Andrew Brown On New Atheists

Interesting how religious people keep insisting that atheism is a religion -- well, actually it's not so much interesting as it is utterly tiresome. Other than that, I agree with most of what Andrew Brown says about New Atheists. And I'm an atheist. I suspect that Brown may very well be an atheist too, but one of those atheists who insists that they're not atheists, because that just makes things too awkward between them and their theist friends. What good are such friendships, which require such nonsense and insincerity? Maybe they've been denying they're atheists (although they don't believe in God, which of course is the only definition of "atheist," which of course means they're completely full of shit in a completely obvious way) ever since that Archbishop of Canterbury caused such an uproar by publicly admitting that he was an atheist.

Maybe that public admission was the cause of all of this bullshit about not being atheists while not believing in God, which amounts to a campaign to change the meaning of an extremely-old and perfectly-servicable word, "atheism."

Well. Language has never been entirely about making sense, or being consistent, or honorable.

So. I guess there are two, at least two, main categories of atheists to whom I am opposed: the New Atheists, and I repeat, Andrew Brown lists off the main reasons why; and then the atheists hiding among the believers for the sake of cushy jobs. One of whom Andrew Brown may or may not be. Among whom also are R Joseph Hoffmann and the above-mentioned ex-Archbishop of Canterbury, who since that embarrassing admission has insisted that the admission did not mean what it clearly meant, ah, and I see that the current Archbishop is also an atheist who insists he's not an atheist, but a non-believer, which of course means exactly the same thing.

Well, I'm not really opposed to the second group the same way I'm opposed to New Atheists. But their refusal to admit that they're atheists/campaign to re-define the term "atheist", po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to, is very aggravating.