As occasionally will happen, today's post is not related to technology (well, unless you want to apply it to the Mac/PC wars).

John C. Welch writes about what atheists can learn about community from religious people:

Set aside the (always enjoyable) ridiculing of religion, and ask yourselves: "Do we provide an alternative that is at least as good?"

Regarding the always-enjoyable-ridiculing — I think there are plenty of areas of religion, and plenty of people who profess to be religious, that are highly deserving of scorn and contempt, and I heartily enjoy any smackdown of such areas and people.

At the same time, I agree with Welch that we shouldn't discount the good things people do because they happen to be motivated by religion. I think it would be pretty dickish to look down my nose at a church volunteer who hands me a blanket when a hurricane destroys my home. And I agree that the smugness Welch refers to is not only distasteful but counterproductive, for some definition of "productive".

• If I want to convince individuals I know and care about, for their own good, to change their beliefs and thus their lifestyles, it behooves me to consider where they are coming from and where I am asking them to go.

• If I want to work more broadly as an organizer or campaigner to tear down illusions and superstitions that are doing massive harm to society… well, actually I should still consider where people are coming from.

• If I find religious people plain wrong, sometimes annoyingly so, but don't feel like trying to engage them or change them, that's my prerogative. (This is the category I'm in, at least for now.)

• If my only interest is in "being right", as Welch puts it — with the implication that I get off on other people being wrong — well, that's my prerogative too. But I feel this is a narrow way of thinking.

I totally understand the urge for atheists to belittle religious people, because I have felt the same urge in other areas, and succumbed too often and with too much regret. I do enjoy my bitter sarcasm; the aftereffects, not so much.

For some reason I don't feel this urge about religion. The issue of my non-belief vs. other people's religious beliefs, however absurd I find them, is not a hot button for me and I'm perfectly happy to let others do the talking. I do think there's a place for hard-hitters like Dawkins and Hitchens, but also a place for what Welch is talking about.