The "New Atheist" movement and the "things it does".
Greetings Earthlings
"Over there" is some new thread (posted by the usual suspect) bashing the "New Atheist Movement" and how we just don't get all the subtle, intricate varied myriad of minutiae of Islam.
(Y'know, I venture over there occasionally to see what lies they are speeding about me)
Here's a link iffen ya wanna go there (but you really don't need to).
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=157013
Anyway.... what IS this "New Atheist Movement" thing anyway? What's "new" about atheists these days? They sound like they are espousing the same basic ideas as Bertram Russell and freakin' Epicurus for that matter! Does the fact that there is more media to get it out there and more people listening make it "new"? Does having conventions and loosely organized "clubs" a movement make? Is Star Trek a "movement" then?
I find it interesting that religious folk think that agreeing with someone equates to following them as a leader. Can they not understand that someone could, y'know, make up their own mind independently?
I'm just sick of being told I am a member of something that doesn't exist and I never signed up for.
OK... end of mild rant.... My Lean Cuisine "baby in garlic butter" is ready so I gotta go.
Who loves ya, Babe? 
P. S. One of the most amusing things about "over there" is how when one posts an opposition to the general thread, it is always answered within 30 seconds! Usually by one of the holy trinity of that board. Wow, just wow! Do these people not have jobs? Hobbies? Can one sail AND continually monitor a message board at the same time?
= new reply since forum marked as read
"New" atheists (aka "fundamentalist atheists," "militant atheists," and "anti-theists"
express their opinions and others get to hear them!
Reza Aslan is an anti-atheist bigot:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/07/17/reza-aslan-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-article/
Reza Aslan — a guy I normally liked watching when he appeared on The Daily Show and The Rachel Maddow Show — has a horrible piece up at the Washington Post website regurgitating every nasty atheist stereotype you can think of.
It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism — an atheist fundamentalism. The parallels with religious fundamentalism are obvious and startling: the conviction that they are in sole possession of truth (scientific or otherwise), the troubling lack of tolerance for the views of their critics (Dawkins has compared creationists to Holocaust deniers), the insistence on a literalist reading of scripture (more literalist, in fact, than one finds among most religious fundamentalists), the simplistic reductionism of the religious phenomenon, and, perhaps most bizarrely, their overwhelming sense of siege: the belief that they have been oppressed and marginalized by Western societies and are just not going to take it anymore.
Oh boy… the “atheist fundamentalist” argument. As soon as someone uses that phrase (in a serious way), you should tune them out immediately because nothing they say afterwards will be credible.
I’ve said variations of this before but here you go:
When I think of Muslim fundamentalists, violent images come to mind.
When I think of Christian fundamentalists, I think of ignorant people who cling to literal interpretations of their Bibles instead of opening their eyes to reality.
When I think of “atheist fundamentalists,” I think of books.
There’s no comparison.
His books on evolutionary biology no doubt rankle a lot of the same critics. It's just easier for them to point to a suspect comment he makes from time to time when speaking from his atheist pulpit ( ) than to engage his academic arguments, IMO.
unless they're whoring for attention. It's certainly not a term that any of the people typically being referred to invented to describe themselves, or have embraced. It's just a way for internet hacks and faitheists like those that Religion is infested with to make themselves feel superior ("Thank you god, that I'm not like those OTHER atheists!"
And I haven't been able to get meds for over six months.
So I get pain, consider it dropped by me.
Take your meds, be glad you have them. 
When I read those posts earlier it did cause me to raise an eyebrow. Glad to see there was a reason behind the posts and that you deleted them.
Hope you are feeling better now that you have had your meds.
And "makes the fists itch?" LOL! A new peak in Internet Tough Guy-dom...
I agree with you 100%.
I haven't seen you around these parts before, welcome!
