Some people, like Chris Hedges, seem to think that there is a “new” atheism, and that we are “secular fundamentalists”.
Sorry. Atheism is pretty much just as proud and as strident as it ever has been. Does anyone remember Madalyn Murray O’ Hair? Now that’s what I call hardcore, strident, and righteous.
We have always been here. We are tired of the negative effects of religion. Find me the atheist who has forcibly evangelized and slaughtered people who didn’t believe in their god. And don’t give me that shit about Joe Stalin or Chairman Mao. Their viciousness laid not in their atheism; rather, it stemmed from the fact that they were totalitarians who used philosophy to aggrandize themselves, perverting the principles that helped them rise to power.
There is a big, big difference between “movement” atheism and religious fundamentalism. Just because we critique religion doesn’t mean we are prejudiced. We are aware.
You’re just hearing from atheists more these days because of this neat thing called the Internet. We, like everyone else, are using it to call attention to ourselves.
It’s major bullshit to say that we are demonizing the Other when we say that Islam is a destructive force. What you’re leaving out is that we don’t discriminate. We think all religions have spilled too much blood.
Now hang onto your hat; we also say that we don’t give a mighty fuck about what you believe in. What matters is that you are a good person and citizen. And if your god assists you in achieving that goal, well, wonderful. We don’t think you’re right, but tolerance is a high calling for all intelligent humans.
(This 2015 fragment is acceptable. Because the hyperreligious don’t understand what the fuck we are about and what we are saying. Time and time again we tell them we don’t hate religion; it just doesn’t work for us and on balance has done much more harm than good. Almost every atheist’s body count is zero, and if you think you have found one who has slaughtered in the name of atheism, there’s something else wrong with that person. People with mental illness think they are gods, and that’s a pretty potent form of consciousness in the wrong hands. But we’re not the center of the universe, and neither are religious people. Religious people have tortured and killed people who have intimated otherwise. Don’t misunderstand: we are in a very special place at a very special time, and for all we know we are alone in the universe. In fact, we may be so alone that all that CMBR may be just us bouncing off the edge of it. That may scare some. On the other hand, it is a tremendous opportunity to explore. We have to stop destroying Spaceship One before it destroys us, though.)