"I disagree with you, but i don't think you're Hitler"

[Ryft]

I have seen an alarming trend around the Internet: atheists insulting theists for the purpose of insulting. I mean, I have nothing against attacking and challenging their beliefs, but some of the things I see around there are not the educated argument of someone who wants to change their mindset. It is petty, it is useless, and it is simply humiliating as an atheist to see [that behavior]. Likewise, saying that being religious means being an enslaved sheep who doesn't question anything he's told is idiotic and does not further the discussion in any way. I hate the stereotype that atheists are bitter, angry people who like to act superior and condescending to anyone who does not share their views. But the problem is, I see a LOT of people corresponding to that precise stereotype, acting as though being an atheist makes them superior as human beings.

First of all, major kudos for your post; it is always very encouraging to find individuals who practice sensible and teachable skepticism. As Phil Plait said in his speech at TAM 8, skepticism and critical thinking is a hard sell in and of itself; why the hell would a person want to make it even harder? There is a nearly unlimited number of vendors engaged in telling people what to think—and some of it is quite dangerous—but so precious few of us engaged in telling people HOW to think, a cause that is thwarted by those who stake their tent in the skeptics camp but never bother practicing sensible and teachable skepticism except to other skeptics. How in the world are you ever going to inspire the credulous to think critically or rationally about their beliefs if you are content to merely ridicule and belittle them? You won't, quite frankly. We skeptics are hugely outnumbered, by several orders of magnitude, by a vast and teeming ocean of credulous people; if our goal is to teach people how to think, we will fail to even begin that task if we isolate ourselves from that throng with condescending dismissals, content to engage ourselves in convincing the already convinced, thus remaining vastly outnumbered and never growing the skeptical cause.

Second, skepticism is compatible with but does not necessarily correspond to atheism. Skepticism is not a view on metaphysics or epistemology or ethics; it is simply a heuristic device for critical thinking, rationally filtering and processing ideas and beliefs. A skeptic is someone who thinks for himself logically and questions everything, and thus includes both atheists and theists. How ever popular the notion that skepticism implies atheism, it is still wrong. Nor should one think that by virtue of being an atheist one is thus a skeptic; I am sure you have run into atheists who are definitely not skeptics. I just wanted to put that out there because more than a few atheists have thought it laughable that a Christian could identify as a skeptic, because they think being a skeptic means being an atheist.

Third, by all means one can mock and insult people all they like. That is their right, of course. But again that does absolutely nothing to advance the cause of skepticism and critical thinking. I almost never bother wasting my time with those who are content to ridicule and belittle people or their beliefs; I want the world to be a more rational and reasonable place, a goal that I work against if I waste my time with people who simply have no interest in approaching things intelligently with a shared concern for the cause of critical thinking. They want to denigrate and demean people or their beliefs? That is their right. However, pretty soon the only people left willing to interact with them are those who respond just as unintelligently. The only thing fundies have to play with are other fundies (atheist or otherwise) and nothing is advanced. Such people can spout all the trivial nonsense they like, if that is what they are happy to do. Promoting the cause of skepticism and how to think critically will be shouldered by those committed to it.