We need to create a bumper sticker that reads " Be nice, Atheists" I don't know. I do understand in some ways the thought of being "militant" in certain regards, but just how neccessary and helpful is it?

Not many atheists where I live or more specifically I have not come across many. However as far as online, specifically here, I have found some atheists to have an axe to grind as far as it comes to believers and religion as a whole.

I don't think this is fair because as Nietzsche said in 1882, "God is Dead". This often misinterpreted quote meant that the hold that religion had over the western world was ceasing to exist. Prior to that religion dominated every aspect of western society, but since then the western world has become more and more secular. As Yuval Noah Hariri said, God is dead – it's just taking a while to get rid of the body.

No longer is "Religion the opiate of the masses as Karl Marx said, but simply an easy answer to existence in a meaninglessness world. The grand conspiracy of religion's hold over the western world is just that. I am not advocating that religion is harmless or that it still doesn't hold any power, but that power is considerably less to what it was at it's zenith.

Therefore, the modern bashing of religions, and more specifically it's believers, is a show of intellectual superiority and/or resentment for once being duped. It also has in some cases developed into another case of us versus them. Again, most believers are simply looking for an answer in a meaninglessness world.

I grew up in Providence, RI which was founded as a colony for free-thinkers by Roger Williams. It is a mostly Catholic state and my family was one of perhaps 20 that were Protestants.
I found most people to be tolerant of my lack of religious belief although it was difficult to find non-Catholics to date.
All of us married Catholics.

In the little group that I am a part of in Madison, Indiana, the are many flavors. We ave atheists, agnostics, democrats, republicans, scholars, blue collar workers just to mention a few. Our discussions run the gamut. We may not have the exact same take on atheism or agnosticism, but we are able to have conversations without fear of upsetting some one when we talk about how we view religions. I feel that there are 7.7 billion ways to believe or not. Everyone's view is different.

Well, my exposure to atheism has mainly been of two kinds:

1. local, in a big city. largely unlabeled secular, quiet, not outspoken about it except for a few, mainly for education and separation of church and state reasons. Largely tolerant of all religions. There are open secular meetups etc for socializing.

2. online: oh boy. Very outspoken, belligerent, disrespectful. Intolerant of religion enough to potentially violate the first amendentment. This especially rose during the reign of the Four Horsemen of atheism in the last ten years.

I admit I enjoyed watching the debates of Dawkins and Dennet, Harris, and Hitchens. But at the sane time I felt they were creating as many enemies and giving us a general label as angry, antagonist, and hateful.

Since then it has only gotten worse, taking on misogynistic, racist, and bigoted tones in response to metoo and blm and transrights matters by attacking and making light of an important subject because it seems to attack their general identity.

I would very much like the Mormon's approach of promoting atheism. Building a reputation of being nice and polite and wholesome and doggedly strict when it comes to avoiding religion as if it were coffee, the devils brew!

This thread shows why at least in the USA, non-believers weild political power disproportionately low compared to their growing demographic. There are more nones than Catholics but here we are. Being in a herd can be problematic but also necessary for survival.

I think a lot of atheists in this country are real assholes toward people of faith. I think that attitude is counterproductive.

Personally I grew up steeped in evangelical (Pentacostal) bullshit. And I am queer. These two facts deeply shape my relationship to atheism. Religion does not seem at all like some curious but academic question of the silly illogic of humans. It is dangerous. It is political power wielded to control, hurt, and sometimes kill those who don't fit with their religious dogma.
I hear people on this site say they just want to be free to not think about religion at all. But my "flavor" of atheism will not allow me to look away long. Not that I don't have many secular interests, because I do--gardening, music, art, ecology, technology, cooking, health, artisan crafts, etc. I indulge all these interests to greater or lesser extents at different times. However, religion to me is Political! I mean that in a deadly serious way. If we don't engage it and fight its more toxic weaponized aspects, we are essentially agreeing to be run over by it. I can't accept that complacency about it. It would be akin to ignoring climate change, being okay with science curriculum being cut out of schools, or agreeing that I and other lgbtq+ people deserve to be marginalized and even driven into hiding, stripped of any respect or right to persuit of happiness.
For that matter, regarding religion dispssionately would be like saying Donald tRump is just another president doing his best for our country(Yes, I went there!).
As a side note: I find it simply stunning that, despite everything awful that western organized religion has done to queer people, U.S. surverys show still right around half of all queer people in the U.S. profess a belief in God, however they define it. That speaks to the power of religious indoctrination.

In Saudi Arabia you would be killed.

My guess is that the more powerful religion is, in the community that you live in, the more defensive you have to be about Atheism. When you live in a country that is more secular, in general, Atheism is more of an interest and less passionate. Individuals are individuals though. I'm in Australia and when our stupid government forced us to vote on same sex marriage, all the major religions joined forces in a propaganda campaign against it. The claims were outrageous which I think few people fell for and most got annoyed about. It was a huge publicity mistake and the distrust in the major religions still remains.

atheists where i come from and elsewhere have or do not have things in common completely apart from their atheism. there is no unifying factor other than "oh, me too." anyone who doesn't believe in any deities is an atheist or agnostic. there is no rulebook and while i suppose many atheists in the bible belt have in common that they're ex-christians and may atheists born jewish have in common that they still consider themselves jews, distinguishing between judaism the religion and jewishness the culture or self-identification, i find that atheists are nice or nasty, liberal, conservative, regressive or progressive, fat or thin, do or don't exercise, have various dietary habits, do or don't have pets, are single, married or somewhere in between, are male, female, nonbinary, trans, gay, straight, bi or questioning, like celery or don't (i don't, but it's not because i'm an atheist, or because of my environment or culture either), lazy or productive, young, old or neither -- mostly outside of context, at least the kind of context i suspect you mean.

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The only thing I have notice is that being an atheist in some countries can be fatal.

Atheists are as varied as any other arbitrary group divisor.

I don't understand the phrase "flavor of atheism". Atheism is a lack of belief in a god, how does that break down into "flavors"?

I have commented on this multiple times before :

[en.wikipedia.org]

There's no such thing as a style of Atheist. It's just a single position on a single topic....Are there Gods? "No, because I haven't seen any evidence for that."

There are types of atheism based on the version of non-belief of the God claim. I don't see them as wildly varying though.

Same for believers too.