Why militant?

[Purple Rabbit]

Here is a question that occurs to me: If you are militant about some view and engage people with differing views, are you not shoving your beliefs down their throat? Or are you merely exposing yourself to the ironic hypocrisy of thinking that they should be open to questioning their beliefs and ideas?

The word militant is not a word I would use to label my point of view although some may perceive it as such. My impression is that militant atheism is a term that is invented in religious circles to label opponents of theism who publicly speak up. Ten years ago it was not common in big parts of the western world to speak publicly about atheism but with proponents like Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens it became clear that there was an undeniable voice of atheism that publicly was heard. I don’t think that any of those proponents are militant in any literal sense or that it was intended as such by its inventors. All they use is words and argumentation, no bullets, no force and no suppresion. But the labeling is not a big deal, really. It is a very human way to respond and I probably do it all the time myself. One more reason to always keep questioning the validity of views that we hold dear. Also some atheists nourish such labels to rebrand them from their slightly offensive undertone into labels of proud atheism. In dutch there is a word for a label with negative connotation that is rebranded into a label with an explicitly positive connotation: ‘geuzennaam’.

Closed-mindedness can be found on both sides of the line. Some even prefer to live inside a securely closed bubble of undeniable, untouchable, unprovable and unchangeable personal beliefs never to be questioned.