Open Letter to Mojoey

You wrote in your most recent post:

Despite the assertions of the New Atheist movement ...

I think you're buying into a myth created by the media anxious to stir an empty pot. I've been an atheist all my life, and have many friends who share my irreligious views. None of us are aware of any "atheist movement," new or otherwise. I'll bet you're not aware of one, either.

Thanks to your blogroll and various other atheist clearing-houses on the Web, we may be described as a loose community of freethinkers. But the main thing we have in common — maybe, in some cases, the only thing — is that we're a-theists, that is, we don't believe in any gods.

If there are any card-carrying atheists pushing a "movement," I haven't been invited to join. Nor would I. Like you, I champion the cause of religious freedom. People should have the liberty to believe whatever trips their trigger, just as long as they don't impose their silly belief-systems on me.

Yes, I get furious when I think about all the theocrats who strive to foist their nonsense — often dangerous — on society. Atheists like me don’t want ourselves or our school-age children being forced to mouth daily mumbo-jumbo to a magical being whose existence we highly doubt; we don’t want the advancement of humanity to be hindered because some primitive sand-laden book conflicts with the findings of science; we don’t want the alleged leader of our country claiming that he or she hears and obeys fascistic directives coming from the sky; and we don’t want to live in a world where other people’s deities encourage followers to appropriate land, blow up buildings, and kill fellow human beings on a whim.

But I also get furious at the thought of anyone trying to control what others think.

The press would have people believe that there's a dangerous movement of atheists who are determined to do that very thing. I'm not convinced, though, that there are any atheists in the so-called free world who would support a governmental ban on religion. If such atheocrats do exist, I'm sure that most members of the loose atheist community would be proud to stand together with you and me against them.