In Defense Of Atheism

There is a growing anti intellectual movement in North America that refutes science with pseudo science based on religious beliefs.
This pseudo science takes their religious belief and creates a science to fit the belief. It uses 'Historical Science' to explain the nature of the universe. Historical Science is the stories in the bible treated as actual events and is neither history, nor science.

There is also a growing backlash to this anti intellectual movement. Scientists, people of reason, and other atheists/agnostics are challenging religions in ever increasing numbers.
Dawkins, the late Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett are the Four Horsemen of the Anti Apocalypse. Of the four, only Hitchens was not a scientist, but a writer and orator of great skill.

They are the origins and  impetus of the New Atheists, who lead the voicing of opinions of those who no longer keep silent when religions do terrible things.

The question often asked by religious people is, "Why do you feel the need to attack religion?"
My snap answer is, "Accusing atheists of attacking religion is like blaming a long bullied kid for finally fighting back."

The New Atheists argue strongly with logic and reason, showing the true nature of religions; how they misrepresent their purpose, how they amass billions while claiming to help the poor, how they ritually abuse children, and how their religious texts are so full of inconsistancies, that they could only be written by bronze age men to control local populations.
They argue with words. Atheists don't kill for atheism.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently made a proclamation, part of which stated that atheists talking about atheism are terrorists and will be arrested and tried as such.

A woman in Wisconson asked the American Humanist Association to stop her son's primary school teacher from illegally handing out bibles.
She had to take her son out of school and received threats like, "Snitches end up in ditches."
Their house is now up for sale and she's leaving the district for safety reasons.

I could cite hundreds of recent cases of religious bullying, but you get the idea.

There was a story in the news a few years ago about a 65 year old man walking alone on a British Columbian mountain logging road.
A cougar jumped him from behind and they wrestled to the ground. The cougar was on top, biting his arm and trying for his face. When the man needed both hands to open his knife, the cougar bit his face.
The man's knife was sharp and he cut the cougar's throat, killing it.
Literally holding his face together, the man walked two miles to a logging camp, where he received help. He got several hundred stitches.
A brutal and savage tale of survival.
We were talking about it at work, and one woman hotly asked, "Why did he have to kill the cougar? That's just mean!"

Did you just roll your eyes or shake your head?
That's the exact feeling atheists get when they're accused of attacking religion.
Atheists do not attack. We defend.