David - the real problem for atheists is that, if atheism is true, then there is no particular way that the world ought to be.

Everything has come about unintentionally and there is no goal that the universe is moving toward. Therefore one way of living is just as good or bad or right or wrong as any other. For sure you can have your personal preferences about how things should be but your preferences have no more validity or significance than anyone else’s.

You write about “negative affects”, “going too far”, and “making change in the polity for good”, but given your basic premises, this is all quite delusional on your part. If atheists are going to be genuinely rational and consistent, just do whatever you like, but please spare us from any pretensions of morality.

What I have come to see as most frightening about the upsurge in 'militant Atheism' is the all too common argument put up by so many theists:
“If you don't believe in God, how can you know what's good and what's evil?” (expressed in various ways).
I strongly believe the very worst thing anyone can do is try to take belief away from such people.
Taking the promise of Heaven and the threat of Hell (an external moral compass) away from someone who clearly has no internal moral compass is a recipe for disaster.
Disillusioned ex-religious fanatics are probably even worse than religious fanatics.

Unfortunately many equate morality as connected with religious belief. Morality seems to me a way of working out the best way for people to deal with each other when we live together. There need be no big daddy in the sky telling us that.

Religious Christians found justification in their Christianity both to support and oppose slavery. "The Arrogance of Faith" by F. W. Wood tells how Christians supports slavery by their religious beliefs. On the other hand Wilberforce found his Christian beliefs impelled him to oppose slavery. The morality derived from religion gives conflicting messages which quite often serve economic interests.

In general the Scandinavian societies rank well when it comes to such indices of human well being as a low crime rate, general level of popularity and the lack of corruption. They are also some of the most irreligious countries on earth. Their lack of religiosity might be due to living in a more secure society and feeling less need for the comforts religion offers in an uncertain world.

There simply is no proof of any kind that religion is necessary for morality. Such a belief is like God, a human invention.

David N, is your atheism purely a rejection of an almighty deity, or is it also a worship of Reason? Near the end you write: " ... reason over superstition is the only way forward ...". The "only way"? Sounds like a very religious assertion to me.
Could your atheism not be a broader, more tolerant church? How about welcoming people like me, for whom some of my views and actions are guided by reason, others by custom, others by values formed by deepest feelings, and so forth?
On the matter of education your atheism also sounds a little too authoritarian. You write: " ... teach children about the main religions ... allow them to choose one or none for themselves."
"allow them"? Who are you, or your fellow atheists to be "allowing" or not allowing what people do with their minds? And why are the options in your system limited to "one or none". Why is there not room for someone like me, who is part Buddhist, part Hindu, part humanist / rationalist, and finally, when the Census comes around with its question on religion I answer: "Worship of the Great Wombat" as it the best approximation I can come up with for the great mixture that forms my value and worship system.
Your numbers may be growing, but I wont be included among them unless your stance becomes more tolerant, broad and far less prescriptive.

I'm saddened by all this pompous blathering about atheist "conventions", "gatherings" and "demonstrations".

And this, most regrettably, is a classic from our own Australian atheist arch-bloviator.

Whichever way you cut it, Mr Nicholls, you are not promoting the rational benefits of atheism, and its blissful freedom from the mental tyranny of religious belief. You are mindlessly inciting activism against people who are religious.

"Atheists and freethinkers who have before sat quietly by as all this has been going on are beginning to see that acquiescence to this unreasonable controlling force on their lives will no longer be tolerated."

That is quite clearly a threat.

Threats that bear a dismal similarity to those that are so frequently made by one religion against another.

The Troubles - or at least the most recent version, with its genesis in Belfast in the late 1960s - began with a similar threat, that economic discrimination against Catholics "will no longer be tolerated".

I'm sure also that the current crop of Sunni and Shia activists are similarly motivated by a determination that oppression of their particular cult "will no longer be tolerated".

Quite why there is a bunch of atheists who feel the need to brandish atheism as a weapon against religion, is an utter mystery to me. It plays so easily into the hands of the religionists who are determined to convince themselves that atheism is simply another form of "faith". With Mr Nicholls quite determined, it would appear, to prove them right at every possible opportunity.

So much so, that if I were a fan of conspiracy theory, I'd be tempted to the conclusion that he is running his little group of fellow-travellers with the express purpose to discredit atheism as much as possible.

There can be no other explanation.

All very depressing.

Davidf sums up the self righteousness of man

'There simply is no proof of any kind that religion is necessary for morality. Such a belief is like God, a human invention.'

The denial of the depravity of man is a denial of history. Among the worse atrocities are those committed by 'non' believers. That is why they justify the slaughter of the unborn and try and put some scientific justification for what is clearly abhorrent. Keep dreaming David. I hope you wake up to your own deception.