Letters to the Editor
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Taliesan
Well, if all atheists are as angry, resentful, combative and negative as you, why should you be surprised that no one wants to elect one president? It's lovely to think that we can all jettison our biases and act solely on the basis of reason, but that's not reality, no matter how much you or anyone else would like it to be. As marketing genius David Ogilvy once said, "People do business with people they like." We're driven by emotion and irrational needs.
The reason I have such a negative opinion of atheists is that so many of the ones I have met are as dogmatic and dismissive of faith as fundamentalist believers are of so-called infidels. Their arrogance and self-superiority blinds them to the fact that they have met the enemy and they is it.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: no one was ever convinced of anything by having their intellect belittled. No matter how ridiculous their views (and I'll grant you, the whole Nativity story is about as ridiculous as it gets), everyone wants to be right and feel respected. As long as the atheist community's response to EVERY article, editorial, interview, etc. that puts a positive spin on religion is frothing, sputtering rage and some sort of statement of its siege mentality, atheists will never gain ground in the public debate. Holding your opponent in contempt is not a way to win hearts and minds.