What Is a Fundie Atheist?

Fundie Atheist, Militant Atheist, Village Atheist, Folk Atheist, Atheist Troll.

Unfortunately, I and many others sometimes fall into a trap of using the term 'atheist' as shorthand for any/all of the above. Mainly because these guys have the loudest voices, and the moderate, normal non-believers stay polite and respectable like the decent folk that they are.
It's always the minority who ruin it for the majority. But what is a fundie atheist anyway?

Word Salad

A phrase we often hear when speaking to fundie atheists is 'word salad'.

The usual routine is something like this:

Fundie atheist: **Question about scripture/faith/religion.**
Believer: **Reasoned but perhaps complicated response with examples and evidence.**
Fundie atheist: "Word Salad!"

What 'word salad' actually is is when somebody talks a lot, but doesn't really say anything. They might seem to be skirting around the issue and giving anecdotes in order to actually avoid answering a tricky question.
This is rarely what is happening when the fundie atheist calls "word salad" though. Usually, when they call it, it actually means that they don't understand what's being said, and because they don't understand, they think the question hasn't been answered.

Ironically, one of the masters of word salad was one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism: Christopher Hitchens. In pretty much every debate with a studied philosopher/theologian (e.g. William Lane Craig, John Lennox, or Frank Turek to name a few) you'll see him being asked a straight forward question (sometimes only needing a yes/no answer) and him heading off on an irrelevant tangent so that he could get in a jab about genital mutilation.

Is Atheism A Religion?

I'm a bit wary of Christians who say that Atheism is a religion, but to give them their due, a lot of atheists aren't helping the case against the claim.

Symbols

All faiths have a symbol to represent them. Christians have the cross or the fish, Jews have the star of David, and so on.
Atheists inspired by their dedication to 'science' have come up with a few of their own badges.

You'll notice that most of them look a bit like atoms, which are bit like the poster child for science. Shoving an 'A' into an atom just cements the atheist relationship with scientific discovery and thought.

It's maybe a bit arrogant to assume that atheists have the only claim to science. Considering facts like Joseph J. Thomson, the founder of atomic physics was a devout Christian. Or that Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution inspires the atheist fish, was a Christian for most of his life. Or Isaac Newton, Galileo, or even modern day leaders of science like Francis Collins were also Christian.

So, as atheists have a number of symbols to choose from, it's only natural that they would want to display their faith for all to see.

Or if clothing and accessories aren't enough, why not permanently seal the deal and have the symbol of your belief inked?

And they say atheism is just "a lack of belief"... Sure...

Churches

Do I need to go further than this point? Atheists have churches now, They meet up on Sundays and share their faith and learn how they can use it to make the world a better place. Come on!

The Atheist Lead In 'Orange Is The New Black'

'Orange is the New Black' may sound like some sort of 'Sex and the City' in prison type of show, but it's actually really good!


It's great to see a show where men are the minority, dealing with real issues and things anybody can relate to - not just stuff that's 'by women, for women'. It's not a chick flick. It's a normal show that just happens to mainly star women, just like every normal show where most of the cast are men.

Religion plays a part in the show and for the most part is handled well. There's a chapel in the prison that has to be shared between the various faiths and denominations, so time allowed for its use is split up evenly. There's a preacher who seems to be a rock of compassion for those who need her, the Spanish community pray at mealtimes and it's left at that, there's a Buddhist yoga instructor, and there are a couple of extremist nuts that give faith a bad name.

That's all fine. It reflects reality. It's OK to show the messed up side of religion. It's good even. This stuff needs to be highlighted so it can be dealt with. All the while the moderate and compassionate normal people of faith are also on screen to show that they aren't all nutcases, there should be no reason for viewers to complain.

I don't know the beliefs of the shows writers and producers, although episode 12 seemed to be an example of the main character Piper acting as a voice for their views.
As I say, for the bulk of the series, they've been respectful and handled faith well. The cast includes Kate Mulgrew, who is well known to be a devout Catholic, and also Laura Prepon who is a Scientologist, as well as a number of other people of various faiths, so the producers probably are sympathetic to the belief systems of other people.

So I don't want to come down too hard on the show for the things that were said in Episode 12. It might have been the writers speaking through Piper, or it might have been just another character expressing a poorly thought out world-view. Piper is hardly the beacon of reason and morality anyway - being involved with drug dealers and cheating on her fiancé.

Whichever it is, I'm just a little concerned that what she said might be taken by viewers as good rational sense. So I'm gonna go over it and try to clear up the mess. WARNING: MINOR EPISODE SPOILERS