First, let’s talk definitions.

Atheists are normally defined as individuals who think that God and gods do not exist. According to this definition, the implications of this lack of belief are completely up for grabs. For example, you can, like Patton Oswalt, think the idea of God is a wonderful thing, or even wish that God did exist, or even identify with religion as a Christian Atheist, and still proudly claim the title “atheist.”

The atheist subcategory of anti-theism, at its most basic level, is the stance that God or gods not only do not exist, but that their influence in culture is, for whatever reasons, fundamentally a bad idea.

The longer I’ve been an atheist, the more I’ve realized that I have to clarify that I’m not just an atheist — I’m an anti-theist. What I mean by that is that I think belief in God or gods is a fundamentally bad idea, and I’m generally unwilling to remotely promote it. To me, personally, I don’t see why the word should mean anything beyond that.

However, the powers that be, who think that belief in God or gods is an excellent idea, have a vested interest in making anti-theists look as bad as possible. I’ve noticed, for example, that the moment I begin to appear to object to belief in God or gods, no matter how politely I do so, I am often seen as a belligerant anti-theist. I have come to accept this characterization so that we don’t have to go into a back-and-forth word war and can get down to what we’re discussing. I also think that anti-theists have concerns that are worthy of strong, strident expression.

Anyway — because of the attempts to discolor the atheists who think belief in God or gods is a fundamentally bad idea, anti-theists are known as belligerant, angry, evangelistic, and as bad as fundamentalists of religious sects. Some of us take an “I am whataver you say I am” mentality — basically, instead of denying the way people are going to define us anyway, we embrace several of the stereotypes, as we see them as reflections of what Christians themselves are afraid of, and dwell within those stereotypes without fear. Several of us were convinced by others who did this for us — like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins (although many of us later became disillusioned with them)– people who embodied the stereotypes we were terrified of being associated with and still managed to thrive and live decent lives.

Although I do not see myself as consistently belligerant in my discussions on religion, I have no interest in denying the rather frequent charge that I am. I see the accusation that I am as the Christian’s fear of who they would be if they left the faith projected onto me (this hypothesis has been bolstered by the fact that Christians frequently quote Bible verses characterizing my lack of belief in God in ways that seem out of place unless my hypothesis has some truth to it), and I try to live a life that shows there’s nothing to be afraid of. One can be angry at religion for good reasons and express it honestly without hiding, and survive. And, in addition, I think there are good reasons to be angry at religion. It annoys me when people wear their anger at religion in embarrassment — I think honesty and straightforward clarity as to the objections to religion, along with the requisite emotion such honesty and straightforwardness entail, to often gets a bad rap. So, due largely to this viewpoint, I identify as an anti-theist.

In being an anti-theist, I’ve noticed that those of my colleagues in organized atheism who have an anti-theist bent seem to take on two sides, overall. These are not the only sides to be had in antitheism, but they do seem to be the most dominant tendencies on a continuum. Perhaps they can best be understood as responses to fear and desire for respect.

In almost all cases of antitheism, there is opposition to the unsupported rules claimed by a deity. One of the reasons antitheists tend to think that belief in God is a bad idea is because these restrictions pose an undue hardship to people the antitheists care about (this group includes, of course, the individual antitheist his or herself). I’d like to emphasize here that, as an antitheist, I DO think that theistic religion routinely places undue hardship on individuals simply on the basis of “God said it, so believe it.”

Although it is impossible to summarize all the objections to God, the basic one, it might be said, is that most conceptualizations of God or gods implement an authority that people are expected to follow — an authority that is not based SOLELY on science, empathy, and reason, but includes faith in a being that is beyond those restrictions and who can thus veto any scientific, empathetic, and reasoned proposals. Now, as an ignostic or progressive religious person will hasten to add, the definition and influence of this God or these gods may vary, but the fact that any of them have the potential to have power over others is innately problematic or dangerous to many of us. What we antitheists seem to have in common, for the most part, is the impression that God or gods hold wildcard opinions that have, to varying extents, veto power on more scientific, empathetic, or reasoned proposals. Many of us also think that fear of what it would mean to be against belief in God or gods keeps many people captive to these God or gods, so we embrace some of the stereotypes unabashedly instead of denying that we embody them so loudly that we make them even more troublesome and become more, instead of less, captive to religious ideology.

You may disagree that the antitheist position is valid, and that’s OK for now — I have and will argue that it is in more detail in other blog posts. Here, I’m forced to write in broad brushstrokes. But I think it helps to recognize exactly WHY we are antitheistic. Basically, it comes down to not wanting ourselves or others to be held captive by religious ideology, and a desire to instead base decisions on science, empathy, and reason.

The problem, the split, happens, when we try to figure out what it means to escape from religious ideology.

At that point, everything goes haywire. The voices are shrill. The fingers start wagging. The blog post-punches begin flying. The accusations are myriad….