[ExI] Tolerance

[Lee Corbin]

Stefano writes

> 2009/12/7 JOSHUA JOB <nanite1018 at gmail.com>:
>>> It depends on why they insist. I find the so-called "new atheists" whose
>>> arguments against religion amount to little more than "Religion Sucks!
>>> Nyeah!" to be incredibly tiresome people.  Compare and contrast the
>>> eloquent, rational atheism of Russell and Hitchens, to the
>>> emotionally-charged atheism of Dawkins ("Hur hur hur if you believe in God
>>> you're stupid, so we're going to call atheists 'Brights'!  Get it? Huh? Hur
>>> hur hur.")
>>> Brent Neal, Ph.D.
>> Dawkins arguments aren't at all like what you suggest.
> 
> I am surprised that one may find Hitchens, with his heavy, moralistic
> rhetorics, more "rational" than Dawkins, who if anything makes for a
> much more pleasant reading...

Odd. My reaction is the reverse. I enjoyed Hitchens' book "God is
not great" very much. It was extremely insightful at quite a
number of points. His conclusion, reiterated again and again,
that "religions poisons everything" of course cannot be taken
too literally, but his examples are very impressive.

But I could not even stand listening to Dawkins for more than
a few minutes in a TED talk. There was just something so... so
fanatical and almost dogmatic, that I had to stop. And this
fits the picture of someone who'd coin that ridiculous concept
of "brights", such a stupid and embarrassing fiasco. Alas, it
seems to me that the Jacobin temperament is alive and well even
among us atheists.

So for me :-) it was the reverse! It's Hitchens who makes
for much more pleasant reading (though to be fair I have
not read Dawkins book, mostly for the reasons given above).

I suspect that this is *not* just entirely a matter of taste,
although it could turn out to be just that.

Lee