What Should Atheists Be Like?

[harvey1]

Let's assume that someone genuinely has a problem conceiving of God to exist, and they in all honesty cannot accept such a view without feeling that they are sacrificing a rational depiction of the world. (That is, they aren't in any kind of deep psychological battle with God.)

Then, in that case, what would the proper reaction be for how they deal with religious issues and religious people? For example, let me take an improper reaction. It is well-documented that a few scientists spent years trying to promote an oscillating universe despite the physical problems with this. In effect, certain atheists (and agnostics) were endorsing a bad model for no apparent reason other than to give the impression that this was a very viable model to theism without mentioning the problems with this model. I would take this as a bad reaction toward religion by atheists. It hints at pettiness on the part of the non-believer to sway people away from a belief they do not share even though the approach they propose is conceptually problematic at best.

Supposing that theists are not always pleased with how some atheists approach religion in public, outside of asking them to convert, what should an atheist be like--i.e., speaking in terms of an ideal atheist?

(Btw, atheists can and should respond, but you might phrase your answer in terms of what you think the ideal atheist should be like with respect to how they promote their views without embarrassment to other atheists. For example, astrophysicist Lawrence Krause recently wrote an article where he criticized non-theists for acting too aggressively against religion because of its potential negative impact on science--referring to Dawkins. That would be an example of Krause voicing his opinion of the ideal atheist in terms of their approach to religious issues.)

[QED]

Pardon me for examining the evidence which is accessable to us and basing conclusion on that rather than offering theories about multiple universes or alternate dimensions and other wonderful, yet entirely untestable things.

You're excused No, seriously! I form my own conclusions in exactly the same way. All the irony and pathos in our bubble world is freely accessible and so leads me to conclude that one of the many theories I've mentioned is more likely to be the explanation for our existence. As it happens, at least one of the "many universe" theories is testable according to cosmologist Lee Smolin. I can supply details if you're interested.

Please, do share.

Seeing as this has gone well off-topic I would like to direct you to a new one I have started titled Can Multiverse theories be tested?.