I’m not what is commonly referred to as an angry atheist. I’m not angry with anyone at all. I don’t actually care what most believers think about me, an atheist, and it shouldn;t bother anyone else either. Why should I be angry about being a non-believer? If anything, for all of us, it should allow us a portion of freedom from something that has always damned those that either didn;t believe, or believed differently.
I can’t exactly refer to myself as a happy atheist, because my atheism doesn’t really come into my state of mind, or my feelings about anything, with that single exception that I’m free from the guilt, the fear that is the indoctrination of being a believer.
I’ve always been a fairly happy person. If not happy, maybe just content of who I am and what I am, I’ve always tried to be a friend, even to those that rejected my overtures simply because I am not a believer. I’ve moved past that in recent years, in that I won’t make the attempt if there’s not someone willing to just talk. That’s all. Just talk,.
I don’t know an atheist I would describe as angry. Of course, people have their own issues to work through and it may come across to some as being angry being an atheist where those issues have nothing to do with being an atheist.
Believers have a different agenda as we all know. How many times do atheists have to tell those sme believers that we cannot prove a negative, and that instead of atheists showing that god doesn’t exist, it’s up to the ones that accept the existence of a god to show we atheists, that we’re wrong. I don’t know of a single atheist that would deny definitive proof if it were presented. Somehow, our denial makes us angry.
If I wanted to call anyone angry, it would be believers because they are unable to support that belief with any evidence of anything. I don’t really see any evidence of angry atheists as we’re portrayed not only by believers, but in the media as well.
It annoys me to no end to be referred to as an angry atheist especially from those that refuse to engage me on any level. Have you ever noticed? No one asks athsits why they are, it’s always that we are angry at god, or some other nonsense. Enggaging an atheist, honestly, may change a mind or two.
I’m not optimistic of that happening, but it would be a start.
Conservative Skeptic 
Actually, it has been my online experience that many atheist forums contain very angry atheists, some rather unhinged, in my opinion.
New found atheism, includes a lot of anger from those, who feel they have spent their youth in a delusion or have lost precious time worrying about going to hell for minor infractions. For some this time has been all encompassing in prayer and guilt and loss of unconditional love from parents because they have not tried hard enough, did not pray enough, did not study scripture enough to be what they were supposed to be; good Christians.
Mellowed atheists tend not to get angry and, of course, deny that they were ever angry at God, and I know that is what you mean by “angry atheists.” I don’t hate God, am not angry at God, don’t give a hoot about God.
Even as I left, I was angry only at the hypocrisy of my fellow Christians, I guess it was anger at times. Who the hell were they to be so damned self-righteous when I knew they were lying sinners? LOL
Oh well…
I still get angry at the tremendous waste of time and effort and resources spent on appeasing God or proving one’s worth or doing spiritual warfare against demons and praying for others, weather changes, job protection, football game outcomes and protection from all ills.
And the never feeling good enough for God… I am angry that good people feel that way about themselves. Always demeaning human beings, including themselves. That is no way to live.
Yes, there are angry atheists and why shouldn’t there be. We have every right to be angry about how we get treated at times and ignored as normal human beings. We have every right to be angry with teachers and classmates, who tell our kids they are going to hell or question how they can love anyone, since it is revealed through scripture that atheists have no love in their hearts.
Most of us just don’t live with anger all the time and never pay much attention to such nonsense, because we don’t need to broadcast our lack of deity belief to our communities, but it is still there and it is still a part of our past that helped to make us atheists.
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Angry atheist? Of course not. Why would I be angry, I’m not the one who has been scammed. Believers are the ones who should be pissed off. It was their ancestors that got the delusion of being special, and it just got passed on down the line. If they weren’t so in everyone’s face about all of their blessings, we might have some sympathy. GROG
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I am not angry either, but we hardly represent all atheists, especially the ones who feel that they were scammed and struggled to get away from belief. Nor are we the ones who have to witness those they love, who are still caught in the belief-web. That must be most frustrating and worthy of anger at the whole mess of lies and fantasy.
