Yes, I have little patience for proselytizing atheists, though I am an atheist. But I usually hold my tongue.

I don’t insist or expect that people share my perspective, understanding that their experiences are different from my own.

I do recognize however, that many loud atheists aren’t really so much insisting that people share their beliefs as they are expressing great pain.

I write about religion a lot, not to be writing about religion, but to be shining a light on its too-prevalent role in hurting marginalized humans like LGBTQ people.

Much of the feedback I get (on other platforms, not so much on Medium) comes from people in great pain.

They rale against religious belief itself and praise atheism, because I think that’s the best way they know to howl their pain into the universe.

So while I try not to feed the atheist-evangelist furvor, I don’t tackle it head on either. Sometimes humans have to hold ideas they experience as toxic at a great distance.

Recognizing the pain when I see it, I try to be gentle.