Wow, this chick really hates atheists

Fascinating piece in the LA Times by Charlotte Allen (h/t Hotair), who's had it up to here [picture me holding my hand under my chin] with these goddamn atheists - sorry, couldn't resist. There's plenty not to like about all sorts of atheists, but Allen certainly picks some strange fights. I rarely write about this online, but yes, I am an atheist, 'out of the closet' for about three years, 'in the closet' since I was 22, agnostic since I was 17, and before that, I was a Christian who'd wanted to become an evangelist or a missionary. 

Seriously.

My fear, honestly, was that my family would disown me - and I've still never explicitly told my mom, though I suspect she knows. When I finally did come out of the metaphysical closet, I promised to myself that I'd not be one of these atheist know it alls who go about bashing religious people and their beliefs over the head with it, and I don't. I'm just as likely to agree with a religious point of view as not (see my Pro Life stance, support of Israel, etc).  Being a Conservative Atheist is the most natural thing in the world to me, but most people on both sides claim it's either hypocritical or self-hating. I have plenty of self-hate,  but not about my view of a rational world. I learned all the self-hate I needed while sitting in church. 

Anyway, the point is that Allen makes some of the silliest points about why she hates atheists imaginable. The atheists she's talking about are

a) either hated by most atheists (those ones always going to court over some right of their that was violated

b) or misrepresented by Allen. 

Consider the point she makes the excerpt below. I have read all the atheist books she references, have watched debates involving every one of these men (many of them debating renowned religious scholars about a/theism) and she represents them in the worst possible light, if not actually misconstruing what they say. The point Dawkins is making that Allen fudges is not that is evil, it's that if the Judeo-Christian God - especially the one of The Old Testament - was real, he was one mean, cruel entity. 

We don't claim that God is evil or that God is dead, we claim that God does not exist. If you want to nail an atheist to the wall, see what kind of weird superstitious beliefs they have. Bill Maher - who's film 'Religulous' everyone tells me I must see - has some pretty strange beliefs of his own. He's not an atheist, he's just anti-religion. The fact that he calls himself an atheist to sound cool, that's the kind of atheist I hate. Anyway, from Allen's piece:

And then there's the question of why atheists are so intent on trying to prove that God not only doesn't exist but is evil to boot. Dawkins, writing in "The God Delusion," accuses the deity of being a "petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak" as well as a "misogynistic, homophobic, racist ... bully." If there is no God -- and you'd be way beyond stupid to think differently -- why does it matter whether he's good or evil?