Go watch this now: Richard Dawkins' TED talk on militant atheism.

"I believe a true understanding of Darwinism is deeply corrosive to religious faith."

"We atheists are also a-fairy-ists and a-teapot-ists, but we don't bother to say so."

"How did September the 11th change you? Well, here's how it changed me: Let's all stop being so damned respectful."

Rather often, I get upbraided by closeted atheists/agnostics, or Christian apologists[0], for being too pushy on it. For making too much fun of Christians and other religious loonies. For insisting too strongly that yes, I am an atheist ("without gods"), not some ignorant, tentative, wishy-washy agnostic ("without knowledge").

Here's what I know: I know that there is ZERO evidence for invisible sky fairies. That every trace of evidence we do have about how the Universe works points to impersonal, blind mechanisms iterated for ~14 billion years. That before the Universe started there is (and can be) very little evidence, but none of it points to a puppet-master of improbable complexity. The Universe has none of the marks of a thing which was designed.

The Christians[1] go on about how their fairy tale book says this or that, and that we should have "faith" in its claims. But we know things about the Bible, too: It was written by Bronze Age barbarians, the "New Testament" ca. 70 CE at the earliest, and edited into a book by venal political appointees of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 CE to excuse his robbing the Pantheon's coffers and moving the capitol of Rome to Byzantium. The testable historical statements in it are all false, completely unsupported or directly contradicted by contemporary evidence. It's nothing but lies & strife & poison.

So on one hand we have science: A way to make testable hypotheses, collect data, compare, revise hypothesis, repeat, until we get a working theory that explains and predicts the world around us. And there has been as yet no data that requires anyone to hypothesize the existence of an invisible sky fairy, or an immortal invisible "soul". The scientific method leads inevitably to ignoring and deprecating anything that has no evidence.

On the other hand, we have religion: Fairy tales written by uneducated savages, meant to be taken on "faith", by which they mean unreasoning, unthinking acceptance regardless of what the evidence shows, based solely on the claims in that pack of lies, and on how good it feels when you get brainwashed. Theists have no ability to predict or create or do anything based on their superstitions. They can't perform any miracles, and when you demand a demonstration, they say "God won't prove his existence" (except, they allege, 2000 years ago). They're useless, except at taking your money and wasting your time.

The two are fundamentally incompatible. One is about reason, learning what you can from observation. The other is about lies, literally making up comforting stories rather than try observing and thinking.

They do not cover "separate magisteria" as Christian apologists like to claim. We are all talking about the same observable Universe. Pushing the existence of the fairy tale god to before time, outside the Universe, or after death, does not make it any more plausible, does not provide any more evidence for it. Without evidence, ignore it as nonsense and lies.

This isn't even a choice for me. Reason and self-respect demand that I not pretend to believe in something that's obviously false. For many, especially in the U.S. South, it's clearly hard and somewhat dangerous to come out and say you're an atheist. Here in Seattle, I say it casually, and about 10% of the time some rabid theist will react in horror, but the rest of the time nobody cares. When I posted a few quotes from Dawkins on Twitter this morning, immediately a couple people responded with demands that I take their bullshit seriously and pander to their superstitions. I will not. As more of us reveal our lack of credulity, it becomes safer for all of us.

If you're into the social networking, getting together with like-minded people thing, and want some support for coming out atheist, visit Atheist Nexus, or Richard Dawkins blog, or Pharyngula, P.Z. Myers' atheism/science blog with very active (and refreshingly sane) comment threads.

[0]

How anyone can bring themselves to apologize for Christianity's history of terror, torture, and ignorance is beyond me.

[1]

Other religions are just as idiotic as Christianity, but:

1. I live in America, where Christianity is more widespread than herpes, but rather less treatable. Other religions are not.
2. I can and have examined, discarded, and mocked other religions, including Islam (for some reason, Christians always retort "you wouldn't insult Islam!": Yes, I do). Islam in much of the world behaves as monstrously as pre-20th-Century Christianity, but in the U.S. most Muslims keep quiet, obey the law, and leave me alone, so I don't waste much time on how awful their religion is.