'Militant' atheists are not killing people

One of the bug-bears of Biased BBC and their ilk is the BBC's refusal to use the word 'terrorist' in conjunction with groups like Hamas. The BBC prefers the term 'militant' amongst other things.

On the whole I subscribe to the view that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, the use of the term 'terrorist' is judgmental, and that militant does a job of conveying that generally the perpetrators of 'terrorist' acts represent a small hard-core subset of the people who support their cause.

However, it does sometimes make the BBC look very silly indeed, as it did yesterday in an article about the Christmas message from the Bishop of Wales. The BBC News report initially stated that:

"Their remarks follow the rise of militant atheists such as Oxford University scientist Richard Dawkins, whose book The God Delusion, has been a bestseller."

Let us be clear here. According to the BBC, it is 'militant' Islamists who bomb, maim and behead in the name of their cause. It is 'militant' members of the Basque and Irish Republican community who keep their struggles against what they see as occupation going with bombs, weapons, and extortion rackets they can't bear to give up.

And 'militant' atheists like Richard Dawkins?

Well, mostly they seem to write books, give lectures and appear on TV chat shows, which makes the use of the same epithet for the groups idiotic. Subsequent revisions of the story have seen Dawkins downgraded from being a terrorist-style 'militant' to a Peter Tatchell style 'outspoken'.

As for the substance of the story itself, Dr Barry Morgan's comments about a rise of fundamentalist atheism, I've got a suggestion for him. When he can show me the evidence of atheists torturing people or burning them at the stake for their religious views, expelling people from the country on the basis of their faith, and forcing conversion to atheism, then I'll accept criticism of atheists from the Church.