A blog post at Stand to Reason responds to a post about them by the “Friendly Atheist,” who, I think, doesn’t really live up well to his chosen moniker. But kudos to STR for their civil response to his uncharitable assumption about their method. @Patrick has linked to the Friendly Atheist blog before on these forums, so it might be of interest to some of you.
What do you think of STR’s “atheist roleplay” model discussed in this post?
I get the idea. STR has the intellectual upperhand and aren’t afraid of real atheists. Hemant made a strawman but definitely couldn’t stand up to the true apologists and defenders of the faith.
But in all seriousness, what does it mean if the Friendly Atheist was really mistaken or wrong on this particular issue? Does that discount what @Patrick has said at other points or shared from this particular blogger? Does it mean that all of those ideas can be easily dismissed? I think this is actually an interesting question where lets say I disagree with @swamidass on some things, it would be silly for me to dismiss everything he says.
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that this somehow discredits everything the Friendly Atheist writes. I just thought it was incongruous with his blog’s title, is all.
I would like to be volunteer atheist to STR. See if the kids can stump me. It would be fun.
Hemant’s main point was that they should have brought in a real atheist instead of a pretend one. And I’m inclined to agree with him on that.
@nwrickert Perhaps. Though consider the goal of the exercise is both to expose the students to the other viewpoint, and to help the students be able to respond to challenges to their faith. Ideally they’d want someone who is on board with both those goals - and while a real atheist would be fine with the first goal, I would find it somewhat strange for them to be committed to the second.
I kinda agree with McDowell on this:
So don’t pick any old atheist. Pick one suitable for the task. I’m sure that there are plenty of them. And there are also quite a few who are “angry atheists” and would be unsuitable.
Don’t automatically assume that every atheist is of the “angry atheist” kind.
I nominate @nwrickert, @John_Dalton, @Dan_Eastwood, @T_aquaticus, and @patrick. But @patrick needs a handler of some sort… 
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Hey, what’s wrong with me?
Okay @John_Harshman too, but we need put a “grumpy” warning sticker on your shoulder 
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I don’t think that you really fathom how the country has changed. Over 1/3 of the population are Nones and nearly half of millenials. So finding an atheist is simple, he/she is standing right next to you in school (secular), at work, at the supermarket. Time to accept this.
Pick a random person under 35. 50/50 chance he/she is a None.
I need no handler. Kids love me. Note that I call anyone under 45 a kid, male or female.
The real question is why atheism would challenge faith based beliefs to begin with. Atheism could largely be described as a lack of faith when it comes to questions about deities. People lacking faith shouldn’t impact those who choose to have faith.
There is something to be said for rejecting bad apologetics, but I think it ultimately boils down to the personal choice of having faith in religious tenets.
I did not assume that, @nwrickert. My assumption was more that most (not all) atheists would not really be interested in helping Christian teenagers defend their faith from objections.
This is not about people’s lack of faith somehow affecting people having faith. This is about reasons to believe that Christianity is true, or not. It is about learning why, and learning how to articulate, the reasons one has for being a Christian. And, having good reasons rather than bad ones.
Fair enough. In this scenario, the atheist could fill the role of the independent skeptic, someone who isn’t emotionally invested in the Christian faith and is therefore not already influenced by potentially poor apologetic arguments. Preferably, your model atheist would also need to be someone who isn’t emotionally invested in proving Christianity false.
They would be interested in having Christians better understand them. They frequently hear Christians making false assertions about athiests. And educating youth can be part of that.
That’s a good point as well. From my personal experience, I have heard some really terrible opening lines from Christians who are witnessing to me. Something that sounds more like a sales pitch than an honest personal belief is a big turnoff.
I would say that many atheists are interested in finding a bridge between all of us, even if all it means is that we run into fewer bad arguments.