As long as one believes and keeps in good standing, only death will reveal to them that there is nothing and yet, they won’t know it to be angry about the scam.
Since most believers don’t even “know” any atheists, they take the word of their leaders and scripture, assuming that something terrible must have happened to atheists to make them deny God and hate religion and God, so they must be angry. After all, any sane human being wouldn’t be angry with their loving Father or with Christ, who died for their sins…right?
Then there are those atheists who behave in a despicable manner and seem angry all the time at good Christians and their good works and their good lives. You know the ones, American Atheists, FFRF, the ACLU, etc. Of course, Christians think atheists are angry and always fighting against the “truth of God.”
I don’t understand why this is hard to grasp. Nor do I understand why atheists shouldn’t be angry at some of this stuff some of the time.
And, in fact, I am angry with how people I love were treated by their religious leaders and families and church communities. I am angry with how people I don’t even know have been treated and lied to and made to feel unworthy and ashamed.
Doesn’t it make you angry how homosexuals have been treated by their loving Christian families, who disowned them or whisked them away to be reprogrammed?
Doesn’t it make you angry when a devout father refuses to provide medical care and instead hosts prayer groups over a desperately ill child?
Doesn’t it make you angry when Sharia Law is tolerated because it is of a deity belief and somehow sacrosanct?
Neither you, nor I, nor Jim go around muttering to ourselves about how angry we are with religion and the deluded believers, but there are times when we are angry and it is because we are atheists.
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What concerns and disappoints me is that the sane world is being told that they are the crazies because they can’t See God. I’m miffed that for so many generations this delusion has survived and prospered. Oh, how much people must want to believe that they are special. The messianic nutcases hope to bring on the end ASAP. GROG
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Well, I must agree there. Even among intellectuals, it is assumed that “normal” people believe in God. They accept that deity belief is the default for humankind, while I reason that non-belief is the default. We are born atheists and only through indoctrination from the cradle on become believers. Unless one is fortunate to be born in an atheist family and then the default seems perfectly natural.
Heavy sigh…
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I don’t recall reading anything, even from a person most of us would call an angry one, where an atheist wished believers were dead and burning in Hell (or whatever equivalent we might concoct). I have read much from angry believers wanting dead atheists. I recall a religion being used to justify mass murder, even of people from the same religion, but different sect. Children. Innocents. Collateral damage. People may be angry, but it is not due to our atheism. As you suggested, the opposite may be true in that we are happily free to think and conclude without reference to dogma or scripture or any form of god.
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This book, by Greta Christina says a lot, for some. I thought it was actually a terrible piece of writing and I couldn’t even finish the book:
“Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless”
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Thanks. I will give it read. I have read Greta before. Interesting first para: apparently visible, vocal, activist, organized, and unapologetic equate to ‘angry.’ And I dislike calling it a movement, although there are related movements, such as Freedom From Religion.
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The book was the result of a talk she used to give at atheist/skeptic events. Ithink this is the one I originally viewed that when I saw a book about it, made me want to read:
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So, she is writing about atheist groups, in particular activist groups, and assuming all atheists are like that? We do the same when assuming that all Christians are …well, whatever we paint them with using the same brush.
We all make the group we dislike into “the other” because then it is easier to relegate them to a lesser existence.
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She is in fact assuming all atheists agree with her. And yes, it’s very much posed for left wingers.
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I do find even those I am close to can say thing to inspire my best face palm. There is the War on Christmas, atheists hate god (or eat babies or have no moral compass), or atheism is a religion, or talk through the screen door (see Godless in Dixie for that one). We are ‘the other.’
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Tell me you adore Eddie Izzard’s stand-up… “babies on spikes”
I don’t even know or care what his political stance is, but I love his hilarious disrespect for all things religious.
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I’m familiar with the name, but not any of his work.
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Maybe she is mistaking atheists for Leftists, who are always angry it seems. While most of them are not atheists, they don’t often seem to be very particular in their religious beliefs either.
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