I've de-converted a few theists and most thank me for helping them no longer fear burning in hell, enjoying reality, etc. . . . .

EXACTLY! Don't you DARE call me a "Christian atheist!" These sound like phrases created by theists...trying to fit us into their boxes!

@LucyLoohoo rather be called a feckless cunt than a Christian anything....

@thinktwice Crumbs, that's my nickname, how did you know! ?

@Geoffrey51 lol we must be kindred spirits then...I am sure many of us have that same nickname at one time or another! lol

@thinktwice Me too!

@thinktwice Agreed!

Dawkins could be getting sucked into the celebrity thing here by making up terms for effect. A dictionary definition of militant is 'favouring confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause. "the army are in conflict with militant groups"

Not helpful I don't think for bandying such phrases around. Puts me in mind of Henry II and his "Who will rid me of this turbulent Priest" outburst. And look how that ended up by being heard by misunderstanding ears.

@Geoffrey51 I would tend to agree with you. I'm not an overly aggressive person, and not a big fan of the word militant. I think he was attempting to light a fire and suggest that we (as atheists) need to be less passive, lest we submit to the religious hords.
I would prefer another term for sure.

@scurry I see what you are saying but it seems as though the whole feel of it is setting up a a theist/atheist conflict. If this is lighting a fire its Shakespeare's Henry V "once more into the breach" mentality. I only know of Dawkins work which is highly respected but this sort of discourse sounds more like a mission. And missions are dangerous in the hands of influential people as history will attest.

@Geoffrey51 I don't disagree. The term Atheist seems to be confrontational enough (to some) without adding the word Militant.
I don't think that conflict is the answer, but I also understand what he was getting at.
If we sit idly by, don't make a fuss, be polite and do nothing, we run the risk of the society (schools, governments, etc) being run solely by religious folks who will not adequately represent the full population.
Extreme thinking perhaps, but if left alone, schools will teach creationism instead of evolution, science funding will be cut, museums will no longer show and teach about dinosaurs...
I think what he was implying is that we are already in a war of sorts.

@scurry Ah okay. I am with you on that idea. That emphasis doesn't exist that I am aware of in Australia so i didn't pick up your thread.

It seems to me that "evangelical atheists" is an oxymoron. Evangelical refers to the active spreading of the gospel of Christianity. There has to be a better term.

@wordywalt Anti-theist.

@wordywalt Agreed. But I think if one were called an evangelical atheist I would know what was meant, while I wouldn't know if one were called a Christian atheist (also an oxymoron) or a new atheist. Maybe "evangelistic" atheist would be a less objectionable metaphor.

@Wallace I agree with KKGator. Atheist means non religious. Anti-therist means actively opposed to theism in all of its forms. The latter is the more aggressive stance.

@wordywalt Not precisely correct if the debate is semantics. From the Greek eu- good - angelion - announce can be translated as good news. The word doesn't take on specific Christian connotations until the Latin translations of Medievsl scholarship.

@Geoffrey51 You are correct if one is talking about word origins. I am correct if one is talking about accepted meanings today.

@wordywalt

Yes, I see that anti-theism may be least misleading of these. Also, I think militant atheism is pretty suggestive.

You may—or may not—find the personal report below of some interest.

I thought I coined the term, Antitheism, when I published “Natural Theology: Theism or Antitheism” in Sophia, Vol. 36 (1) March 1997, pp75-83. There I accepted the orthodox concept of God as a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and the standard concept of theism as the belief that God exists. Then I advanced the concept of Antigod as a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent (=an all powerful and all knowing devil) and the concept of antitheism as the belief that Antigod exists. Then I tried to show that the premises of the traditional, philosophical arguments for the existence of God can be legitimately tweaked to support the existence of Antigod as strongly as the original premises support the conclusion that God exists. The aim, of course, was a reduction ad absurdum of the arguments for theism.

Some time later I did a Google search on antitheism and I found that one Christopher New had already used the term—and in the same way that I used it. See the quote below from
[en.wikipedia.org] .

Other uses
See also: Misotheism § Terminology
Another use of the term antitheism was coined by Christopher New in a thought experiment published in 1993. In his article, he imagines what arguments for the existence of an evil god would look like: "Antitheists, like theists, would have believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal creator; but whereas theists in fact believe that the supreme being is also perfectly good, antitheists would have believed that he was perfectly evil."[9] New's usage has reappeared in the work of Wallace A. Murphree.[10]