The Rationalist Association’s magazine New Humanist has a new editor, Daniel Trilling. When he introduced himself in August, making it clear that he didn’t share an anti-religious, hardline atheist point of view, he attracted (predictably) some strong criticism from those who did. In the winter edition of the magazine he’s written,

As anyone whos ventured online knows, to many people atheist has become a badge of identity, and an aggressive, exclusionary one at that. In a country like Britain, where being open about a lack of religious belief puts you in no physical danger, and does not hold back your career, your love life or your liberty, it doesnt require much investment. For some, its become an easy way to feel smugly superior to the ignorant masses. Worse still, for others, its been co-opted into a paranoid right-wing project that would have us believe that the West is locked in a Clash of Civilisations with the Muslim world.