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Who here would describe themselves as a militant atheist, if so, why? If not, why not?

I'm still reading about it. In the case against, i'm up to the article "Is Richard Dawkins possessed by Satan".

I wouldn't call myself a militant atheist because I believe in at least one deity.

Militant? Haha.

Proselytizing, regardless of your religion (or lack thereof) is a goofy practice.

I'm eager to see Tsukatu's take on this one, though. That guy is a nutball.

I advocate genocide of all religious adherents.

Just kidding.

I go with the Blizz school of antitheistic thought, which is that I'm actively opposed to the religions I've heard of. None of them are correct because none of them could be correct, and most of them poison people's minds and are therefore a plague on mankind in general.

Unlike Blizz, however, I'm also an atheist in general, in that I think it's more reasonable to believe that the concept of some supernatural force or forces was the very flawed product of primitive human minds, which shows less and less relevance with every intellectual advancement. I've seen that popular opinion is often very uninformed and not at all thought through, and I've seen that that extends to most religious people. Tendencies to get carried away with nifty ideas, to indulge on that pleasant feeling of being a trusted authority, and to argue vociferously when one feels like he is under personal attack have all produced some rather unfortunate individuals who contrive reasons and arguments and evidence so they can spare themselves feeling stupid for putting a life's worth of effort into something false, or otherwise complicate the issue enough that they can prevent people from examining the issue too closely.
I don't see how anything supernatural thing is necessary, or any influence anywhere of such a thing. I will completely grant from the veil of senses approach to the issue that supernatural things might exist, but that seems to be to be a complete and utter cop-out, a trivial technicality. I weigh the "odds" of there being this specific "deity" thing as much as I do for square circles, oompah loompahs, and leprechauns. Moreover, the description of something as "supernatural" means for me that it's "not in the natural universe," which is in itself an admission that it doesn't exist and cannot influence reality; it resides in the same place as any random thing I can imagine, and I can't see why it should have any more power. And while I admit that our perception and understanding of the universe is not perfect, it is far from poor. The institution of science as we know it today would not be nearly so successful if our understanding of reality were to be anything short of remarkable.

That would be enough to qualify me as an atheist, but I also call myself an antitheist because I oppose the act of having blind faith, itself, which I consider practically equivalent to being religious. Believing things with no reason to is a terrible practice, and I think it is a travesty that it is encouraged and idolized in most civilized parts of the world. Believing things without having reason to is a practice that needs to be eliminated, and the sooner, the better.
I don't think people need religion to be moral or to be happy. I don't think people need religion for anything. I don't think the quality of a person's life is lessened without faith. I don't think it's a useful or effective crutch, either. Religion is an extraneous thing which has conned its way into appearing necessary for any part of human life.

Because I think it's an unnecessary, extraneous thing which does more harm than good, I should very much like it if it were to kindly stop existing, or at the very least be significantly less present. And that's why I'd call myself an antitheist.
Technically, because I grant the trivial possibility that some supernatural thing might exist, I'm an atheist. But for all practical purposes, I'm an antitheist.

I actually like all that. Theism, at its core, stems from a particular manner of thinking. It's a practice, mentally, where you take an answer without examining things. It's tantamount to prejudice. You take an idea, a judgment, and backtrack from there. And I see atheists do that, too. It's important, regardless of what you believe, to establish your answers a posteriori. To oppose the accepting and tolerance of prejudices may be equivalent to anti-theism.

Anyway, I don't go around acting like a dick because of it. I think that's an important distinction.

blue_tetris wrote:Anyway, I don't go around acting like a dick because of it. I think that's an important distinction.

He still goes around acting like a dick. But that's not why.

rennaT wrote:

blue_tetris wrote:Anyway, I don't go around acting like a dick because of it. I think that's an important distinction.

He still goes around acting like a dick. But that's not why.

I lol'd in real life here.

It's every bit of true.

Militant <insert religion here> is just idiotic. You can try to bring people to your faith, but once the quest becomes a war, it needs to slow down or stop entirely. Unfortunately, it's a very slippery slope, so many evangelists eventually see themselves as warriors. Really wish it wouldn't happen that way... but that's just the way the human mind works.

Fraxtil wrote:Militant <insert religion here> is just idiotic. You can try to bring people to your faith, but once the quest becomes a war, it needs to slow down or stop entirely. Unfortunately, it's a very slippery slope, so many evangelists eventually see themselves as warriors. Really wish it wouldn't happen that way... but that's just the way the human mind works.

This cascades upwards, too. Which is to say, leadership in both theist and anti-theist groups tend to metaphorically apply the "war" and "warrior" concept. People associate with this and tend to take it more and more literally, so it gets worse and worse. Leaders in all groups should be careful not to support this kind of behavior.