"He who is not with me is against me."  That's a quote attributed to Jesus, a quote that contradicts another statement attributed to Jesus: "He that is not against us is with us."

It's possible that Jesus - if such a person ever existed - made both statements, though he'd be talking about of both sides of his mouth, unless he was doing some kind of Zen thing, where you blow people's minds through contradiction.  It's possible he said one of those statements.  It's possible he said neither.  (I find the Bible an irresistible crime scene, completed with bone fragments and half-chewed Skittles.)

For many of the religious, especially the kind whose Jesus would say something like, "He who is not with me is against me," atheism is a monolith.  In fact, it's part of a greater monolith of all those folks going to Hell (to be burned for eternity by a loving-though-bipolar God).  To such people, there's no point to distinctions between atheists, agnostics, skeptics, naturalists, freethinkers, igtheists, apatheists, "backsliders," "apostates" or Jews.  We're all just high-octane sinners to be fed into Yahweh's Porsche.

Vroom, vroom.

But atheism is a bit more varied and diverse.  Some would say it's more complex, others "simpler."  Some would say that "atheism" doesn't exist, except in the lack of belief in gods.  Everything else is 32 flavors of context, a bit like gospel writers adding their own settings to aphorisms attributed to "the Master."  Not surprisingly, anybody who tries to organize atheists quickly discovers that it's easier to herd cats.  The freedom to question and reject is a freedom that keeps going and going and going - like the Energizer Bunny.

Once you start to realize that the "truths" you've been taught - or have had shoved down your throat - are just human inventions, where you go from there is your own business.

I know people who are atheists who are still active in religion, for the same reason people attend the opera or go to the movies.  To them, religion is a tradition, a pageant.  True believers may swallow it whole - hook, line and sinker - but many people eventually realize they are engaging something they can't completely believe in without performing a self-lobotomy.  Many people who are "faithful" to some faith are, in fact, entertaining a mixture of faith and doubt.  One might, like Thomas Jefferson, believe in Christianity without literally believing in Christ.  Jefferson believed that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but rejected all the additional fanfare, which he dismissed as superstitious nonsense.

There are atheists who don't consider themselves Christians or Jews or Muslims or anything, but who can attend a worship service or religious activity, seeing in it a human actiivity that is based in religion but one that still has value in itself.  Such atheists have little trouble enjoying the seasons and the holidays.  They could take a trip down a candy-cane lane, during the Christmas season, and enjoy the lights and decorations, without feeling any internal conflict.

At the extreme end of the spectrum are people who approach atheism as if it were a religion, a religion every bit as demanding as an Orthodox Jew, a Christian Fundamentalist or a Muslim Fundamentalist.  All things religious are an evil in need of the Orkin Man.  A sneeze is an opportunity to confront the random blesser.  Among these are the trashers, the atheists who pick fights for sport, like the folks whose recent campaign featured a bad quote, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, where he supposedly said, "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature.  Ihtml_removedt is founded on fables and mythology."

Set aside the fact that Jefferson never made this statement, that it's one of those bogus quotes attributed to "the master" by fellow travelers who couldn't distinguish a deist from an atheist.  Set aside the irony of quoting any authority at all, in support of a view that rejects other appeals to authority.  What bugs me, what makes me realize again that there are 32 flavors of atheism, is the need - on the part of some - to go Pyrrhic and walk the tables, kicking plates and mashing entrés as they go.  Most atheists I've known were able to make the case, when the subject came up, without hesitation or equivocation, but also without any need to pick a fight with anyone who hadn't pushed them first.  

Don't get me wrong.  Atheists have the same Free Speech rights as anyone.  There's nothing inherently wrong about promoting one's stance, whatever that may be.  But while it can be fun to fight fire with fire, I don't see any particular reason to knock down somebody else's sandcastle.  I was never that kid who went around telling little kids that "Santa is dead."  Like most people, I figured it out on my own, which is an interesting introduction to grown-up thinking, but people who run around popping other people's balloons are motivated by something other than truth.

