Gnu Atheists

The Gnu Atheist symbol by sputnik.

Gnu Atheists is a gnicer, gnaughtier, gnastier, and gnewer way of saying New Atheists.

Coinage of the Meme

The satirical term Gnu Atheists began its life as a pun on the term New Atheists by Hamilton Jacobi in a comment he tried to publish at The Intersection presenting the timeline of the Wally Smith debacle. To preempt the comment being lost by the strict moderation policy in place at The Intersection at the time, Jacobi recopied his timeline using the word gnu in place of new at atheist blogger Ophelia Benson's Butterflies and Wheels:

(2) Critics point out that Chris and Sheril’s most controversial thesis in the book — namely, that the Gnu Atheists’ unapologetic criticism of religion is damaging the public acceptance of science (hereafter referred to as the MK thesis) — is merely an opinion unsupported by evidence.

One day later, Jerry Coyne, on his website Why Evolution Is True (WEIT), promulgated the meme with a LOLcats-esque graphic that depicted a theist gnu and an atheist gnu quarreling about attending church. Usage of gnu over new seems to have taken off from there as the meme spread throughout the online atheist community from Benson's and Coyne's popular websites.

The Gnu Atheist Symbol

Aratina Cage took the gnu meme further on his own blog by using it to satire Richard Dawkins' Out Campaign logo, the Zapfino-stylized scarlet A, which he did by placing the outline of gnu horns over a Pump Demi Bold A that vaguely resembles the rear-end of a gnu, giving it a similar color to the one created by Dawkins. When Coyne learned about that symbol, he declared it the official Gnu Atheist symbol by scientific fiat. The symbol itself is free to be used or modified in any way by anyone for any purpose including commercially with no need to request permission according to Cage. WEIT commenter sputnik has already contributed a sninier version of the symbol (shown on this page) that is available for anyone to use as an alternative to Cage's version.

Controversies

People fond of the coinage have noted that New Atheists is a bit of a misnomer since there is nothing new about atheists or even about confrontational or vocal atheists; in that sense the substitution of gnu for new has a certain utility to it in how it skewers the concept of atheism being new. However, many atheists disapprove of its usage and some even dislike both the term gnu and the term new as descriptors for the word atheist.

Following Coyne's promotion of the symbol, some commenters complained that the symbol was not good enough from a graphics designer's perspective, and others pointed to different symbols for atheism that they preferred, sometimes greatly. Still others felt that the term gnu would infringe on similar trademarks including symbols with an uppercase A with horns and/or the name of fellow atheist Richard Stallman's free operating system. Cage has reviewed US trademarks and not found any other A-symbol using the same font and same color with gnu horns. The use of the homonym gnu in place of new also has nothing to do with the GNU operating system; in fact, the "g" in the GNU operating system is generally enunciated whereas the name of the animal is gnot.