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<br><div><div>On Oct 8, 2007, at 3:24 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado (oplnk) wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Important theme. However I strongly disagree with Mr Harris in one thing.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Basically he's saying to atheists in general to get in the closet. I don't</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">think we should lie or hide anything. We should state clearly our position.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">To prove my point, let me suggest an exercise. Suppose you're a gay activist</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">fighting for the rights of homossexuals. Now take Sam's text and replace the</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">words "atheist", "humanist", "secularist" etc by "gay", "homosexual", etc.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">How would you feel about his speech now?</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Let's NOT get in the closet.</font></p> </blockquote></div><br><div>Appropriate as a follow-up to this issue, Sam Harris has posted an additional explanation to his fellow atheists, some of whom have been very critical of his talk, for his rationale...</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><a href="http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-my-fellow-atheists/">http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-my-fellow-atheists/</a></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>--</div><div>Sergio M.L. Tarrero</div></body></html>