Pete Stark of California, has revealed that he does not believe in a deity; in view of polling data suggesting that some 5% to 15% of Americans are atheists and agnostics, it seems certain there are at least a few more non-believing senators and representatives in the halls — and closets — of Congress.)

Downey, having recently finished a stint as president of the Atheist Alliance International, is now organizing a non-believers' unity convention to take place in 2011. She is the poster person for positive atheism, a term she uses for a new face of atheism that emphasizes the good things in which non-believers do believe.

Downey does not move in the ways of the late atheist spokesperson Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who was known for her caustic mockery of religion and its followers. And despite Downey's friendship with the outspoken atheist author Richard Dawkins, of The God Delusion fame (who likens the religious indoctrination of kids to child abuse), Downey is more interested in building bridges than walls.
         

http://www.atheists.org/nogodblog/index.php/2008/11/19/positive_atheism_gets_positive_write_up
         

[Ungodly]

I know this Margaret Downey person.  I met her at a booth in a street fair in West Chester PA a few years back on when of my many trips back home for a funeral.  She is a very soft spoken and calm person, yet very focused and with lots of drive.  I'm not at all surprised to see her becoming well known nationally.

[Storybook]

  I met her at a booth in a street fair in West Chester PA a few years back on when of my many trips back home for a funeral. 

Does Downey live in PA?

[Ungodly]

She did when I met her, yes.  She was involved with the Freethinkers group in Philadelphia at the time.