Anti-Theist Action

I've started this thread again because I want to understand peoples positions more.

Should a class based anti-theist network exist? If so who should it exist and what should its objectives be? If it should not exist, why?

If we accept that religion and religious institutions are positively harmful then we need to confront and challenge these things directly as well as indirectly.

The church in England kicks up quite a fuss over embryonic research and other medical advances becaue of their morality. I think an organised and direct public reply would be fantastic, something more than the typical liberal line. (Oh it's not that bad, honest)

Perhaps this is something we could pursue?

-Alex

What are they actually doing to stop that though?

I have a few concrete suggestion witch I had posted in the old thread and think I'll post again. It was very long so I'll see if I can get to it tomorrow.
You can counter religion in so many ways and there are many fronts to fill.

One very good indicator and inspiration on what to do to counter religion is to simply look at what the proponents and propagators of religion aim to do, when they talk amongst themselves. And when that is known simply to counter their every objective.

To give a concrete example the State Church in my area publishes it's aims. It's mainly intended for the "follow" clergymen and church-crowd. Although it's language is very flowery (most likely because the churches pr-agent had gone over it and muddied some words, so only those in the know get it) it's quite badly transparent none the less.
Their main aims are to infuse the church into every aspect of society as much as possible and making themselves visible/felt in public life. They further list all the things they have achieved thus far and what they hope to approve upon. One of those specific things are to infuse the church and kindergarden as well as church and elimentary school. Either having kindergardenkids regularly take trips to church (to normalize church presence) or to gain church presence in the kindergardens. As in having a kindergarden priest come and tell stories, sing songs ect. The same with elementary schools.

Now the thing one can do here (in this case as a parent/gardian) is to harrass the church authorities, and school authorities into thinking such trips more trouble than their worth. And one is luckily on very firm legal grounding if one lives in Europe. According to human rights laws parents have the sole proprietorship in matters religious upbringing, but not the schools or the church. If trips are taken in violations of the parents wishes it's a human rights abuse. Now the schools somtimes says "ok, we can take the kid aside (in the corridor or something)" but that is a set up for abuse and bullying of the child in addition to being decrimination on the basis of religion conviction which is also a human rights abuse. The church (if its a state church) and the schools are subject to information laws. So you can demand to see all issued, letters, descussions, internal memos, everything. There are loads of ways you can be a nuisance in an irritatingly legitimate way. This sort of stuff has been very helpful in retarding as well as deflecting the church advance at this front.

Now the descussting despicable slimy smug fraudsters i.e the Clergy are upheld and supported by the State to retard and passify the masses. But how? Where I live the church is held upp partially by direct state funds and on the other hand membership-conditional state funds. The job then is to become an expert in how to decrease the membership and hit them where it hurts the most ; their moneybag.

With less funds, the less these greedy greasballs can wreak havoc. And with less membership the more difficult it gets for them to legitimize themselves in general. And the higher the prosentage of non-affiliated people the more profile or social significance secularism gets.

One good thing one can do is to try to gain access to the clergy mailing list if can. It's really informative if you want to know how they interact amongst themselves when they are not keeping upp their false public veneer. Be prepared for much money-grubbery.

I'm not discounting individual interest but I genarally find it useful in a strategic sense to focus on the biggest fish. That is, aiming to counter the most prolific spreaders of superstitious nonsense at each time. In my area it's the State Church. Since it is wealthy and supported by the state it has the capital to undercut secular social ventures such as childrens summer camps and the like. As well as spread their nonsense more widely. However I don't think that should ever preclude or retard efforts to counter less influential religions and superstions such as Islam, Spiritualism and New Age stuff.