Atheists Embarrassed by Atheists

A recent article by an atheist is getting some attention. He does not appreciate the actions of his brethren. I'll come back to this later.

Several times in the past, I have documented my experiences and observations, and those of others, regarding militant atheists. Interestingly, they play the victim by saying that Christians persecute atheists! That is the opposite of the truth ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. Christians are defenders of the rights of people to believe (and disbelieve) without coercion to convert.

When I inquired of others about the "old days" of my experience, when most atheists were "live and let live", with an attitude of, "I do not believe, you do, we can discuss it or not, whatever", some people say that they are like Muslims: Nice at first, but when they gain power, watch out. And don't you dare question evolution! There were not many atheopaths in my experience in the early 1970s, but I remember Scott. He was a pseudo-intellectual attention whore, bragging about his alleged suicide attempts and reading Nietzsche. One time, he ranted that all Christians should be burned at the stake. Strong talk for a nutty 15-year-old, but I pretty much wrote it off; he was no threat to anyone.

Images are "Fair Use" for educational purposes.

Today, we have atheists wanting Christians killed:

They take the advice of Richard "I Hide From Debating Creationist Scientists Like Bill Nye Does" Dawkins, and approve of ridicule:

Lying is allowed and applauded on Planet Atheopath:

  

In all this, many modern militant misotheists maintain that they stand for "reason" and "logic", but do precious little to successfully engage in those activities. Atheist Brendan O'Neill wrote an article for The Telegraph, expressing his own displeasure. He has some interesting insights.

But there are a couple of problems in it. First, he still could not resist the urge to throw in a cheap shot about the Bible that was irrelevant to the discussion: 

This week we've been treated to new scientific research claiming to show that atheists are cleverer than religious people. I say scientific. I say research. It is of course neither; it's just a pre-existing belief dolled up in rags snatched from various reports and stories. Not unlike the Bible. But that hasn't stopped the atheistic blogosphere and Twitterati from effectively saying, "See? Told you we were brainier than you Bible-reading numbskulls."

I don't know if Mr. O'Neill claims to be unbiased like many other atheists, but his bias shows up here.

Also, he insists on the new, convenient redefinition of atheism, "lack of belief":

So, what’s gone wrong with atheism? The problem isn’t atheism itself, of course, which is just non-belief, a nothing, a lack of something. Rather it is the transformation of this nothing into an identity, into the basis of one’s outlook on life, which gives rise to today’s monumentally annoying atheism. The problem with today’s campaigning atheists is that they have turned their absence of belief in God into the be-all and end-all of their personality. Which is bizarre. Atheism merely signals what you don’t believe in, not what you do believe in.

He is on the right track, as I have seen too many Christophobes on their anti-God jihads, making their alleged "lack of belief" their reason for being. The "lack of belief" thing is a cop-out. The real, established definition of atheism is a denial of the existence of God.

O'Neill has some flaws, but his exasperation with many other atheists is understandable. Some just want to go about their business, but too many others are reinforcing the public opinion that atheists are the least-liked, least-trusted group in America. And probably many other places. Take a look at his article and see.