In the episode where Junior said he didnt believe in God, he said he didn't want to be called an Atheist because he didn't want to be compared to Brian.....are there actually atheists who don't like to be called that because they see it as a pretensious label?
Not an atheist myself, but quite a few well known atheists either prefer to be called atheist agnostics, agnostic, non-theist or humanist.
But humanist can be quite a bit misleading, since one can be theist as well as humanist.
Some atheists can be jerks, but then so can some Christians. The problem is that we see far too many jerk Christians/ believers on TV compared to jerk atheists. They just don't seem to get the same airtime. The nice folks, the people who have their beliefs, and realise they are THEIR beliefs, don't force them on anyone else. But then again, nobody who kept their opinions to themselves ever made money, sadly.
Yeah it is a somewhat common thing. My dad was what would technically be defined as an Atheist, but he never liked being called one or referring to himself as such. *shrug* I'm an Atheist as well and it doesn't bother me any.