I blame it on "trickle-down immorality", to use a Rush Limbaugh term.
Funny, I do not think atheists are smug at all, they are simply terrified.
You mean even more smug and annoying than Prius drivers?
Unpossible.
Started in the 60’s. They were crude, arrogant, rude, obnoxious, profane, in-your-face people.
Hey, man, when you are your own god, it is hard not to be Colossally Smug, with a touch of arrogance on the side!
/sarc
my choice phrase is “SOD OFF YOU BLOODY LITTLE WANKER!”
It’s the social media. A whole lot of social media is dedicated to be an @#$#$%^ version of your particular group. Especially thanks to that one site that makes all those pictures. Even I find the atheist ones annoying, and I am an atheist, just not the kind that needs to be a dick to people. Have your religion, enjoy it thoroughly, just don’t come knocking on my door inconveniencing me with your message and all will be well.
These are not Atheists. They are anti-Christian, and Anti-Jewish leftists that hide behind some “enlighten” perch of not buying into “primitive” stuff like religion in order to not look like the total bullies they are.
Notice how they don’t attack Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism, or any other Eastern belief system? Too racially homogeneous for them to bash without looking like racists. Islam is so anti-western it is a political ally.
I’m an atheist, and these people really piss me off. When I run across one of these characters, my first instinct is to whomp them upside the head and tell them to get a life.
I’d argue that this is nothing new... or rather that Francis Bacon would argue that...
“It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man, than by this; that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it, within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened, by the consent of others.”
Francis Bacon
http://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-17.html
Here’s another article by a nonbeliever. It’s one of the greatest defenses of Christianity ever penned. Theodore Dalrymple is always worth reading. A key sentence - “To regret religion is to regret Western civilization.”
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html
I have met smug people of every belief and faith system. Smug Muslims, VERY smug Buddhists, and yes smug atheists.
It’s not the smugness that bothers me, but the abject hatred of those with a different viewpoint held by the so-called ‘new atheists’. They are markedly divergent from the atheists of the past (less intellectually honest, more prone to philosophical laziness). The real problem is that all their role-models are d9cks, so they tend to be d9cks. A shame, because there are some very respectful atheistic scholars out there, but Dawkins gets all the press.
The most annoying aspect is of course the need to remove any religion from view as if it causes emotional trauma when they see it. I am a Christian, but I have no problem if someone wants a Ganesh statue atop their grave. I have found many atheists to be the least tolerant people I’ve met, and I use the word ‘tolerance’ in its true sense of being respectful toward those who peacefully disagree.
An interesting article by an atheist who takes the ‘dawkinites’ to task. Alternate title, how to be an atheist and not be boorish about it.
It is worth remembering that atheism in all of its dictrinaire political manifestations killed 100 million people in the 20th century.
How many people did the Spanish Inquisition kill?
I love talking to atheists .... I just ask them when they shake their fist at the sky or smash their thumb with a hammer or stub their little toe.... Who exactly are they taking too....?
Really, really pisses them off....
They are intellectually smarter than you and me. Get over it.
/ sarc
"There is no God, and I hate Him."
I will risk decapitation by quoting Noam Chomsky on FR - when asked by an atheist if he was one he replied, “Tell me exactly what it is I’m not supposed to believe in and I’ll let you know.”