Hope you are well!

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/corbett-religion-court-2387684-farnan-selna

is it any better for an athiest to tell a religious person that they believe in fairies than it is for the religious person to get an athiest to repent lest they go to hell?
[...]
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize 85% or so of the population based on a few bad experiences.

Not. The. Point.
My point is not and never has been that atheists who ridicule religious people do so less obnoxiously, or that they are more righteous, or that their arguments are superior (although of course I generally deem them so).

My point is that I believe (I do not have research to back this, only anecdotal experience, but then again this is a blog, not a journal) that the fraction of atheists who will initiate a discussion or an attempt at converting a believer is far less than the fraction of religious people doing the opposite, regardless of what is actually said in the discussion and how it is conducted by anyone, religious or atheist.

Perhaps the athiests you hang out with are above this sort of behavior, but I have noticed that many of them have a chip on their shoulder against the religious. Somehow they think that their discontent with religion entitles them to treat religious individuals with contempt. It’s not all of them, but neither do all religious folks attempt to convert you. In fact, if I were to look at proportions, I’d say that LESS people who are religious are out to convert you. Perhaps they are the more memorable individuals, but given how many people are religious and the fact that I’ve had less than 10 people try to convert me my entire life, it’s a pretty small proportion. Admittedly, those few were pretty obnoxious…but they don’t speak for the whole, and I don’t think it’s fair to characterize 85% or so of the population based on a few bad experiences.

First, if you look at straight numbers, there are far fewer athiests than religious people.

Cherish, please, I wrote “proportionally” and “proportionately to the number of adepts”. As for the numbers, here they are. Apparently 12% of Americans are atheists, way more than Jeovah’s witnesses (for instance), but I bet you have seen more Jeovah’s witnesses at your doorsteps than atheists.

So, yes, I am making generalizations but I thought that they were accurate, because, once again, I am not talking about what people think, what they make fun of, what they disparage, I am talking about people taking it upon themselves to talk someone else out of one’s beliefs. The notion that that occurs in the same proportions in the two categories seems odd to me. Of course, I may well be wrong.

First, if you look at straight numbers, there are far fewer athiests than religious people. Based on pure numbers, you’re simply not going to run into as many athiests as religious people…so your chance of running into someone who is a “rabid” athiest is less than running into someone who is a Bible thumper. On the other hand, if you look at percentages of those who wear their beliefs on their sleeve, I’m guessing it may not be so different.

Second, what I was saying was that the athiests I have met are, on the whole, no less obnoxious about pushing their beliefs (or lack thereof) on others, given the opportunity. In many cases, they have just as much conviction that they are right and others ought to believe the same as the religious folks I’ve met. They will engage in snarky derision of any sort of religious belief just as much as religious people will discuss the lack of morals of the athiest. What’s worse is that many of them think they are justified because the religious people have been doing it to them…so much for the moral high road.

In fact, one might argue that you are showing off your moral superiority by making vast generalizations about the fact that athiests are morally superior because they don’t run around showing off their moral superiority…thereby negating the very point you are trying to make.

How’s that for convoluted reasoning!?