Discovery Channel should call it "Myth-Atheists."

From an interview with Kari Byron:

KD: Well one thing I’m curious about. Do you believe in God? Are you an atheist?

KB: I am an atheist, but I don’t begrudge anyone for whatever belief systems they hold.

KD: Sure. Did you ever in believe in God? What age were you, and how did you realize that you were an atheist?

KB: I think somewhere around the second grade. I remember specifically having this conversation with my grandmother... I had a lot of little friends, and one of them was a Buddhist. I remember [my grandmother] telling me that that little girl wouldn’t go to Heaven, and I just couldn’t wrap rationalize that this little girl wouldn’t go to Heaven because she believed in something else. It got me really questioning. I just kind of quietly stopped believing, and I didn’t go to church after that with my grandmother any more unless she really asked. I didn’t believe it. I started out religious I guess. Semi-religious. I had holiday Catholics as parents. [Laughs]

KD: As a parent yourself, would you like your daughter to be a non-believer as well? Or will you present both sides and see what she comes up with?

KB: What I’d like [my daughter] to do is to be a critical thinker. I would really like her to keep that child-like critical thinking that she has. I won’t force any belief system that I have on her, but I’m not going to present a case [for her] in something that I don’t personally believe in. If she comes home someday and says she wants to believe... I will love her no matter what she does, [Laughs] but I’m not going to present a religious case to her. I’m not religious; I don’t believe in it, and I sometimes find it a little bit dangerous. But I will love her no matter what she decides.

KD: Dangerous in what way?

KB: I’m a true believer in science -- it’s subject to change and evolve. I have a hard time sometimes with the un-evolving, stern, ‘this is the way it is’ answers that religion gives you.

As more and more Americans, following the example of well-regarded celebrities like Byron, come out about their atheism, it makes it increasingly difficult for religious obsessives to characterize The Atheist as a frightening alien in society. American politicians who still talk about atheists this way sound increasingly foolish.