Why Religious Believers Are So Desperate for the Atheist Seal of Approval

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The Good News

Don't get me wrong. We can work with you as allies. We don't have to agree about everything to work together on issues we do agree on. We can work together on separation of church and state, stopping religiously inspired oppression and violence, etc. Many of us -- heck, probably most of us -- are even willing to temporarily set aside our differences while we work together on the stuff we have in common.

But if you ask us what we think of your religion... we're going to tell you. If you visit our blogs to see what we think of your religion... you're going to find out.

We think you're mistaken. And if you're honest, you need to acknowledge that you think we're mistaken. Yes, it's true, every time an atheist says, "I don't believe in God," we're implying that people who do believe in God are wrong. But every time you say that you do believe in God, you're implying that people who don't are wrong.

That's fine. You can think we're wrong, and we can think you're wrong. We can have that conversation, or we can put it on the back burner and talk about something else. We can be allies, friends, families, with people we disagree with.

But that's not going to work if that alliance or friendship depends on us giving you our seal of approval for beliefs we think are flatly mistaken.

After all -- you're not giving us yours.