Ask An Atheist: Why do Atheists Seem so Evangelical?

That “seems” I suspect is due more to visibility. As a group, surveys suggest atheists and agnostics are not particularly prone to proselytizing, thinking people have to make up their own minds on these matters (even concerning their own kids). At the same time, any idea worth believing is one worth defending, and so no one should expect an atheist or agnostic to not be open about why they do not believe in whatever god(s) others are so convinced of, or refrain from honestly pondering how it is believers can fail to “wise up” on it. That process may well appear as “evangelizing” to people for whom genuinely contrary perspectives may not have crossed their scope before (after all, how many people actively bump into religions frameworks radically different from their own, and so have to confront directly how it is they can fail to “wise up” concerning the beliefs they held dear).

Richard Dawkins would be an exceedingly prominent example of this. Has Dawkins been known to go around and knock on people’s doors asking whether they’d be open to him sharing the Good News of atheism with them, the way Christian evangelists do in fact do? Hardly. But he does write books and give lectures and occasionally debate with religious believers on these issues, as he explains why he believes as he does and suggesting others ought to do likewise.

Atheists I know of in the military are another measure: while brands of Christianity in the military presumes those of their faith in positions of authority have a complete right (and even duty) to preach directly to their “flock” whether they want it or not, and get downright grumpy when that “right” has to be reined in as outside their actual rights, those atheists I am aware of tend to have a “to each his own” indifference to what others believe in so long as they do not attempt to impose or coerce others to think likewise, even as they will be more than willing to discuss and defend their beliefs.

So if being open about being an atheist and equally willing to defend that lack of belief in god(s) without shyness constitutes being “evangelical” then I guess that genie is out of the bottle. But I suspect the actual percentage of atheists/agnostics who think the world would be way better off without religion and work actively (by writing, debating, or by personal example) to bring that about by persuasion is about the same as it has always been. It’s just that today’s communications means it isn’t happening below the radar any more.