Evangelical atheist

A strong atheist who, possibly due to habitual reaction against organized religion, carries on a jihad against any and all "esoteric bullshit".

I remember when I realized there was no God. I was around 15 or so, and came from a strong family of Baptist believers, with lots of preachers in the family. I sat on it for a couple of years, and then when the "age of enlightenment" came around, I could no longer keep it to myself. I had to tell everyone around me how "There is no God!"

My grandmother was one of the nicest people you would have ever known. She was the only one who seemed sincerely concerned about my declarations of atheism. I loved her as much as I've ever loved another human, but I felt it was my duty to make sure she understood "the Truth."

Now that she's no longer around and not that I'm quite a bit older, I carry a lot of guilt about that episode of youthful stupidity. I hurt her badly and made her worry over something that could and should have been left unsaid.

She's been dead for several years now, and there's nothing I can do to undo what I did. So what's the point?

I guess it's just that there's no need to hurt the ones you love with your revelations about something that none of us can really know anything about anyway. Hell, you don't even know where in outer space you are, let alone how you got here. . . . Do you?

There was a philosopher named Miguel de Unamuno who argued against evengelical atheism. He said that if you believe God doesn't exist (and he would have said you were probably right), you shouldn't try to convince other people of it, because no matter how illogical, belief in God is one of humankind's few comforts in the face of death, and reason and logic don't offer any substitute.

Preaching atheism as a religion. Aggressive atheists often do this a lot. Oddly enough, the most targeted religion is always Christianity, even though there are so many religions out there with skeletons in the closet. This trait can sometimes be traced back to a religious upbringing; many atheist evangelists are often disgruntled ex-Christians, hence explaining their bias. Anti-Christian zealot is probably a better word, I've met people who rant and rave about Christianity and claim to hate all religion but practice buddhism because they think it is some sort of "perfect religion".

Many anti-Christian "atheist evangelists" I know have not read the bible, instead making wide-sweeping and generally false assumptions on its meaning. Overused (and false) rhetoric includes:

• Remember the Crusades and the Inquisition?
• I refuse to raise my children as Christians.
• I fight Christianity to make the world a better place.
• How can you even believe in that crap?
• Ad nauseam.....

At the end, they transform into the same breed of religious zealots that they hate so much, preaching their intolerance to everybody they meet. Narf.