Governor Bobby Jindal voiced what is a perfectly patriotic position for many, that he hoped the policies and Ponzi schemes being peddled by Barack Obama fail. Predictably, Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs has a case of the vapors at the GOP’s “alienating and losing the support of the vast middle” etc.

At some point during this post, Bobby Jindal was referred to as “Creationist Bobby Jindal” and you could almost hear the disdain dripping from their inner voices as Charles Johnson’s cult of anti-Religionists curled their lips disgustedly at the idea of a person having beliefs they disagree with.

That Bobby Jindal’s opinion of how reality is structured is irrelevant to the point of the post is obvious to all but the most bigoted “lizards” for whom religiosity is akin to incest or necrophilia in both its unseemliness and undesirability in modern society. That being assured that there is an invisible hand at work in the creation of the uncountable multitudes of stars and planets in our universe has no bearing on the question presented by LGF, whether saying you want Obama to fail is a good political strategy. So why is it in there?

Because for the Charles Johnsons of the world simple belief, devotion, or faith in an idea or doctrine is enough to dismiss you as a person, enough in fact to deny your humanity at all. Atheism is not, as many will tell you, the absence of religion. Atheism is itself a quasi-religion that has a set dogma, a theology and most important its own demonology. For the Atheist the believer, of any faith, is like a character from the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. We who believe are all similar beings that need be controlled and feared by rational people lest we spread our corruption throughout their pristine and random creation. The Atheist does not simply disbelieve in some form of divinity in the world, he or she seeks the total annihilation of religion and the religious.

I’ve often thought his anti-religious bigotry was at the root of his most hostile attacks on Pamela Geller from Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer form Jihad Watch. Despite the fact that clearly Pamela Geller isn’t a neo-Nazi Charles Johnson branded her one based on the same biased and unreliable, and atheist, source he used to brand English blogger Lionheart a neo-Nazi. Lionheart is a born again Christian, Robert Spencer is Catholic I believe and Pamela is Jewish. It is clear to any observer that Charles Johnson and his Internet cult wanted to believe the worst of these people, and I would put forward it is because they are religious he was pathologically driven to attempt to destroy their reputations.

This lashing out at the faithful is at the core of Atheism, which is so bereft of legitimate criticism of religion in general that these days they spend most of their time ripping off LaVeyian Satanism. Richard Dawkins’ much lauded book The God Delusion is essentially a plagiarization of Celsus’ Discourse Against the Christians with a smattering of Satan Speaks thrown in to spice up what would otherwise be a book as mind-numbingly dull and childishly nihilistic as atheism itself. Likewise LGF in its anti-theism incarnation has little to offer adherents besides a false sense of intellectual superiority based on mocking the misunderstood beliefs of others.

Creationists are often the targets of their ire even though the average big bang theorist has no more understanding of astrophysics than they do of the metaphysics they mock. Like the devoutly Christian Jindal, the “Lizard” from LGF accepts the creation of the universe ex nihilo and could no more explain to us how the big bang happened and what matter was in existence before the big bang than a Christian can explain where his God lived prior to creating the universe. Both views require a certain amount of faith, but whereas the Christian is consoled by faith in his or her God, the only consolation for the Atheist’s anti-faith is that their existence is essentially meaningless.

Which is both the allure of Atheism for many, and the driving force behind the evangelical fervor atheists have in trying to discredit religious ideas of objective truth and morality. I know many atheists and most happen to be bad people. That’s not to say that they are criminals or child rapists, but they simply aren’t particularly good in the philosophical sense.They are not honest, hard working or charitable. Except that I wouldn’t know if Johnson works particularly hard, I’d say that description fits him and his “Lizard” army.Their dealings with Spencer and Geller certainly prove they are neither honest nor charitable.

Atheists believe in a subjective morality. For example they believe that the reason it’s wrong for a 40-year-old to be sexually active with a child is because it’s illegal and society has ruled that it shouldn’t happen. Some may believe that it can be psychologically damaging for the child, or that it’s exploitative and deviant. But none believe that it is evil. They can’t because they don’t believe that anything can be, objectively, evil.

None of the atheists I know believe that people who rape children are choosing to do evil to satisfy themselves. They explain the abuse of children as a “sickness” which implies that it can be cured and is something that the perpetrator cannot control or truly be responsible for. These same people also happen in dozens of minor venal ways to exploit others. Just as they pass no moral judgment on the most evil amongst us they expect, and will accept, no moral judgment by others on them or how they choose to live. The heart of an atheist is a hopeful one, hopeful that there is no divine power that will weigh them and find them wanting.

I am not a Christian, though having my academic background in Comparative Religion I have a basic understanding of Christian theology. There are legitimate criticisms of general Christian dogma and specific denominations’ creeds that make decent dinner table conversation.The idea that being a Christian makes one less deserving of civility and respect isn’t one of them. It is uncivil at best to mock a man’s faith, but in reality it is the mark of a small minded bigot who has cut him or herself off from the basic search for knowledge all people must pursue.

I believe in a vast and unknowable universe, alive with beings that to us are gods and perhaps even these gods have gods. I believe that the divine can be seen within the natural world and I have experienced it in the warm winds that whisper through trees that danced in time with the coming thunder storm. There is a music that you can hear when you are alone in the woods that I believe is the Call of the gods themselves. But more importantly I believe in good and evil, something I share with most Christians, and I don’t believe in subjective morality. I believe that you will pay for the evil you do and atheists cannot allow themselves to believe this is true.

So they lash out at the religious because we remind them of what they fear the most, the divine and their separation from it. That’s the truth about atheism, it holds no comfort for people, only fear and loathing and a lifetime of trying to convince others that we’re wrong if only to convince one another that they are right. And underneath the pettiness and bile there is the longing for the comfort and faith that they deny themselves.