The terms militant atheism and militant atheist are designations applied to atheists who are, or are perceived to be, hostile towards religion. The term has been used going back to at least 1894 and it has been applied to people from Thomas Hobbes onwards. It had a specific application within the materialism of Marxism–Leninism, and in the early years of the Soviet Union, and more recently the term has been used, frequently pejoratively, to describe atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.
Julian Baggini defines militant atheism as “Atheism which is actively hostile to religion”, which “requires more than strong disagreement with religion — it requires something verging on hatred and is characterised by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious belief. Militant atheists tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense and the second is that it is usually or always harmful.
i wouldn’t ever go as far as to say that i am at all actively hostile towards religion, nor do i have any desire to eliminate religion (though i do believe that would improve things exponentially). but the last sentence is resonating with me.
The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense and the second is that it is usually or always harmful.
i think it’s quite rude of me to express openly that i think religion is false/nonsense (even though i certainly do), but i wholeheartedly agree that it is usually or always harmful. globally, it’s by far one of the biggest incentives for violence, ignorance and hate. duh.
