Actually, I will defend the teacher. Partly because I think she has a point, and partly to be a devil's advocate, since everyone else is backing swifty. It doesn't hurt to sharpen your argument against an imaginary opponent before you take it to your teacher, yes?
Okay, from
wikipedia we have a couple of paragraphs describing professional bodys. There are two main attributes which they have, either singularly or in combination.
They are an organization that exist to further a particular
profession. In that role, they may either 1) protect the public interest, and 2) protect the interests of the professionals.
For example, they may oversee licensing of the profession, which would serve #1. Or they may be a labor union, which would serve #2.
Finally, another type which doesn't seem to fit easily into the above are academic bodies, which act as societies for academic pursuits.
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So, does atheism 1) fit the definition of a professional body, and 2) does it match the intent of the assignment.
I will start with some obvious counterexamples. Suppose we have a labor union for autoworkers. It is clearly a professional body, so it meets that requirement. However, they are not in the business of presenting information to the public on a regular basis, so I would say it is not a good topic for the assignment. That's not to say that it couldn't be
forced into that role; we could imagine the union presenting information on how labor unions help the economy, or whatever, but we know that's not really what they do.
So, how does atheism fit in. Well, there is no profession for atheism. There are certainly
professionals who debate in the public sphere, Dawkin, et. al., but that is not their profession. We can hypothesize somebody whose entire income comes from atheist activities - such as someone who publishes a magazine. But if they were to join a trade organization, they would join a publisher's organization.
Now let's look at a suggested group that would meet the definition, the
Atheist Alliance International. It was the first thing that came to me as well, so it's probably a good candidate. However, read the description:
Atheist Alliance International (AAI) is an organization of independent religion-free groups and individuals in the United States and around the world. Our primary goals are to help democratic, atheistic societies become established and grow and to work in coalition with like-minded groups to advance rational thinking through educational processes. Virtually all income goes to these causes.
Okay, they clearly meet the public interest requirement. But there is no profession here. They are trying to advance
causes, not professions.
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I don't know why the teacher gave this assignment, or how much her christianity is biasing her decision. If the goal is simply to teach you how to create presentations, then a bit of leniency in this matter would be nice. Teachers should encourage student's interests, in my view. However, there seems to be more to this assignment: specifically, the professional body aspect. To successfully complete this assignment, you not only have to create presentations, but you have to imagine the needs of a profession, how that profession can positively or negatively affect the public, decide what message is important to bring to the public, and then present it. I'm imagining a counterargument, that atheism can also positively or negatively affect the public, and thus the creative effort is the same. Well, I argue no. The needs of a profession and the needs of the public can often differ. It'd be great to be able to operate, lay pipe, drill for oil, etc., w/o concern for safety. More jobs, more profit, better wages for all. However, that need must be balanced against the public's interests - good health care, pipes that don't leak, drill sites that aren't ecological disasters. Hence, licensing, public awareness compaigns, etc. As far as I can see, the atheist groups are merely interested in the public's interests - they are fighting something, churches and such, but entities that are not part of their organization. Pastor's don't join AAI, in general, nor do school board members who want to teach creationism in school.
Hence, while it's an intriguing choice, I feel that atheism isn't relevant to the assignment. It's a group that
opposes professionals - pastors, school boards, etc., in the name of the public good. (oppose is too strong, but work with me, I'm not going to type all day to get exactly the correctly nuanced expression).
ETA: Let me give an example of what I think would be a good choice for this assignment. We can compare it against the atheism choice. Okay, how about a journalism association. They exist to support journalism, and many journalists belong. Now, there is some shoddy journalism around, so an arm of the organization researches bad journalistic practices, and brings them to light. They may publish findings of bad reports. They may issue white papers and have conferences on how to maintain integrity in the profession. They may have some public speakers on stand by to go in front of the press to pontificate on current events (say a journalist fabricated a story, or a newspaper squashed an important story because the white house requested it not be published).
This is clearly a body that is supporting a profession (journalism) by educating the public about the positive and negative aspects of that profession. It supports the profession by being a public mouthpiece when a journalist 'goes bad', and by being an industry watchdog (calling out censorship).
I can't figure out how to write the paragraph above by substituting in atheism. Any atheistic organization I know exists to educate the public. There's no profession involved, and there is no (significant) watchdog element protecting the public against self serving behaviors of atheists.
If the assignment was for an
educational society or a
public interest society, it'd be a great choice. But that's not the assignment.
I will post the developments!
