Atheist Badge: The design of the A-letter originates from the outcampaign.org - "Scarlet A" (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Long before the mainstream news media decided that atheism was worth examining and begin to report on a so-called "new atheism," atheist bloggers were discussing issues of strategy and tone. This discussion has intensified, becoming one of the hot topics within around the growing atheist blogosphere and beyond. How aggressive should atheists be in opposing religion? If we become too aggressive, don't we run the risk of becoming too much like the religious fundamentalists we oppose? In this post, I will examine the possibility of "atheist extremism" and how we might recognize it if it were to appear.
I am going to start with the premise that is is at least possible for atheists to become too assertive/aggressive/militant/extreme in their views and/or behavior. If you disagree with this at the outset, I ask only that you try to suspend judgment until the end of the post. What might atheism extremism look like, and what are we to call such an atheist?