Yesterday, many distinguished atheist organizations recently came together to support and disseminate an open letter to the secular community. Here is what will happen next: The most extreme elements from both “sides” will reject outright any proposals for civil engagement, with vehement denunciations and cries for the rifts to be forever widened between the pure and righteous (themselves) and the evildoers who threaten to undermine the project of secularism (the other side); people on all sides will get defensive, then angry, and then the rhetorical knives will come out.
Even as of this writing, I am seeing in my feeds that the process is already underway, with even a few prominent thinkers publishing adamant rejections of the open letter and the principles embodied therein. Here is a free bit of advice to the various national organizations who signed on to the letter: It has no teeth whatsoever if your organization continues to sustain and support those who openly reject it. If you fly them out to your conference, give them a platform from which to speak, wine and dine them, party with them, and find other ways to spend your limited resources (our donations) helping to keep them at the center of the movement, you are undermining the goals of the open letter and your own credibility. No one will heed your next open letter if you cannot show the community, starting today, that you really mean to stand by this one.
