But when you talk about "zombie-Jesus", you are not merely offending those who were offended by the tweet - you are offending the vast majority of Christians' and at risk of supporting the notion that "science" is anti-religion.
Good. First, it is my intention to offend all religious people. And second, regardless of intention, science IS anti-religion. Science is based on logic and rationality, which must reject religion, since religion is based on faith (believing without proof or despite proof of the contrary). People who say that science and religion can go together either don't understand science, religion, or is just trying to make a square peg fit a round hole.
I personally believe that overly aggressive atheists have done more to harm science's standing within the religious community than the crazy fundamentalist preachers that nobody was listening to in many parts of the world many years ago.
You see, we disagree completely here. You seem to think that science keeping a good standing with religion is a good thing. I, on the other hand, think it is a very bad thing, because it can be used to lend validity to religion. Religion is mysticism, lies and control. It is (as proved by Ron Hubbard) a good way to get rich. It is a way to control people and to impose bronze age morals to a society much more evolved morally.
When I was younger, these extreme sects were restricted mostly to certain states of the US, and also parts of West Africa. They have spread alarmingly quickly. Why? Why did people turn away from the mainstream churches and turn fringe beliefs into something approaching a new orthodoxy? The preachers are getting a receptive flock from the get-go because secular media has already told them that science isn't for the religious.
It is because preachers and churches in general started noticing they had to impose a firmer grip, because they were losing the battle against reason. Also, religion is big business. International business. Brazil is a country that is particularly good in exporting evangelical churches based on the "prosperity theology". Give to god and the church, and you will get rich.
I can see where you are coming from, relating the aggressiveness of atheism with people turning to more ortodox and fundamentalist forms or religion. But that is definitively not the case. What we see is not a backlash against atheism, but a backlash against science, because science is disproving religion every day. Up to a couple centuries ago (heck, even 1 century ago) religion still had a firm control over science. What could be researched, what could be published. But the cat is out of the box now, and believing in the supernatural is becoming more and more silly in face of the advances in science, philosophy, history and archeology. When we compare ancient bibles with the modern ones, we can see how much was changed. When we compare the way these old books describe the world with what we can test through science, we see them for the lie they are. We can now show that the gospel of john was written by several different people, and not one. We can show that all gospels were written much better than they were supposed to.
I'm perfectly fine admitting I'm anti-theist, and not only atheist. I am openly against religion, the same way I'm openly against slavery. Exactly the same way.
Religion is evil, and should be extinguished. We should fight against it, the same way we fight against crime, slavery, child abuse and anything else that harm humanity.