The fact of militant atheism

I stumbled across this post by Daniel Florien discussing David Noise’s post claiming militant atheism does not exist:

In fact, however, while millions of atheists are indeed walking our streets, it would be difficult to find even one who could accurately be described as militant. In all of American history, it is doubtful that any person has ever been killed in the name of atheism. In fact, it would be difficult to find evidence that any American has ever even been harmed in the name of atheism. It just does not happen, because the notion of “militant atheism” is entirely fantasy. The Myth of Militant Atheism

Noise’s argument seems to be an entirely semantic one, and dependent on conflating “militant” with “violent.” Militants can certainly be violent, but it’s not a necessary precondition. Making it so is another abuse of language.

My dictionary defines militant as:

combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause, and typically favoring extreme, violent, or confrontational methods

It seems militant would apply rather nicely to many atheists, as well as tea-partiers, 99%-ers, gay-rights activists, anti-abortion advocates, and — well — anyone inclined to stand on a street corner and yell about how everyone else is wrong about everything.

Richard Dawkins springs to mind as a great example of militant atheism. He is combative, aggressive, and supports confrontational methods to combat what he sees as rank stupidity. In this video titled Richard Dawkins on militant atheism, he says:

Now, it may sound as though I’m about to preach atheism, and I want to reassure you that that’s not what I’m going to do. In an audience as sophisticated as this one, that would be preaching to the choir. No, what I want to urge upon you is militant atheism. But that’s putting it too negatively.

He says it’s too negative, but confrontational is certainly what Dawkins — author of a book called The God Delusion — is. More to the point, Dawkins identifies another atheist thinker as “militant:” Darwin’s friend Edward Aveling. Aveling was loudly atheist and tried to push Darwin to be more loud himself. But as near as I can tell, Aveling never actually killed anyone either.

This is certainly not to say that atheists need to be quiet, modest, or decorous. Militancy has a place; it is often necessary to change things. I happen to agree with Dawkins that atheists could get more respect by being more obviously atheist and less tolerant of hatred directed their way. If there really is no such thing as a militant atheist, then maybe that’s part of the problem. I think that’s the point Dawkins was trying to get across.