[ExI] Tolerance

[Emlyn]

2009/12/8 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> 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...
>
> --
> Stefano Vaj

I agree; Richard Dawkins is nothing if not reasonable. Hitchens is
eloquent, but he uses every trick in the rhetorical book to attack his
opponents, he's certainly not a rational purist, *and* I sometimes get
the impression that he opposes religion because he doesn't like the
human religious hierarchies and power structures, rather than because
he thinks it is fundamentally incorrect. Thinking about the "four
horsemen" interview, with Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett,
Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris, it seemed to me like a sesame street
one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other-ones moment; he comes from a
far more emotive position than the other three.

-- 
Emlyn

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