You know, it’s pretty clear what these guys over at Sully’s blog are saying.

They are saying that they don’t need to call themselves atheists because not believing in God is normal and natural. They’re just humans. It’s the rest of us who need to call ourselves something because we’re all psychotic weak individuals who need to label our mythical beliefs.

My attitude toward this can probably be discerned by my tone.

Atheism is demonstrably not a natural human response. It is a modern invention. I have yet to see any evidence of an ancient people who had no sort of spiritual belief whatsoever.

Atheism is a belief system, no matter what atheists tell you. We live in a Universe. To be an atheist, you have to believe that it popped out of nothing spontaneously. This is a belief, not a fact. The nature and origin of the Universe has not and maybe never will be fully described. I’m an astrophysicist and I wouldn’t dare claim we are even close to knowing the nature of existence. As Allan Sandage said, there has yet to be an explanation of why there is something instead of nothing. Atheism simply says the answer is, “because”, which is either dodging the question or circular logic.

As I said some time ago, the new wave of atheists are growing increasingly arrogant in the rightness of their lack of belief. They will smile smugly at you the same way the most annoying Evangelical will and for the same reason. They are utterly convinced that they are the enlightened and the rest of us are fools.

We have quickly reached the apotheosis of this arrogance. Atheists no longer want to even call themselves what they are. (I’m reminded of liberals who don’t want to be called liberals anymore. When you’re confident in your beliefs, labels don’t bother you). They are just “normal”.

Hogwash.