And you wonder “why agnostics so often regard theists with puzzled bemusement while viewing their godless cousins, with whom they superficially appear to have far more in common, with a mix of embarrassment and unadulterated horror”:
I hope the atheists have gotten what they wanted from me. That’s what I’m here for, to use “offensive” quotes during emotional times and to be instructed with great gusto and attention about what a bigoted jackass I am so that I’ll never use such quotes again and all the world will learn what happens to you when you make that mistake. It’s really quite marvelous and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to join their organization RIGHT NOW, if they’ll have me.
They just seem like such kind and considerate people, out there teaching the world about tolerance and overcoming bigotry, spreading their word wherever they think it’s necessary for the furtherance of enlightenment and elimination of negative stereotypes about atheists, even if it means hijacking a thread on a personal blog about someone in a coma. Because TRUTH is all that matters, people.
The empirical evidence is overwhelming. An atheist is an individual who asserts there is no God because he is a socially autistic asshole. Hypothesis, experiment, observation… it’s all there and it’s eminently repeatable. It is science.
UPDATE – Miss Lucas finds the experience to be instructive:
It’s funny how differently this played out than it did when I used to bait Christians into defending their faith. I said some pretty flippant and borderline-offensive things about Christianity and the Bible, and actually ASKED Christians to fight me on it.