Thursday, October 14, 2010

Why are athiests so angry?

Greta Christina's "Atheists and Anger":
But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.

So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.

A response to some comments:
And as commenters in the rant have pointed out, even the social movement leaders who generally get tagged as the non-angry, peaceful, "good cops" -- Martin Luther King, Gandhi -- were very angry indeed. They just channeled their anger in constructive ways. Which I think is a grand idea. But acknowledging that anger and expressing it is an important part of that process.