Are we atheists just as bad as religious people?

[Ryft]

This fervor has kind of spilled over into my personal life, where I now regularly question my friends beliefs/religion and point out the flaws in their beliefs. Whenever I do this, sometimes I get the response that I am just as bad as religious people for trying to push my views. I do not have an argument for that. ... I wonder what your points of view are on this, and whether or not you have perhaps encountered the same problem.

It's called the Cage Stage, that period after conversion when the person should be locked in a 'cage' until his passion has settled down and he's had time to let his convictions marinate. It doesn't matter what he has converted from or to, whether Christianity to atheism or vice-versa. It can even happen within a particular belief system—a Christian who converts from Roman Catholic theology to Reformed Protestant theology, for example, can be on fire about his new-found views. At any rate, some of the most annoying atheists in my experience were recent converts to atheism, underscoring the necessity of a Cage Stage. (It also seems that the more 'fundy' the religious belief they left behind the more fiery their atheistic convictions.)