How to spot a poorly written article about atheism. (1) The words ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘militant’ are used in the article without any real justification (i.e., do these words have the same meaning for our religious counter-parts, I wonder) (2) ‘Atheistic’ regimes are blamed for the worst human rights offenses (3) We’re told that secularism is an imposition rather than redressing a clear inequity.

It’s clear religious people have absolutely no idea what secularisms really mean. If it isn’t Romney trying to scare people into believing it’s a new religion being imposed by the state, it’s some close-minded Canadian journalist trying to argue militant atheism must recognize the primacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition*. Here are my favorite tropes:

True wars have been started including the crusades but wars have been started for all kinds of reasons including women – we haven’t done away with women have we?

Well, the Catholic Church did try it’s darndest during the Inquisition, with over 100,000 women burned at the stake for witchcraft. The way the Catholic Church fights against contraception, abortion rights, or even historically their right to property, it certainly feels as though full scale war is being waged on women, doesn’t it?

Did you know why we don’t execute people that are mentally ill? That goes back in the ages and was established because those not in a proper state of mind would not be able to make a proper confession of their sins and therefore killing them would also be condemning them to hell. It was seen as the compassionate thing to do.

Actually, if you were to ask most Canadians if they thought the death penalty should be re-instated in Canada, you’ll find a disproportionate number of religious people in favor of capital punishment. This tends to be a fairly universal phenomenon: highly religious people have no problem with this kind of final solution, and to claim that religion itself is the reason Canada no longer has the death penalty is just plain ignorant. This guy also seems not to really give a shit if the person who gets executed isn’t missing a chromosome, but I digress.

I believe the theory is live and let live. I can put forward my views, you can put forward yours and we can all make up our own minds. From pushing for God to be dropped from our national anthem, trying to make sure you can’t mention Easter or heaven forbid Christmas in a school to now conscience rights – trying to force doctors who have religious convictions to perform abortions against their will – there is no rest for the other side.

Ah yes, this new trope from the religious that we’re trying to ‘impose’ our secularism on others. As though removing what is already government mandated religion out of our anthem, or allowing for non-denominational holiday celebrations is automatically a threat to their advantaged position. Damn right. Secularism is about removing God from the public forum, and making it entirely a private belief again. I share his live and let live attitude, which is why I want his God out of my fucking face.

(Update: The site thankfully no longer exists, and was never web archived)