"Here in the UK at any rate, religion is no longer thrust upon you"

This is unquestionably not true of the U.S.

"We have a world economic meltdown and all you do is waffle on with all this crap."

We also have a religious war brewing in Syria which brings this issue into focus.
A world economic meltdown is a result in part of attempting to use taxpayer dollars to fund religious wars.


"Militant atheism has become a religion" take it up with Salon.com Internet technology department. "

This was used as a pretext to go after certain people on Mudcat by stirring up trouble insisting that they were wrong. It had to be answered. This was by no means an attempt at a discussion whereby reasonable conclusions could be reached but a diatribe to accuse atheists as being narrow-minded and pig-headed.
And it was done by someone who is a religionist. When a war of words about this issue is started, then only a talking through of the issue can cool it down.

"I made the observation that there were people like that on the Mudcat"

Incorrect attributions were made to people on Mudcat for the purpose of advancing a specious idea which needed discussion. Atheism is not a militant religion and those who made this statement have only themselves to blame
when they attack non-believers and elicit rebuttals.

It's no good to hide behind an article or quote from someone when this
accusation, and it is an accusation, that non-believers are some kind of fundamentalists. It's a thinly disguised attack and should be treated as such.

It's the problem religionists have all the time. They think they are being
objective but the motivation underlying the attack is always there, to discredit
atheism by making it a fundamentalist religion. That doesn't work.