Atheist thumper

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Atheist thumper or strident atheist is a usually pejorative term used to describe so called "fundamentalist atheists",[1] or anyone perceived as aggressively pushing their disbelief in fairy tales upon the faithful. It is a play on the phrase "Bible thumper", which is a reference to the tendency of holy rollers to thump their Bible while preaching to the faithful and heathens alike. What exactly the atheist thumper is supposed to be thumping remains undefined - a stereotype may suggest The Origin of Species, but as evolution has nothing to do with atheism, perhaps something by Jean Meslier or Friedrich Nietzsche would be appropriate. In more recent years, the book in question might be something like Richard Dawkins's divisive tome The God Delusion.

As an insult, its target domain is broad, and can extend to anyone engaged in a public show of secular humanism or anyone in the insulter's eye seen to be wielding science as a weapon against their religion.

Basically, in the opinion of many Christians, believers should be free to promote Christianity and should be free to teach religion to children too young to think for themselves. While Christians do this, atheists should keep quiet about nonsense in Christian teachings. Is all this reasonable?

Contents

[edit] Thumpin' atheists everyone knows

Notable individuals that have been or could be accused of being atheist thumpers include:

[edit] Far more obscure atheist thumperers

[edit] Hives of thumpery

Places they tend to congregate to organize their thumping include:

[edit] A joke one person likes

Perhaps "atheist Thumper" describes a famous bunny rabbit after his friend Bambi was shot. Seeing all the pain and suffering in the world, highlighted by the deer's demise, said rabbit went on to ponder at great length the problem of evil. However, this statement is unfortunately unsupported by any real "facts".

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. It is often argued that there can be no such thing as a "fundamentalist atheist" anymore than there can be a fundamentalist "Anti-Flying Spaghetti Monsterist".
  2. A C Grayling homepage
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