Disappointing WSJ Piece

This is one of the most backhanded and condescending articles I have ever read. It's not the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, or Boston Herald. It's the Wall Street Journal editorial page! The main thrust of the article is an attack on militant atheists, but who can't do that? Notice how they "praise" Christianity by saying it trains people to be nice! How badly can one miss the message? Has moralism in American Evangelicalism become so prevalent that everyone has forgotten the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? How about atonement, imputation, and reconciliation to an offended Creator? This description of Christianity just misses badly:

Atheist Jerk Watch

Some readers took offense at our item Friday in which we accused atheists of acting "like jerks all the time." We were engaging in a little hyperbole, but we think we're entitled. As we have written, we are not a religious believer. What's more, we used to be a militant atheist, from roughly age 5 through 17, when we realized that militant atheism is silly and that being a militant atheist is tantamount to, well, being a jerk.

From WOAI in San Antonio, here's the latest example of atheist jerkiness:
A group of atheists at UTSA [the University of Texas at San Antonio] was asking students to exchange bibles for porn magazines Wednesday, and that has made some religious leaders angry. . . .

"We consider The Bible to be a very negative force in the history of the world," student Ryan Walker said. He is part of a student group calling itself the "Atheist Agenda."
Club members were on campus asking students to exchange religious materials for pornographic magazines like Black Label and Playboy.

Blogger Cory Doctorow has a photo of the "smut for smut" table.

Now, it's true that religious people can be jerks too. As David Gelernter writes, "when a deadly earnest young Christian approaches, displays an infuriating though subliminal holier-than-thouness, and tries to convert me--it happens rarely, but occasionally--I metamorphose for an instant into a raging leftist." But one can at least understand the overeager Christian: He thinks he's trying to save your soul. The militant atheist wants to make sure you know you don't have a soul.

Besides, organized religion does a lot more than try to convert people; it also engages in various humanitarian good works ( Hey, we're a useful lot! - DOB). To the extent that there is such a thing as organized atheism, it seems to be about nothing other than getting in people's faces.