Comment of the Week: Richard Dawkins & Fundamentalist Atheism

It's common to see religious theists label atheists, and especially very public atheists like Richard Dawkins, as "angry" and "fundamentalist." It's rare, though, for these same theists to give their comments any substance by explaining what their labels mean, what atheists are doing wrong, and in particular how atheists are behaving any differently from how religious theists have behaved for centuries. Maybe that's the point: not to make an argument or point out a problem, but rather to encourage excluding atheists from the community even further.

Drew writes:

Demonising is a common debating tactic. "Angry", "vitriol", "fundamentalist", etc are all just demonising terms. When people use them, in any debate, they need to be confronted and corrected. This is not "fundamentalist" or "angry", it is being precise, clear, and fair. ...

There is nothing close-minded about being decisive in your opinions. The more one studies religions and their gods, particularly across the period of human pre-history covered by anthropology, the more obvious it becomes that all religion is fictional. The atheism that is common among the brightest and most educated people is both decisive and well-informed, and clearly not "fundamental" at all.

What makes a person fundamentalist is how they came to their opinions. Were they the product of indoctination and obedience to authority? Or were they the product of comparative study, skepticism, open enquiry? Which came first - the opinion, or the evidence to support it?

I, like most atheists, am awaiting evidence of the "vitriol" of Richard Dawkins. Why is vitriol required to politely object to dogma that inspires people to violence, including murder? What does atheist "fundamentalism" consist of beyond well-written and irrefutable critical commentary?

[original post]

Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there is vitriol and anger coming from atheists who are militant and fundamentalist, it can't be denied that the equal and worse can be found among religious theists who have stronger numbers, more followers, and more influence than any atheists. So, if there is a problem with some atheists, there is a much worse problem with many more theists. It may not be the case that this problem is being ignored, but the attention being paid to a few prominent atheists is completely out of proportion to whatever sort of problem they are.

So, even if we are as generous as possible and concede most to all of what religious theists complain about, those same theists are still faced with the fact that they are complaining about a problem which is very minor at best while ignoring a much larger problem sitting next to them on their side of the table. Why focus so much on a very small number of atheists rather than the larger numbers of much more powerful and influential religious theists?

The simplest answer may also be the strongest: sheer bigotry. This looks suspiciously like a white person focusing on crime among blacks in order to generalize about how blacks are criminals while ignoring rates of crime among whites in similar socioeconomic positions. Theists aren't being serious as critics when they focus so much time and attention on what, under the best of circumstances, is at most a minor problem for them or society generally.