“Atheism isn't a dogma,” atheists like to say. “It's the denial of dogma.”
This is a logical fallacy known as “equivocation.” One can have faith in things other than supernaturalist expressions and concepts. Some can have faith in the democratic process while others place their faith in the United Nations, Mutually Assured Destruction, socialism, luck, science or illicit drugs. Fundamentalist atheists put their faith in their own omniscience and intentional aliteracy. In this life, one can have faith in God or in a lesser creature such as those worshiped by atheists. (e.g., eugenics, scientism, individualism). Atheists, by definition and practice, have faith in atheism—they have faith in their perception that God doesn't exist. Thus atheism is a faith or, in other words, a religion. Therefore, bald, in this case, is just a hair color.
The so-called "new atheism" is not simply not believing in God. Rather, it embodies and celebrates an emotional, anti-intellectual, highly irrational and misologically intolerant anti-theism. The same materialist, intolerant anti-theism that begat Marxism and killed 152 million people in the 20th and 21st centuries. There's a marked anti-intellectualism that guides the new-atheists bestowing a false creditability on its adherents that not knowing facts is just as good, if not better, than actually knowing them. In this, they will refuse to research questions on their own and instead prefer to rely on a perceived "truthiness"—a term coined by Catholic comedian Stephen Colbert to mean an "argument, claim or assertion that intuitively feels right without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts." The new-atheism is ahistorical, anti-scientific and actively anti-compassionate. They promote materialism/scientism as the official religion of the scientific rationalist believers to counter any arguments to their major tenets
- The universe magically started, without assistance, at the Big Bang. Nothing caused it. Nothing sustains it.
- Humanity is nothing more than the molecules and biochemical processes which make us up.
- There is no love, free will, human dignity.
- Religions other than scientism are evil and must be eradicated along with those who practice them.
- Everything an atheist does, says, thinks, feels is absolutely correct and no one has the right to limit him in any way. The same rule doesn't apply to lesser creatures. (i.e., Catholics).
- Only science can derive at truth. However, if science comes up with an inconvenient truth, atheists have the right and duty to ignore it. Similarly, logic is negligible unless it can be used as a weapon to attack the enemy (i.e., Catholics).
Fundamentalist atheists hold these sacrosanct tenets to be inviolate dogma. It would be farcical if they weren't so angrily irrational.
These doggedly irrational atheist beliefs feed their perceptions and guide their behavior. Thus, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens believe that clerics (i.e., Catholic priests) should be forbidden from interfering with politics. That is, that there should be no freedom of religious practice (only freedom of belief and worship), even though it is recognized as a human right. In other words, people who hold religious ideas shouldn't be treated as if they were citizens. The eerie, frightening resemblance to the atheist, totalitarian communist regimes is apparent to anyone who has studied the 20th and 21st century. This makes Dawkins and Hitchens and those who agree with them in this regard, intolerant anti-theistic bigots. Freedom from Religion is an atheist foundation dedicated specifically to this end.
The behavior of isn't indicative or reflect Christian behavior. I don't personally believe in humanism, yet I don't accuse humanists of being evil, so I am not an anti-humanist. I also don't campaign against the humanist right to freedom of expression and political participation, so I am not an intolerant anti-humanist. Secularism is acceptable but it must be monitored as in the case of Freedom from Religion in that it seeks to infringe upon the rights of Christians in general and Catholics in particular. Atheism has historically been and remains a danger to all societies and certainly we've all had enough of it, expect, of course, those who refuse to learn from history. They are condemned to repeat it.