So it’s still Tuesday somewhere, right? So I guess I’m officially on time. Somewhere near the International Date Line. If you squint.
This week’s essay changed character dramatically as I wrote it. It started out as a relatively rational discussion of atheist anger. It was spawned by a variety of discussions I have seen over the years, but most recently by some quotes by Kevin Sorbo expressing his bafflement about atheist anger. As I was writing, however, trying to explain what I as an atheist am not angry about, and then what I actually am angry about, I, perhaps not surprisingly, started to get angry. And that anger started to bleed through into my composition, first in a more liberal usage of visual memes than I usually allow myself, and later in the actual writing.
My first instinct was to delete the post. After all, such anger isn’t conducive to the type of even-handed, rational dialog that I am hoping to encourage with this blog. But I then decided that posting it was the right thing to do. Humans are only partially rational beings; our emotional side is key to our character as well. Like it or not, whether it is comfortable for me or not, my emotional responses to important issues are a real aspect of my positions. And, for anyone engaged in dialog with me about theism and atheism, those emotional responses are important to both acknowledge and address. So, with this post, I am laying myself a bit more bare than normal, and the result is likely to be jarring, particularly for theists. It may very well come across as an attack, though the essay is not meant to be one. It is meant to be an explanation, which I hope will provide you with some useful insights into my thinking.
As always, I welcome comments and criticism.
Convert The Atheist 