{"id":1322,"date":"2010-07-29T10:11:27","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T15:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1322"},"modified":"2010-07-29T10:11:27","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T15:11:27","slug":"the-friendlier-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1322","title":{"rendered":"The Friendlier Atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am pretty well established vocal atheist. On the scale of atheism, I am often lumped in with Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris as a \u201cNew Atheist\u201d or \u201cmilitant atheist.\u201d I prefer to see myself more as a \u201cbad cop<\/a>\u201d of atheism. So imagine my surprise when I found out that on at least one issue I am a friendlier atheist than popular atheist blogger Hemant Mehta, better known as \u201cThe Friendly Atheist<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I will admit that I am not generally a fan of his blog, although I do check it out from time to time. I tend to be more of a PZ Myers<\/a> fan. Still, in my book we are all on the same side and we should all do our best to help each other out.<\/p>\n

Late last night, I found out that former Catholic, turned atheist, turned Catholic Anne Rice has once again left Christianity<\/a>. I quickly wrote up an Examiner article<\/a> about this. I loved most of Rice\u2019s Vampire series and to this date still consider her vampire mythology to be the standard for all vampire stories (Twilight stacks up poorly compared to Interview).<\/p>\n

While Rice hasn\u2019t broken completely from the Christian mythology, she has made a giant leap in a very public way. De-conversion is a journey and rarely happens overnight. Still, Hemant Mehta was not so friendly<\/a> about Rice\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

On his blog<\/a>, he criticized Rice for falling into the \u201cfollower of Christ\u201d camp. While there is a place for this criticism, I think the more important message is that Christianity is being called out for being immoral. Even many atheists who commented on Hemant\u2019s blog think he was a little mean and off base with this one.<\/p>\n

For me, it is a chance to say that on this issue I am friendlier than the Friendly Atheist. \ud83d\ude09
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\n\"Bookmark<\/a>