Let’s Stop Calling New Atheism, “Atheism,” and Start Calling it What it is: Anti-Theism

[Prophet 451]

128. Some of the "New Atheists" are assholes

From observation, there are three kinds of atheist. There's your standard atheist, probably the majority of atheists, the "I don't believe in god" atheist. They mostly don't bother us believers, they just get on with living their lives. Then there are your "strong" atheists. They go a shade further and say "there is no god" which is slightly arrogant (as we don't have universal knowledge) but by and large, still not a problem.

Then there are the anti-theists. They're frequently just as aggressive as theists with their proselytizing, seem to hero-worship Hitchens et al and affect a smug, sneering contempt for faith and believers. The reason they're so annoying is partly their proselytizing and partly that they don't even respect our feelings as much as they would respect someone in love's feelings. I think that's the best comparison. Faith, like love, is not provable, often illogical and invisible. Yes, it motivates and shapes our personalities. Now, I'm not asking atheists to share our faith, just that they afford our beliefs the same amount of respect they would accord to love. Finally, the "New Atheists" seem incapable of understanding that the attempts to impose religious beliefs on others are done by fundies, not by the mainstream.

Oh, one more thing. I look in on the religion group here fairly often and I've seen far more threads started by militant atheists about how awful religion and believers are than I have seen threads about religion otherwise.