Atheists always have to ask the question: what will you do to honour your belief in no religious belief? Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum fan the flames a bit in a recent LA Times article anticipating Richard Dawkins’s The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, due out in about a month. Their article contrasts and compares the aggressive New Atheists and what they call accommodationists. As a recent post on The Reason Foundation makes clear, such a discussion in itself fires up many atheists.
By nature I’m tolerant; what people believe is what they believe. But, as I’ve written before, what I am interested in is the last line of defence. At what point do ardent believers impinge on atheist’s lives and beliefs? When, if ever, would atheists go to battle on behalf of their atheism? It will be interesting to observe how the world treats Dawkins’s new book.