D'Souza: still clueless
Once again, Dinesh D’Souza has publicly proven that he is clueless about atheism and atheists. In his screed about the Virginia Tech massacre, he wondered “where is atheism when bad things happen?” The answer, of course, is that we are everywhere…just as we are on every other day.
D’Souza observes that “Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing,” but doesn’t consider the possibility that he doesn’t hear us because we don’t get much of an opportunity to speak. With the incessant god-talk, we probably couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Besides, atheists generally do not have the habit of loudly proclaiming their (dis)beliefs in every public situation, no matter how inappropriate; we prefer to leave that annoying tendency to theists.
I was going to fisk D’Souza’s hateful little rant, but Brent Rasmussen already did the job:
D'Souza's a delusional bigot, but he aptly demonstrates the fundamental misconception that most theists have about atheism. That misconception is that they think that atheism is a religion.It's not. It is a description. It describes a person in which god-belief - of any kind - is absent.
Atheism does not have a rulebook, a set of instructions, relief organizations, a hierarchy, a meeting hall, or scriptures.
Individual people are atheists individually. The only thing they share is a lack of god-belief.
update (8:54pm):
PZ Myers at Pharyngula has some trenchant remarks as well. Read them.
update 2: D'Souza demonstrates his cluelessness again and again.