The Daylight Atheist answers the major question in this article quite well:
I do not think that many religious people specifically intend to anger atheists, but Gellman must be aware that there are a great number of religious people who wake up each day thinking of new ways to evangelize, preach to, persuade and otherwise pester their neighbors, which works out to much the same thing. Personally I do my best to respond to conversion attempts with civility, but can an atheist really be blamed for feeling frustration and annoyance upon being bombarded with the same invasive and often obnoxious religious messages every day? In my experience, evangelical Christians frequently include in their message the implication or the outright assertion that nonbelievers are selfish, bitter, immoral, greedy, cold-hearted, closed-minded, deserving of God’s wrath, and so on. Surely it is not difficult to understand why the targets of such a message, atheists who are ordinary people just like everyone else, might feel offense at being told such things. Sometimes, we just want to be left alone to live our lives in peace.
And furthermore, we find some religious beliefs oppressive because they are oppressive. Again, there are a great many religious people who wake up each day thinking of new ways impose their narrow-minded, hateful, even theocratic views on society in general. Again, as Gellman must surely be aware, there is a loud, determined, and well-organized segment of society composed of religious people who think that I, as an atheist, should be compelled to pay tax money to support their evangelical programs and pay for maintaining their churches; who want to deny women the right to control their own bodies by banning birth control and outlawing abortion even in the cases of rape or incest; who want to censor and stifle science and replace it with thinly disguised religious dogma; who would rather see young adults get STDs than teach them how to protect themselves; who want to rape and despoil the planet and wage war on the grounds that Jesus is coming back soon anyway; and dozens more outrages that I could list. What is the appropriate response to these injustices if not anger?
Hear, hear!
I’m not an angry atheist, I’m an irritated and worried atheist. a) Worried that so many in power have created and maintained a culture based on oppression and fear and call it God’s love. b) Irritated because they want me to pay for it. Vice versa.
That and insisting that I’m angry when I’m not pisses me off.
Rock on! As an unapologetic atheist myself, I couldn’t have said it better. I especially get frustrated by many religious people’s assumptions that I must be an immoral person if I don’t believe in their values. Grr…
Word. I was feeling perfectly cheerful and light-hearted until I read Gellman’s ignorant screed. His numerous ignorant and arrogant assumptions about atheists made this godless heathen distinctly cranky. It’s no wonder he encounters so many pissed off atheists. It’s like a kleptomaniac wondering why everyone around him is so paranoid about theft….