This sort of activity only reinforces the myth of atheists as angry militants who have a need to scrub society of all religious influences.  I recently noticed that one of my heroes, Christopher Hitchens, was going after Mitt Romney's Mormonism but instead of saying anything thoughtful, he reduced himself to nasty slurs. The day may come when we discover that behind Hitch's wonderful eloquence, there is a militant idiocy on par with the ramblings of Sarah Palin.  In "God is Not Great," for example, Hitch devotes a chapter to The Mormons, but starts it off with idiotics references to the Book of Mormon prophet "Lephi."  There is no "Lephi" in the book.  Had Hitch done his homework, he'd have had plenty to say about the Mormons, but his sloppiness for detail showed him to be more of a novice about the subject than a man who should be writing books on it, even if we're just talking about a chapter in what is otherwise a wonderfully entertaining book of bluster.

Maybe it was just Hitch being Hitch.  Much more than Dawkins, and far more than Harris, Hitch is the Steve Jobs of atheism, a larger-than-life character whose "bring it on" balsiness is unparaleled in our time.  Just watching him mop the floor with Rabbi Schmuley was enough to make Hitch one of my alltime favorite cranks.  When Hitch got done with him, Rabbi Schmuley didn't know whether to burp, fart or die.  But you see, Schmuley deserved it.  Schmuley is a self-important, narcissistic, pedantic, media whore.  Schmuley is the Jewish version of a Christian televangelist.  He is to rabbis what Sarah Palin is to motherhood, as Little Miss Mama Grizzly raises her Down Syndrome child in Alaska by galavanting around the country in a Winnebago, drumming up support for a presidential campaign that would never be.  After all, what better way is there to let your kids know you care than to spend your every waking moment looking for ways to get your face on TV.  I'm sure Schmuley's congregation is well-served by the rabbi's ambition to be the Roger Ebert of Judaism.

Maybe that's why squishing him was about as difficult as stepping on a bug.  Had Schmuley not come out braying like a whiny ass, it's possible that Hitch's sometimes heavy-handed nastiness would have lost the crowd.  Instead, it was the perfect match-up, with a nasty reply to Schmuley's patronizing nonsense.

In my opinion, care must be taken to avoid adopting some of the same hateful traits as the hateful folk who practice them in the name of God.  Atheism is not a religion.  It need not adopt the manners of the God squad.  When it does, or when certain folks who call themselves atheists act in such a way, this is all a throwback to something that has nothing to do with the God Question.

On the other hand, I'm not suggesting that atheists should have to be quiet, or closeted, in their disagreement.  There are legitimate reasons to be angry, and once someone has come to the realization that great lies were told, great manipulations were made, and that religion's legacy includes massacres, racism, sexism, book burnings and control over the individual - sucking the very marrow out of life - no wonder some of the atheistic replies are nothing short of shrill.  Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.  Every person has a right to react in their own way to what has not been a good ride for everyone.  When gentle Jesus meek and mild was hanging from his cross, "suffering the sins of the world," did he also shed a tear for the little boys circumcised in one religion and raped by priests in another?  Did he bleed for the daughters circumcized, veiled or killed when raped, to save the family's honor?  Did he let out a yelp or two for the mothers who would be forced to stay married to the father's who beat them on a regular basis, because "divorce is a sin"?  Did feel any discomfort at all over the mothers who were mothers because sex was a wife's duty and birth control was murder?

While I still think it's stupid to pick fights over everything, and with everyone, there is an equal danger in being too accommodating.  Maybe that's one reason for the different approaches to atheism.  I still think there's plenty of room for "the atheist next door," the atheist who doesn't the stereotype of the militant bombthrower.  If there are also atheists warriors, perhaps it's because religion is full of bozos who would run a pogrom on all atheists, if they thought they could get away with it.