Am I the only one who keeps reading NGT as "Neon Genesis Tyson"?
...yeah, why are we saying "NGT", anyway? It's "NDT". Or "NdGT"? I'm not sure how this works.
I'm not sure which came first, but I heard a similar sports analogy without this context. So, I didn't see it as snarking the analogy so much as repeating the original purpose of the analogy (which itself is snarky), to defend the existence of atheist/agnostic groups from assertions of purposelessness from the religious that occasionally echo NGT's comment. (Also a good one, "Doesn't having groups to disprove God mean you believe in God?")
Well, you can't really disprove the existence of God because you can't prove a negative.
And I continue to see the point along these lines: atheists getting together and talking about being atheists simply for its own sake is kinda weird; atheists getting together and talking about concrete policy is indistinguishable from empiricists getting together and talking about concrete policy. Or should be.
There's a tangent here, too, about Freedom From Religion and similar groups. I believe, absolutely, that we need to get fundamentalist nonsense out of public policy; I also believe that suing over the use of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is about the stupidest fucking place possible to put your energy toward that endeavor. Hence the PETA comparison, maybe.
(Tangentially, I don't think "under God" should be in the Pledge, not because I'm worried it violates the Establishment Clause but because it is a McCarthy-era addition that wasn't IN the original Pledge.
And I think the Pledge is itself a creepy-as-fuck exercise in conformity and it gave me the heebie-jeebies even as a child -- but again, if you're pushing for social change it ranks near the bottom in terms of what actual priorities should be.)
Seriously, the only reasons I didn't post exactly what Callum did was because I didn't want to have my disappointment at a possible disagreement of policy with NGT color a post to make it sound like I felt NGT had some kind of obligation to agree with me, and because I couldn't remember the litany of offenses verbatim.
But I see no disagreement of policy whatsoever.
I realize as I type that there's a third reason: Amongst people who have spent altogether too long reading the arguments and counterarguments for theism v. atheism (some of my kin visit a MegaChurch) it's a pretty tired analogy.
Fair enough. First time I've heard it, and presumably other people in the conversation too since they seemed pretty pleased with it, but if it's old hat to you then I can see that being annoying.
