Hi again, Alex and Amos, and thank you both for the kind words.

Alex, I have a great deal of respect for you as well, again based on our interaction here at Mudcat (and on taking a gander at your website!). I agree; let's agree to disagree – nicely! No offense taken, since I'm absolutely sure none was meant. I didn't think you were pointing a finger at me specifically, but since I'm one of the "people who don't believe in God," I wanted to be sure to clarify my own motives for mentioning and discussing that position on this Forum. I enjoy the occasional friendly debate, but one thing I do not EVER want to do is to be evangelistic (militantly, crusadingly zealous) about my non-belief – I don't want to stir people's emotions in order to force them to the thoughtless decision to abandon their faith – and if I ever come across that way I hope some kind person will send me a PM advising me, in the nicest possible way, to knock it off!

Now, then, to speculate about what the very loudly tirading non-believers stand to gain: (souls for anti-Christ? ...just kidding!) Well, there's ample evidence that some twisted people do derive sadistic pleasure from "pour[ing] cold water on others' joy," but those people seem to come from every faith and non-faith. More prevalent, I suspect, is the need to push back strongly against the onslaught of the evangelical fundamentalist – or fundamentalist-pretender, as our John Hardly put it – because of concern that basic freedoms of speech and assembly might be abridged (talk about "requisite motivation"!). The group that calls itself "The Moral Majority" certainly does not speak for everyone who lives by a set of morals (whether connected with organized religion or not), so some of those other moral people very likely feel the need to speak for themselves... and the need to speak for people who cannot do so out of fear of physical attack, intimidation or religious discrimination.

In the US, at least, any group that wants its concerns addressed must not only be vocal but also present a unified front in order to impress politicians with the importance of satisfying its needs for purposes of re-election. Therefore, the more people rallying to its cause, the better. So the vociferousness that seems like a zeal to convert may actually be a call to gather together others of like mind for future political action.

On the other hand, it could simply be that some "noisy" atheists feel strongly about their position. There are all sorts of "negative assertions" about which people debate hotly with those who hold the opposing view (heck, even people of faith have divided their churches over differences in the articles of that faith, and people of different faiths have gone to war with one another and killed in the name of each faith's negative assertion that the other faith is invalid). What do people in the midst of a heated argument ever stand to gain? Their opponents' capitulation at best, or a release of pent-up emotions at least.

This is neither to justify nor to condemn any "anti-God tirade"; I'm just thinking of possible answers to Alex's question.

Sharon