Raw Story Columnist Attacks Atheists and Secularists [View All]

[Synnical]

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/The_lefts_own_religious_whackjobs_0422.html

The religious nutballs on the extreme right have kept us rational lefties so busy that we've neglected an important although onerous duty -- cleaning the atheist whackjobs out of our own attic, the extreme left. (Of course, extremisms of the religious or atheistic nature are only a small part of the sum total of extremism. Every form of thought has its own whackjobs of varying stripes.)

Why face off with the atheist whackjobs? Because extremism is extremism is extremism. No rational movement dedicated to intellectual courage and honesty should maintain a relationship with those for whom intellectual laziness, dishonesty, and cowardice are a way of life. Doing what must be done to insure the integrity of the left will require identifying our extremists, countering their mythologies, and acknowledging the dangers they pose to a truly liberal society.

First, what is an atheist whackjob? The term secular for the purposes of this article will refer to those who disbelieve all religious and spiritual claims, not to those who merely support a separation of church and state. Although all secular (by this definition) extremists are atheists, not all atheists are atheist extremists.

The whackjob is a special sort of atheist, one so absolutely certain of the inerrancy of atheism and so virulently opposed to religion that he will latch on to any and all outrageous claims in defense of the former and against the latter. He will meet any criticism of atheism or positive representation of religion as a horrible attack on his way of life or as support for religious extremism and oppression. Just as the religious extremist holds that his belief in a supreme being alone makes him morally and spiritually superior, the atheist extremist holds that his belief that no such being exists and virulent opposition to the reverse make him intellectually and ethically superior. Finally, he will ignore any and all reason or evidence that refutes his claims.