(May 20, 2012 at 3:11 am)Chuck Wrote: We actually tolerate private stupidity much much more then many theists would tolerate private intelligence. It's just that we resent the sort of public stupidity that theists would like to ram down our throats. But even here we don't go nearly as murderously ballistic when theists try to make us swallow public stupidity as theists would if we even suggest they swallow public intelligence.
Speak for yourself, I want to castrate, disembowel, hang with entrails of, and then behead [in that specific order] all the public stupidity theists shove in my face.

[Disclaimer: Creed of Heresy is NOT a disemboweling, hang-happy executioner and is simply expressing a fantastical, illogical, immoral, and never-to-be-realized dream]
No you are right, though. As an Xtian I felt an illogical rage towards those who would not accept the "truth" of the bible. As an atheist, I feel a logical ANNOYANCE, but not a rage, towards those who refuse to use any kind of reasonable discourse with other individuals.
There ARE days where I do feel highly intolerant, however. There are days I wake up and, really, the last thing I want to deal with are credulous fools babbling their nonsensical BS to me. Those are days I wish I could just sew their mouths shut, just for a day, or for a few days, until I could calmly debate with them.
Ah well. I've never claimed to be a wholly rational man. I have the capacities, but I just don't always "feel" the desire to use them sometimes.
A lingering effect from religious brainwashing that taught me to act on impulse and cherish my own narrow-minded, self-assured perceptions? I have little doubt it is so.