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While I'm certainly no Dawkins or Hitchens apologizer, you have to factor in that when they started their crusades (lol) atheism did not have the level of acceptance or maybe indifference it has now.
Dawkins first book on it was in the mid 70's and caused a massive stir, and got him a slew of death threats, so I don't really think it's surprising or even unwarranted that he may have a bit of an attitude these days.
I do agree with Jack that he's preaching to the converted and a lot of what he does not is a massive auto-back-pat, but then again he's really just making money like every single author does, by playing to their crowd. It's endemic in every field or self publicity from politicians to musicians, so why should he do anything differnt?
I will say there seem to be a lot of people chiming in about about Dawkins and Hitchens that have never read their books and especially Dawkins' book, the God Delusion goes a long way to very precisely explain why he has such vitriol against religion;
You have to realize that in certain countries, namely the USA, you are perceived as a social leper or even professionally sidelined if you don't believe,
Bear in mind it's basically impossible to get elected to office without putting up a solid religious stance.
Then you haver things like George Bush (Dubya) saying in regards to tough and complex decisions he had to make, "imma' pray on it". Atheists don't like that major policy decisions are being made on 2000 year old fairytales.
If you were to take one thing from Dawkins though, it's how well he explains the bias for religion in our society, as in it's widespread acceptance of a possible reality, rather then it having to prove this ancient story - in essence he's angry that he has to "disprove" religion when there is no proof that it exists.
His biggest peeves though are that religion is forced on to children and that adults are forced to live or behave a certain way due to religion, whether or not you like him, you can't deny he's right.
Here's some choice cuts from him:
"As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.”
"Of 43 studies carried out since 1927 on the relationship between religious belief and one’s intelligence and/or educational level, all but four found an inverse connection. That is, the higher one’s intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold “beliefs” of any kind."
“All the Founding Fathers, whatever their private religious beliefs, would have been aghast to read the journalist Robert Sherman’s report of George Bush Senior’s answer when Sherman asked him whether he recognized the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists: ‘No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”
I do understand why he's a dick, if for nothing else than because religion needs someone to be a dick to it.
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