The Anti-Theist Urge to Blaspheme

Those who have spent time on an anti-theist or rationalist forum have no doubt noticed a strange form of catharsis, characteristic of former believers – the desire to curse, blaspheme and profane symbols held as sacred by others. The emotional impulse that urges them to curse God is not an unconscious aspect of their behaviour; they engage in it deliberately, claiming it’s a sign of high intelligence or that it exalts the only virtue held sacred in