A fight does not have to last a long time. I realize that many boxing fans love those prolonged bouts where two evenly matched opponents stand toe-to-toe dishing out punishment longer than anyone should be able to endure it. Those are the type of fights that will be remembered, and I have little difficulty understanding why they are preferred. On the other hand, some fights are very short. Mike Tyson comes to mind in boxing, and there are countless examples in MMA for those who prefer that type of fight. Someone takes an unnecessary risk and drops their guard for a second, and that is all it takes their opponent to deliver a knock-out. And of course, many street fights waged without gloves or padding of any kind are very short.
The kind of fight involved in activism is rarely short because meaningful sociopolitical change comes slowly. Perhaps our preference for describing the quest for equality and human rights as a struggle rather than a fight reflects this awareness. That said, there may be small fights within the larger struggle that are occasionally short and decisive. Consider individual interactions between atheists and religious believers as a decent example of what I have in mind. I bet we've all seen religious claims thoroughly debunked quickly. It isn't that these debunkings bring an immediate end to religious belief; however, they often take place in brief interactions that pack a wallop.
One example of brief but meaningful fights can be found on most atheist blogs. Short posts can be fun, and a post need not be lengthy to pack a punch. Here's a great example from Infidel753 reminding us that worship is degrading. It is a short post because it doesn't need to be any longer than it is to make the point effectively. Worship is indeed degrading. It baffles me why so many seem proud to degrade themselves.
You are a human, a member of the most intelligent, self-aware, mentally-sophisticated species on this world and probably any world. You are of the race that tamed mammoths and bacteria, that crafts poetry and mathematics and architecture and vaccines, whose minds pierce the farthest stars and the innards of atoms. There is nothing higher than you. It should be shameful for you to bow down to anything, especially to a god that is a figment of the imagination of those who lived thousands of years ago in ignorance and superstition.Creating a "god" to worship strikes me as little more than a desperate act of self-love, but not even that stops it from being degrading. We create this god, make it extra scary by giving it all sorts of unpleasant human characteristics, and then grovel before it to make ourselves feel better about our pathetic lives. I'm not suggesting that the alternative is for us to find something else to worship; I am suggesting that we abandon worship altogether.
