I spent the better part of last night and this morning arguing with a militant atheist about how to BE atheist. It started when I posted something along the lines of “If we want the non-secs to respect us, we need to do the same”. This led to him berating me for HOURS even though we’re on the SAME fricken team.
DUDE!
According to him I’m not atheist enough because I’m not ANTI-theist. Supposedly, you have to insult and shame believers into converting because they are responsible for AIDS, among other things. This is the kind of atheist I DO NOT want to be.
The thing is, I’d like to give him credit for some of the things he said, he DID make some decent points. But he was such a dick about the whole thing that I actually tuned him out and simply felt the need to defend myself– which was the whole point of the entire conversation.
I’m always up for a good debate, but you have to know when to walk away.
It ended when he told me that you have to tell Christians that they are stupid over and over again in order to get them to question themselves and their beliefs. My last tweet to him was, “w/your reasoning I should just tell you that you you’re an asshole over and over again until you believe it. would that work??”
–he did not respond.
I wonder if he’ll read this post?
Life With Reason 
Comments on: "Angry Tweeter" (3)
haha very nice! i’m a pantheist so i guess we’re on the same team.i agree with you. if we want to be respected by the other side, we have to show them respect as well. being a uhm…dick…like that guy certainly would make all of us look terrible and would give them all good reason to try to destroy us or to perhaps even use our misbehavior against us. i hope everyone on our team would share the same views. thank you so much for posting!
I couldn’t agree more!
If my writing students get ANYTHING out of my class, it is that, if you want to make an argument, not just argue, but MAKE an argument, you had better constantly be thinking WHO is my audience, WHAT do they think and feel, and HOW can I reach them without pushing them away or forcing them into defense mode. Maybe this guy needs to take a writing or debate or public speaking or HOW TO BE A HUMAN class…
Oh, and GOOD FOR YOU.