You know, that thing that some blogs have where if you mouse-over a link an image appear of the site you’re linking to? I can imagine it might be useful in some cases (such as if you’re linking to pictures, hence giving people a way to glimpse the pics before actually clicking it), but on a blog, in the actual text? Please, no. I tend to move my mouse about the screen a lot when I read, selecting blocks of text at random and just generally busying my idle hands, and those snapshots that keep turning up are really annoying.

Yes, I’ve turned them off. I’m just wondering, who likes them? What do they actually give you as a surfer of the interwebs? Are they there to do anything but making the owners of the sites that use them feel a little spiffier, a little cooler, more hip, movin’ with the times? Maybe they’re just there to annoy me. I can only imagine the irritation I would feel if I was on a dial-up connection (do those even exist anymore) as well…

For those of you who don’t follow Greta Christina’s Blog (although I don’t understand why you wouldn’t, considering its excellent and original mixture of atheism and sex), at least go read her latest post: In Defense of Atheist Blogging:

Among many theistic commenters, there seems to be an odd expectation that every single post I write about religion should address every single aspect of religion that exists, or has ever existed. When I write about X, it’s pointed out that I didn’t write about Y; when I write about Y, I’m scolded for not writing about Z. (Or about X, for that matter.)

While I personally haven’t experienced that particular form of bizarre argument, I do recognise the following:

When atheist bloggers write about extreme, hard-core, fundamentalist- type religions, we get scolded for picking easy targets, and we almost inevitably have it pointed out to us (as if we didn’t know) that “not all religion is like that.”

But when we criticize progressive religions, we get scolded for being mean and divisive and going after people who should be our allies.

What’s more: When we criticize the overall concept of religion in general, we’re accused of over- generalizing, of not understanding the rich variety of religious belief and thought.

But when we criticize one particular form or aspect of religion, we somehow, once again, get accused of over- generalizing — of not seeing that the one form or aspect we’re talking about today doesn’t apply to every form or aspect of religion that exists or has ever existed.

So what on Earth are we supposed to do?

One point that I would like to make in addition to Greta’s fine post is that even though many atheists will happily argue with believers, I suspect that this is not the reason why most of us writes. There may of course be as many reasons for blogging as there are bloggers, but one thing that I think most atheists know is that you can’t convert another person to your own beliefs. You can try to make them convert themselves by encouraging them to think in a different way, but there’s very few religious people that are actually open to considering your actual arguments (and yes, I’m aware that religious people would probably say the same of us, even though I’d contend that allegation).

So why write? I think a large part of it is to compose our own thoughts and arguments into more cogent forms. Another is to connect with other likeminded people and share ideas, experiences and arguments with them. And a third is to reach those who have yet to decide what they think, or who are wavering in whatever belief they previously held and are exploring the options.

At least that’s what I think. I may of course be wrong, but so far I don’t think I’ve encountered any atheists, bloggers or no, that were actually out to convince religious people they were wrong. The arguments are not made for the sake of our opponents, but for those who are watching.

religion, science, atheism, blogging