When things get blamed on religion, it’s never belief itself that’s to blame. The problem is always some kind of sectarianism or fundamentalism. Therefore, as what is effectively no more than yet another new fundamentalist sect, militant atheists aren’t the solution, they’re part of the problem.
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Define militant atheist.
I mean, unless you are going to use the old canard that atheism caused Stalinism and the Khmer Rouge, “militant atheists” are, at worst, rude.
I think he’s referring to the variety of atheists that say something along the lines of, “Religion is so silly; why do people still bother with that outdated garbage?”, which tells me they don’t even understand what it’s for, let alone why people adhere to it.
I’m getting sick of people (typically acolytes of Richard Dawkins) trying to blame religion as the root cause of everything bad in the world, and implying that everything would be rainbows and unicorns if only religion were to be eradicated from the world.
Yes, a lot of them are just bloviating idiots, but it does not occur to them that tribalism and misogyny might be the fault of tribalists and misogynists who just use religion as an excuse.
Your example of Stalin and the Khmer Rouge show that many of the evil things religion typically gets the blame for can still happen anyway.
As far as I’m concerned belief in the non-existance of God is just another religious position someone can take. I resent being told that religious symbols cannot be displayed as by my recconing the null symbol is that of atheism.