Surround yourself with people who love and respect you and realize that the people who don't simply aren't worth bothering with. For all the jerks out there, there are still plenty of wonderful people.

And it does get better. When you're 12, your choices are limited. You live where your parents decide to live, you go to school where your parents/government decide you go to school, and your pool of acquaintances is very small. But when you get older, you can travel, you can move around, you can quit your job and find a different one (or create one!). You can arrange your life so that you maximize the time you spend with people who make you happy and minimize your time around people who don't.

I wasn't an Atheist at 12, but I was certainly "different" and it was horrible. I literally can't think of a single good memory from that age that involved other people. But now, I almost feel ashamed by how great my life is. All it took was a couple years and the freedom to choose where I live and spend my days.

It definitely gets better. Just remember to always seek out people who make you happy, and do your best to make them happy in return.

You Americans definitely have a different CFI than we do in Canada! Here in Canada, CFI is *the* national Atheist organization that fights for the secularism and the rights of atheists, that provides secular alternatives to religious social programs (like AA, for example). They've been a hugely positive influence for us and I have trouble imagining our Justin Trottier ever saying anything like that Dr. Shook quote.

I realize that your audience is probably mostly American, so maybe you aren't thinking about international readers much. But I think it's important to acknowledge that these are problems with CFI in the US, and that other countries (where local CFIs are run independently of the original US version) may have a very different situation.

In other words, I hope that our lectures, events, and social services won't get a funding cut just because some of your readers aren't distinguishing between what's going on in the US and what's going on here in Canada.

I saw this at Miss Tigglywinkles, my local toy store. Right next to all the other action figures for little kids, ha! I love living in Canada :)

The difference between a moderate and an extremist is that the moderate is willing to put aside their dogma when it prevents them from interacting with society, and when they pick and choose which bits of the religion to follow (both do this), their selections will be far more palatable to people like me.

That's where the differences end.

As for their responsibility, I think it depends. If they really couldn't care less about their religion (for example, I have a good friend who is a "Muslim," in the sense that she was born in Iraq and she sees her heritage as being Muslim - her actual belief in God is very wishy-washy), then their responsibility is limited. However, if they care a lot about religion, like the "moderate" Muslims in my community who don't put photographs on their walls and keep their women covered up even in the sweltering Canadian summer (yes, it does get sweltering!), these people have an obligation to speak out.

They are accepting Islam as part of their identity, and then allowing extremists to define that identity. A great example is with this Everybody Draw Muhammad business. Nevermind that the objections to drawing Muhammad are completely anti-Islamic (since it makes Muhammad special and partially deifies him) - many 'moderate' Muslims I've spoke to will say "well, okay, treating violence is wrong, but these people shouldn't be drawing pictures of our Prophet (pfthui)." Rather than thinking for themselves about what Islam might really have to say about the subject, they are accepting the extremist talking points.

I wonder if there might not be a certain fascination with the extremists, a certain respect for them. The extremists, after all, are following Quranic (or Biblical, if that's the brand you're talking about) far more literally than the moderates. By all definitions, they are better Muslims than the moderates are. And even though most moderate Muslims will backpeddle if confronted, I think that there's a respect for the extremists because they are "un-tainted" by secularism and, perhaps, a little closer to God because they immerse themselves so deeply in religion. I think that this is the source of a lot of the unwillingness of moderates to speak out against extremists and to stop the extremists from defining the religious identity.

I'm surprised that you didn't mention another crucial part of supporting our troops - make sure that we have a really good reason before we put their lives in danger. How can it be said to be supporting them if we let them die just to stroke the egos of politicians?

I work in a not-for-profit national office. Here's how our model works:

There are individual/autonomous regional charities. These started up on their own, they fundraise on their own, they have their own boards and make their own decisions. Then there's our organization. The regional charities pay us a membership fee and, in return, we do the "big picture" thinking.

We keep track of what our members are up to and if we notice that two of our members are working on a similar project, we put them in touch with each other so that they can share resources, information, etc. We also provide resources - we have a number of publications that we provide our members on all sorts of topics (such as branding, dealing with the media, writing news releases, etc.), and we collect statistics on our members to track how the movement is doing across the country, etc.

I think that this is something close to what you are talking about. It's a really good model because a) members completely keep their autonomy, and b) there's still a central "voice."

IsThatLatin - You really get to the heart of why I so infrequently participate with group things. I'm just too tired to constantly be fighting and trying to prove that I am just as good as all the males (who tend to just get the benefit of doubt). Would it be all right if I reproduce (with credit) your post on my AtheistNexus blog? It's here: http://atheistnexus.org/profiles/blogs/women-in-a...

Precisely! Women are the breeders, they are the ones necessary for the next generations. That is why most religions have the rule that it is okay for a male adherent to marry outside the religion but not for a female. This attitude gets reflected in so many different ways right from the start of a female's religious life. I want Atheists to recognise this and to address it. Instead, we're content with saying the religious equivalent of "the only reason women aren't properly represented in academia is because they just aren't as smart as men and prefer to just have babies."

That being said, I have met male Atheists who aren't condescending. Some are even as feminist as I am (even if that just means being willing to listen to what it's like to be a woman without assuming that, as a male, he knows better). But overall, as a group, there is either a high predominance of sexist Atheist men or they are just so very loud that they make it seem that way. Either way, it is high time that we start having a serious discussion about women's place in Atheism.

Every time I have seen the question of Atheist women come up, the comments have devolved into a discussion of how fundamentally different, irrational, and emotional women are. The idea being that women are more swayed by religious arguments because zomg women are just so darn emotional! Even here, we have someone arguing that the way to get more women to deconvert is to give them wedding options. Seriously? Why not just make the scarlet 'A' pink with a pony motif. You'll have the womenz flocking!

As an Atheist woman, I do not take part in any kind of group Atheist activism and I don't go to any Atheist clubs or other sorts of meet-ups. Why? Because when I have, I've been treated like a spectacle. I am treated like I am too silly to participate in good discussions/debates, like my worth to the group is solely as a potential breeder of future Atheists.

Perhaps instead of spending our time inviting discussions of why women are so different and not attracted to the ideas of Atheism, we could start talking about why Atheism seems to present itself, at least on the surface, as being such a boys' club that does not make women feel as though they are wanted as equal partners.

There are a lot of interesting discussions we could have about why religions put so much emphasis on keeping women within the fold and why men are under so much less pressure to stay. But those discussions are never raised. The blame is always placed on women for not having the smarts to leave and for not dating all you wonderful and perfect and totally non-sexist Atheist men.