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Not a big fan of Derbyshire and so don't generally read his column. Interestingly, however, a creationist in one of these threads recently claimed he was as militant atheist, which was apparently totally incorrect. Too unremarkable from the creos to remember just who it was. (Lack of ping therefore not intentional)

In defense of said FReeper, whoever he may be, Derbyshire almost always takes a militant tone and generally takes the positivist, secularist, pro-scientism position against his National Review peers in the Corner. Like David Hume, he believes that religion and morality memes are the result of evolved instinct and ingrained habit and are therefore sturdy enough to survive any attack on their foundations, i.e. attacks upon metaphysical arguments for God's existence and upon epistemological arguments why belief in God is warranted, and upon the foundations of morality in meta-ethics, i.e. natural law, etc. He claims, on the other hand, that science is a fragile, contingent enterprise that we may expect to shatter at any moment, and therefore it needs constant defending in the strongest terms.

That's not where it ends, though. Derbyshire generally takes the position that religion is useful in responding to the hardwired felt needs of individuals, but has little to no place within conservatism or the public square aside from performing a purely symbolic or ornamental function. This is why he refers to himself and the likes of Andrew Sullivan as "conservatives of doubt" and Ramesh Ponnuru and most of his other colleagues as "conservatives of faith".

According to Derbyshire, "we are, for better or worse, long, long past the point where a metaphysics can be grounded in the tenets of Christianity even taken in their most general interpretation." So, I wouldn't be too hard on someone who calls Derbyshire a "militant atheist". Quite frankly, that's a reasonable interpretation of of him as judged from his collective written output, although hardly the only one that's reasonable.

It's an interesting subject to me because Derbyshire's point of view is a very British one, and in reading him I feel like I get a bit better insight into the differences between Britain and America with respect to religion, conservatism, etc.

According to Derbyshire, "we are, for better or worse, long, long past the point where a metaphysics can be grounded in the tenets of Christianity even taken in their most general interpretation." So, I wouldn't be too hard on someone who calls Derbyshire a "militant atheist".

I don't follow Derbyshire but I was trying to follow this thread. I don't see how the statement you quoted leads to him being a militant atheist.