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Recently, there’s been something of a media backlash against the so-called ‘New Atheism’, that is, the vocal declaration of atheism by those who do not subscribe to a religion and who believe that the universe demonstrates that it is very unlikely that there is a god. In addition, ‘new atheists’, or, as they are called by some, ‘fundamentalist atheists’, have stepped up their attack on religion, no longer content with simply keeping their beliefs (or lack thereof) private, but now writing books, putting up blogs, making movies, and generally getting the message out that religion, in all its shapes and forms, is not only illogical, but downright dangerous.

The general response from many in the religious community has been to, as usual, paint themselves as the victims (even though ‘believers’ far outnumber atheists in the US, and atheists are the last minority that it’s still okay to discriminate against), and basically say: “What’s with these uppity atheists all of a sudden? Can’t they just go back to their stuffy rooms and towers and keep quiet like they used to? It’s downright rude of them to start going on about these things, and anyway, everyone knows that they’re wrong.”

Even among atheists themselves, there are those who say “Why do we need to attack religion? Isn’t it enough to simply accept your own lack of belief, and let others believe as they wish? In short, can’t we just live and let live?” It’s a tempting thought. Let’s avoid the confrontation, and just go on with our lives, and if those wacky theists want to go on believing in their big sky fairy, well, good for them. It sounds reasonable, and proper, and the theists would dearly love it if we just all took that point of view and simply want away. But here’s the problem with that: if we go away, they certainly won’t.

There’s a reason that the ‘new’ atheists are loud and proud, and they’re spreading the word, doing everything they can to let the world know that they exist, that they’re out there, and that they’re not alone: the reason is that they’ve noticed that the world we live in has been getting worse and worse, and so much of it can be traced directly back to religion and faith. We live in a world where religious extremists strap bombs to their bodies and kill themselves, taking out dozens of innocents along with them, because they believe they will be rewarded in the afterlife. We live in a world where a large majority of the population of one of the most powerful countries on Earth honestly believes that the Earth is less than 6,000 years old, that evolution is ‘just a theory’, and that scientists are in league with the devil. We live in a world where a large majority of not only the population, but the people in power, the people with their fingers on the proverbial button, believe, honestly believe, that the world will end within their lifetimes, in a terrible war and destruction. And they see this as a good thing, they can’t wait for the Armageddon to come, because they think that their god is going to pull them up into heaven when that moment comes. We live in a world, too, where people routinely trust the advice of a homeopath over a real doctor, where political leaders consult star charts, or base political decisions that will affect millions of people, on the words of a dusty and discredited book written thousands of years ago.

In this situation, I have come to believe that we cannot sit idly by and let it happen. That to simply keep quiet and let religion and ‘believers’ drag this world down into the muck, to let them destroy thousands of innocent others, to continue to spread lies and hurt the poor and gullible, is downright immoral. We, as atheists, are often accused of having no moral compass, simply because we don’t have our commandments handed down to us by and angry and jealous god. That we cannot possibly make moral decisions, as we have no basis on which to form a moral framework. And yet, any fool can see that to simply lay back and do nothing, to let the world fall prey to the poison of religiosity, is not only irresponsible, but simply wrong from a humanistic standpoint. We cannot go quietly. We owe it to ourselves, and to our fellow man, to fight, to shout, to let people know: you’re living a lie. You are being lied to, and you are following that lie to your grave. Religion is a plague upon mankind, and we can move beyond it. And if we annoy a few religious folks, and even a few less bombastic atheists, I can live with that. But let it not be said that we stood by silent while religion continued to drag the world deeper into chaos and ignorance.
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Sadistic equine necrophiliac Dinesh D’Souza just refuses to get the point, doesn’t he? This is his third little article on the whole ‘atheists are evil’ bandwagon, all capitalizing on the VT tragedy. Seriously, how much of a nasty, contemptible, snide, reptilian little scumbag can one human being be? Still, there is one good thing coming from his continuing, if laughable, attack on atheism: some truly inspired atheists are coming out and denouncing both the man and the point of view. Case in point: this Virgina Tech professor, who has written an impassioned and brilliant response to D’souza. Among the other things he says:

We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.

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With or without a belief in a god, with or without your asinine bigotry, we will make progress, we will breathe life back into our university, I will succeed in explaining this or that point, slowly, eventually, in a ham-handed way, at risk of tears half-way through, my students will come to feel comfortable again in a classroom with no windows or escape route, and hell yes we will prevail.

You see Mr D’Souza, I am an atheist professor at Virginia Tech and a man of great faith. Not faith in your god. Faith in my people.

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The recent tragedy at Virginia Tech, where a deeply disturbed individual went on a rampage and killed at least 33 other people, was a horrible event. It was horrible in terms of human life and potential lost. It was horrible in terms of the emotional damage done to friends, families, and acquaintances of the victims. And, now, it is also horrible due to the opportunistic little ghouls that have crawled out of the woodwork trying to, first, blame the whole thing on ‘teh terrists’, and then, once it turned out that the shooter was not Islamic, to try and blame (brace for it)… evolution and atheism. I wish I was making this shit up. (This is gonna be long and quote-heavy, so I’ll plop it all behind the ‘more-wall’)
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