I am an atheist. My parents were agnostic Jews who had the grace and decency to allow me and my brothers and sister to make up our own minds about religion. They never asked us to go to temple, and we didn't go. Three of us are atheists, and my late brother was a loopy New Ager. If someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I will say that I am in the sense that my parents were, but that I do not believe in "god" or practice Judaism in any way. I am not even familiar with most of the rituals and practices, and have no interest in them at all except as a matter of intellectual curiosity.

Very few religious people take their "holy" scriptures as being completely mythological. How many Jews consider as mythology the "fact" that they are chosen people or consider Abraham or Moses as fictional characters? And if, as I do, someone considers the torah to be almost totally fictional, is it now sensible to practice Judaism, because now all we're doing is centering our lives on valuable myths? I don't think so. I don't need myths to give meaning to my life. If a myth says that life is fleeting or that love can be mysterious, the myth tells me nothing that I don't already know, so why bother with it, unless you wish to amuse yourself with stories? To say that myths express truth, perhaps in a way that nothing else can, is basically a sales pitch by religious people to persuade doubters to stay in the faith. Plus, more than a few myths are false. How about the one that says a savior is on his way to save us?

Being a member of a community is nice, but to follow ridiculous rituals and to mouth meaningless phrases in order to belong is far too high a price for me to pay.

I don't know if you could call me an angry atheist, but I certainly am disappointed that so many of my fellow human beings are so deluded and blinkered by religious belief and the feeling of a need for religious participation. I firmly believe that Dawkins and Hitchens are right in what they say, and if they're angry, I can clearly see why.