Myth:
Like religious fundamentalists, some atheists are elitist because they only accept their own perspective. Fundamentalist atheists are economically and academically privileged people who refuse to see or accept how religion helps those in lower-income areas.
Response:
Some religious theists try to rebut atheist criticisms of religion by saying that so many atheists are "fundamentalists" because they are "elitist." Apparently, atheists can't really claim to truly understand religion because they are so privileged economically, socially, and academically. They haven't lived alongside regular religious believers, especially poor ones, who gain so much from their religions and religious beliefs. Like so many other myths, this horribly misrepresents atheists.
It's true that many of the most prominent atheist critics of religion might be described as "privileged" when it comes to education and economics, but so what? Does the fact that a person inhabits an academic world or that they are well-off financially have any implications for their arguments about religion? No, those are completely irrelevant factors. This is an example of an ad hominem fallacy known as the Genetic Fallacy because it's an attempt to get people to dismiss what atheists are saying about religion because of where they come from academically and financially.
There is also a double-standard here because the people making this complaint about atheists don't seem to make the same complaint about theists. Many religious theists who are prominent critics of atheism are equally "privileged" academically and financially, but that doesn't appear to contaminate their criticisms of atheism. Many religious theists who defend and promote religion are similarly "privileged" academically and financially, but I don't see anyone complaining that this makes them elitists whose arguments cannot therefore be accepted.
Furthermore, what does "elitism" have to do with "fundamentalism"? Elitism has never been a characteristic of fundamentalism in any academic or even casual treatment of the subject that I've ever seen. On the contrary, fundamentalist movements have often been explicitly and consciously anti-elitist because they exist in large part to work against the "elites" who they believe have changed too much of the original religious faith. If elitism has anything to do with fundamentalism, it's more likely as a target for attacks, not a positive value.
The idea that atheists haven't spent time with religious believers serves the goal of painting atheists as elitists, but it's also a claim that you won't find people actually trying to support. It seems to be part of a much larger trend in America to denigrate well-educated academics in favor of "regular guys" who spend time with "regular people." We see this tendency in politics where candidates who are academic and scholarly are derided in favor of someone who looks and acts like a friend you can drink beer with at the local bar.
All of the mistakes this myth makes lead to the same goal: to encourage people to dismiss atheists and their criticisms of religion for one reason or another, none of which have anything to do with the quality of those criticisms. No attempt is made to directly address those criticisms to show where they are flawed, erroneous, mistaken, or anything like that. Instead, all effort is invested in trying to claim that atheists themselves are flawed — so flawed, in fact, that they just don't deserve to be paid attention to.
That religious theists are similarly "flawed" is irrelevant because the flaws aren't the problem. The problem is the fact that atheists exist and dare to criticize religion. Even worse, their criticisms must having an effect and must have something to offer — otherwise, their opponents would show what's wrong with them rather than try so hard to misrepresent atheists and scare people out of listening to them.
