Last modified on August 7, 2019, at 03:46

Essay: The "friendly atheist" - Not so friendly after all!

Hemant Mehta

Hemant Mehta is an author, blogger, and atheist activist. His popular atheist blog is called "The Friendly Atheist".[1]

On the Brights Movement website, Hemant Mehta is listed as an "Enthusiastic Bright".[2] The Brights Movement has been widely criticized as being pretentious and arrogant (see: Atheism and arrogance). Given the Brights Movement's reputation for smugness, his endorsement of the Brights Movement and his current listing as an "Enthusiastic Bright" on the Brights Movement website, could be seen as a matter of hypocrisy due to the attributes of "friendly" and "smug" being incompatible opposites (see: Atheist hypocrisy).

Unlike the skeptic Michael Shermer who had second thoughts after endorsing the Brights Movement, Hemant Mehta has never publicly denounced the Bright Movement for its smugness and remains listed on on its website as an "Enthusiastic Bright".[3][4]

The ABC News.com commentator John Allen Paulos remarked of the “brights” campaign, “I don’t think a degree in public relations is needed to expect that many people will construe the term as smug, ridiculous, and arrogant.”[5] According to a 2003 Skeptical Enquirer article by Christ Mooney, "From the start, the “brights” label label reinforced a longstanding stereotype. Atheists already have a terrible rap for being coldhearted rationalists who attend Mensa gatherings and dismiss religious believers as simple-minded fools."[6]

After the Brights Movement largely petered out as a movement, the popular YouTube video maker Shockofgod mocked the movement and the movement's weak website traffic with a video entitled Atheism's future not bright at all.[7] See also: Decline of global atheism and Desecularization

See also: Atheism and social intelligence and Atheism and intelligence and Atheism and the theory of multiple intelligences

Hemant Mehta's comments about fellow atheist Chris Stedman

Hemant Mehta said of fellow atheist Chris Stedman:

“ If you read the blog posts and Twitter comments about Chris, though, you’d think he was a religious man in atheist clothing. Or that he’s delegitimizing our work. Or that he’s undermining our goals. He’s not. He’s as much of an atheist activist as the rest of us. He just practices it by focusing on cooperation and conversation with people of faith instead of beating his chest with both fists and proclaiming his superiority.[8][9] ”

See also: Atheism and social intelligence and Atheism and intelligence and Atheism and the theory of multiple intelligences

Hemant Mehta, are you reading this? I am laughing at the superior atheist intelligence!



Hermant Mehta, are you reading this? Atheists are not smarter than the average bear!

I am laughing at the superior atheist intelligence! See: Atheism and intelligence and Atheism and the theory of multiple intelligences

(Photo obtained from Flickr, see: license agreement)

Another example of friendly atheism?

A militant atheist says hello to his neighbor during a stroll through his neighborhood.

Please also see: Atheism appears to be significantly less appealing to women

(photobucket picture, see: license agreement)

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Enthusiastic Brights" at the Brights Movement website
  2. ↑ "Enthusiastic Brights" at the Brights Movement website
  3. ↑ Hemant Menta listing - Enthusiastic Brights at Brights Movement website
  4. ↑ Science and the Search for Meaning: excerpts from the Introduction to Science Friction by Michael Shermer
  5. ↑ Not Too “Bright", Skeptical Enquirer, Chris Mooney, October 15, 2003
  6. ↑ Not Too “Bright", Skeptical Enquirer, Chris Mooney, October 15, 2003
  7. ↑ Atheism's future not bright at all by Shockofgod
  8. ↑ The (un)Friendly Atheist, Crommunist blog at Freethought Blogs
  9. ↑ Those Atheists You Hate Aren’t Really All That Bad by Hemant Mehta