Raise your hand if you are tired of being told what you can say, what you can think, or how you should vote by atheists who know nothing about the Christian life, very little about Holy Writ (they subscribe to the "proof texting" school of Biblical eisegesis) and who resemble bad caricatures of Church Lady.
Imagine if you lived in a country where most people around you actually believe there is an invisible pink fairy on top of their heads and everything they do is in service to this obviously (to you) imaginary fairy. That's where atheists live today.
Actually, I live in a country where people think being an ******* is not only their right, but that it makes them look smarter. They've really been coming out of the woodwork lately.
Are you under the impression that groups other than Christianity are not facing disagreements from other groups? There are atheists who say that you can't think certain things, and there are Christians who say that you can't think certain things, but the majority of both camps agree that people get to say or think whatever they want in their own time. Both sides receives an extreme caricature of the other side.
I'm an atheist, however, you can think and do whatever you like, as long as it doesn't interfere with my life.
If the majority of atheists are live and let live types where are they? You would think we would run into them every now and then, but all we ever see here are the nasty totalitarian ones, and I have seen a pretty good sample of them, I have run into them both here and in real life. I have a theory but I want to know what you say about it.
The problem is what you think "interferes" with your life. If everything about us interferes with your life there's not much left.
I'd say the vast majority of them are not on internet forums. You probably do run into them, but I imagine they do not proclaim their position. You just heard from yasureoktoo. I am technically not an atheist, but for these intents and purposes, I think I can be considered one, and I'm not telling people what to think.
Well, I don't, life is both too long and too short to have to put up with *******s everywhere you go.
Well, I do run into them and they do make themselves known, and they are just about as annoying as fundamentalists.
I have no delusions of not being annoying. You can bet there are a lot more of them who don't make themselves known. Either way, my point is that there is basically no group who don't find their opponents dreadfully tiresome at times.
Maybe it's the circles you run with. I see fundamentalists frequently, knocking on my door, and stopping me on the street, but I have never had an atheist approach me. Most atheists, you wouldn't even know they are atheists, they are usually intelligent, and let your religious belief's pass without confrontation. Like a lot of people here, you may initiate it.
You're right in that atheists have a higher "aggressiveness per capita" in terms of proselytization, but this is a natural fact. Go back to the Roman Empire and you'll find that the Apostles and their followers were very aggressively trying to convert the peoples of the Empire, while most Pagans really just didn't care that much. It's the result of a pretty simple power relationship, and the moral inertia of a movement. I'm an Atheist who doesn't particularly care if the United States is 98% Christian or 1% Christian in 2100. Atheism is not an intellectually difficult position to come to, and it isn't the intellectual difficulty that holds people back. There are good reasons for most people to remain Christian.
My guess is, you are doing something to antagonize them, without such, there would never be a confrontation.
The Atheists arent any worse than some of the establishment/orthodox Christians. Its almost like they're just two competing religions now. I don't really take anyone seriously who thinks they know what/how my relationship with God should be. I can't really even say I'm tired of it. They're both doing their (inadvertant) part to drive a wedge between the religions that are used for social control and the spiritualists who truly want to explore the metaphysical aspects of our existance. The result is people leaving the churches to study and congragate on their own in a more free environment. I see this as entirely beneficial.
Maybe they just return the same way you engage them. If you run into them all the time, it is probably not them.