As per Merv’s suggestion here is his response to my [post] (Dealing with antitheist and “new atheist” rhetoric - #10 by Terry_Sampson)
In a different thread.
This would be an excellent insight to add over on the apologetics thread too (not that we need to move it or anything). But I think it shows that apologetics is not something exclusive to Christiainity or even necessarily to organized religion (though it may have been the Christian west that turned it into an art-form and spawned so much antithetical reaction.)
Would it be safe to say that nearly anyone, so long as they feel they’ve got something of value in their life, will be an apologist for that thing ? If I’ve got something good going on in my life, I want to share it. And I suspect that’s a reflection of wider human nature regarding anything from a great book to an enjoyable movie watched, or of course, a fulfilling religious experience. Some things are more ephemeral (like a movie) and probably won’t much be remembered a decade or two hence, but other more substantial things that stick with us (and for the better) will likely be the sorts of things we most want to pass along to others. Christians just have a head start on formalizing all this and (for both better and worse) turning it into an artform with a specific name: “Apologetics”. But we are by no means the only ones who so often approach the world and others around us “agenda first”. Atheists like Dawkins would seem to be every bit the apologists that believers are (and again - both for better and worse, as you remind us, Mark).