Unsurprisingly, the vast contingent of radical socialists, anarchists, and religious scholars from a diversity of backgrounds have a lot of trouble interacting with anti-theists in any serious capacity, as it usually becomes clear that these folks don’t actually care about nuanced engagement with historical record, religious studies, or anthropology. Most often, anti-theism is a misplaced vitriolic reaction to the violence committed by the Church, its abusive Clergy, and its vigilante crusaders that places the blame not on the institutions and individuals involved, but the God they claim to understand.
To be blunt: anti-theists take reactionary zealots at their word when they claim to have read the Bible accurately and insist they’re doing God’s work. This is an abjectly awful way to engage critically with religious texts from any perspective. It affirms the divine status of holy texts, rather than regarding them simply as texts; it grants legitimacy to traditionalists who claim to know the will of God; it implies that Christian nationalism is as good for Christians as it claims to be (a claim falsified by the most cursory glance at the history of religious governance); and it ignores the actual reason why things like traditionalism, biblical literalism, and dogmatism are bad. Secular reactionaries push the exact same bullshit and appeal to the exact same audience as Televangelists and alt-lite youth pastors because, fun fact, all of them are fucking liars.
