Feel free to read it if you’re a masochist, but it’s just the standard tripe: atheists are “smug fuck[s],” “childish,” and he even threw in a claim that we “casually drop [our] beliefs in the middle of a conversation to look cool.”  That’s a new one; I wasn’t aware being atheist was cool now.  All the apparent bigotry against us sure fooled me!  I guess we should just shut up like good little heathens.  Only the religious have the right to have opinions.

My Response

I figure the comment I left him would be useful here.  It covers many important points as to atheists demanding our place is the marketplace of ideas, and tears down his dubious “scientific” (and I use that term loosely) logic.  But more to the point of this blog, as he unsuccessful tries to claim atheists are intolerant, it points out his own bigotry.  I show that he, while criticizing atheists, is the one using ad hominem attacks – attacking the people instead of the ideas.  It’s not surprising though, when he has nothing of substance to say.

I don’t expect my comment to have any effect, he’ll just ignore it as bigots do no matter how valid the points made are, or he’ll use it as an excuse to bash me, a “smug fuck” atheist.  It was just somewhere to write it before I brought it here, and sort of a – since he likes profanity – fuck you, being an atheist expressing my views which he despises oh so much.  My comment from his blog follows (edited a bit for SDR):

It takes quite a twisted version of logic to see the universe having been created as “obvious.” Either that or it takes a complete lack of understanding of how evidence works. Nothing is obvious; the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. You made a claim, that there is a creator, therefore if you expect others to accept it you must back it up with evidence. As it is a scientific claim, you have the obligation to present this great new evidence you have that the entire scientific community, including religious scientists, have missed! You don’t. Since you have no evidentiary or even plausible mechanistic possibility to back it up, you default to “it’s obvious.” That’s simply not evidence. It’s as meaningless as saying something is “common sense.”

And your claim that atheists (that’s lowercase because it’s not a proper noun, it’s a state of being, by etymology “without religion/god belief”) “casually drop their beliefs in the middle of a conversation to look cool” is a red herring at best, and at worst says a lot about your bias. I suggest that I am around a lot more atheists on a regular basis than most people, and I can’t say I often hear atheists randomly bringing up the fact that there is no god in the middle of unrelated conversations. If the conversation is relating to religion or a god, why is an atheist not allowed to express his view? I doubt you would say a Christian talking about his/her religion would be doing it to “sound cool.”

Religious people discussing their views are fine, but an atheist should just keep quiet, I guess. The religious are allowed to discuss religion and it’s normal, but when an atheist does it he’s just trying to sound cool, as if atheism is really accepted in America and it makes us “cool.” Your attempt to dismiss the atheist voice is transparent. My degree and research is in the field of religious studies, and I’m an atheist. With all my training I guess I have nothing to say. I’m just trying to sound cool.

You clearly show that you are not anti-atheism, which would be fine. There is nothing wrong with having opinions counter to those of atheists, just as there is nothing wrong with being anti-religion, having opinions that disavow religion. That isn’t bigotry, both are valid views. Your writing suggests, though, that it is not atheism that bothers you so much, but the fact that atheists exist and dare to express their views. How dare we! You are not anti-atheism, you are anti-atheist, and that is bigotry.

I suspect that you would surely be one of those who claim that “atheists are intolerant and bigoted against the religious.” I can say, as both a measure of an expert in religion and an atheist myself, that you would be wrong. The majority of outspoken atheists are anti-religion, not anti-religious people. We, as a group, as victims of bigotry tend not to lean toward being bigots. An atheist couldn’t make it very far being anti-theist, considering most of the world is religious. If we hate religious people so much how would we be able to live in America?

You, like, many religious bigots seem not to make the distinction when it comes to atheists. We criticize religious bigots, not all religious. You criticize all atheists. And how easy it is, isn’t it, to express your prejudice in this country. I wonder if you would have such gravitas to express your beliefs in a country so repressive to people who share them if the circumstances were reversed, and we were the majority.