Why are we such meany pants?

Once in a while some confused religious person will venture on the site and express their dismay at the “hate” and intolerance on display. One such visitor felt that the real problem in the world is that folks just don’t do enough to try and respect one another:

a lot of hateful comments from the atheist camp here, why cant people just tolerate each other why are people always finding reasons to hate each other. I know atheists consider themselves better and more intelligent human beings than religious ones, well then if your so much better then why cant you be the ones to lead by example and show some respect and tolerance to others?

I don’t even know what the fuck he’s talking about this “atheists think they are better” nonsense. We just don’t cling to Bronze Age myths and pretend that the “revealed” words of lunatics is anything more than sheer fantasy. In a perfect world where superstitious bullshit didn’t cause wars, genocide, broken families, discourage the use of condoms to fight AIDS or undermine science education, maybe we would be more tolerant. But that’s not the world we live in, and while it’s easy to pretend that you want everyone to get along, it’s only because you haven’t considered the consequences your own beliefs have on society. What we think about the nature of reality has a direct influence in the real world, and until you stop poisoning our minds with complete garbage, we’ll continue to mock your sincerely held beliefs and not apologize for it.