That’s exactly the attitude of any “New Atheist”. If they genuinely did not care for their fellow human beings, they would not insist with such vehemence on the correctness of a rational, secular worldview. They KNOW, deep down, that reason in a secular framework is the only way to run the world. Knowing that, it’s nothing but love that would compel them to try to convert the species.

As to demonization, I still fail to see the problem. They’d do it anyway. The godless were long demonized before the godless turned aggressive. It’s up to the flock whether or not they want to believe what they’re told. It IS just an intellectual argument regardless of what they want you to think (because if it’s not, we have no way of winning – we cannot hope to offer anything close to the emotional, spiritual, moral or political comfort religion provides – it is, after all, the most proven source of social cohesion in the history of humankind), and if an environment of disrespect is enough to turn a waffler away from objective truth, that waffler needs more respect for objective truth.

I appreciate your views and the time you’ve taken to explain them. I understand where you’re coming from. I just disagree. I think from this point on it’ll just get redundant, as I already find myself repeating myself. Good show, and I’ll catch you next debate around.

We interpret the history of the feminist movement differently. The militants who used angry tactics generated a backlash. The ones who didn’t use angry tactics prevailed.

You distort my position with your comment about drag queens. I’ve been very clear that I’m denigrating nasty attacks. That doesn’t describe drag queens.

I don’t know what history of missionaries you read, but the histories I have read show over and over that the missionaries were motivated by genuine love for the people they worked with. The most common strategy used in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, was to set up shop as a charitable operation. The mission was there to help people with their physical problems, providing medical care, education, and/or agricultural organization. The missionaries FIRST established their charitable operation and THEN applied the religious message. The notion that missionaries descended upon savages spouting fire and brimstone — well, that’s just a complete distortion of history.

“If anything, I LIKE the idea that the opposition will dig in their heels and vow to fight. In an instance such as this, it exposes them for intellectual bankruptcy as much as those who dug in to fight MLK exposed themselves as racists.”

You seem stuck in the notion that this is an intellectual debate. It’s not. They simply demonize you (easily done if you behave nastily) and then warn their flock against having anything to do with somebody as nasty as you. You haven’t proven their incorrectness, you’ve only proven your own nastiness.

I know Barbara. We correspond via e-mail occasionally. I also know why she hasn’t been inclined to join in the debate, and to be perfectly honest, I can’t blame her (Nor will I disclose it, since I’m sure this was a confidential remark of hers.).

This is the crux of the argument. I agree with you completely on the first three sentences.

After that, I realize what you’re telling me, and I’m just not buying it.

MLK? That man made a HELL of a lot of people angry. So much so one of them put a bullet in his head. I think most of the New Atheists see themselves in this way, more than they see themselves as Black Panthers: they are simply espousing a viewpoint that is correct, and they won’t back down from it regardless of who feels hurt. That’s exactly what MLK did. The Black Panthers blew shit up and beat people. There is an utter lack of equivalency with New Atheists there.

Regarding the rest of your analogies, it still goes back to who is RIGHT, not who is nice. Militant feminists (and as for “setting feminism back”, that’s f-ing debatable, my friend) were/are distasteful only as far as they portray/ed their opponents fallaciously – is it really worth taking seriously an outcry against the epithet “chauvinist pig” if the accused actually is/was a chauvinist pig? The issue is that they applied the label indiscriminately.

Gays don’t denigrate straights because that’s not the issue and they know it; they know there’s nothing wrong with straights, they just want straights to know there’s nothing wrong with gays. But does that mean they should denounce drag queens and transsexuals because those people don’t fit the straight definition of “nothing wrong with” or “natural”? That’s the danger of letting your opponent dictate your terms.

And as for missionaries – that’s the worst analogy of them all. Because the missionaries did believe their converts were terrible sinners, they just weren’t honest about it because they were crafty, conniving assholes with imperialistic political aspirations. And I do NOT want to adopt that kind of tactic by any means. Above all things, I will be truthful.

If anything, I LIKE the idea that the opposition will dig in their heels and vow to fight. In an instance such as this, it exposes them for intellectual bankruptcy as much as those who dug in to fight MLK exposed themselves as racists.

Your single data point is unchallengeable — but it’s a single data point. It’s pretty hard to base a hypothesis on a single data point.

“Then, recently, you have a wave of atheists making a show of their atheism, and whattayaknow…Suddenly atheism becomes a cultural movement.”

Really? How do you know whether these people weren’t just stepping up in front of a parade that had already started? Look at the history of belief in the last 50 years. Europe started going secular long before Mr. Dawkins wrote his book, and even in America the growth of atheism was clear in the 1960s. I think that the growth of atheism is due to a lot of cultural factors, most notably a growing suspicion of institutions and a greater sense of individual responsibility. These are deep subterranean trends in our culture, and to chalk it up to some books and blog discussions seems way wrong to me.

“Do you have any data – or even personal experience – that contradicts what I’m saying here? Have you encountered any believers turned off by the New Atheists that you’ve then been able to “de-convert” using the same arguments but a much nicer, more conciliatory tone?”

I have zero direct evidence, but mountains of indirect evidence. Look at the strategies other movements use to gain acceptance. Martin Luther King accomplished far more for black civil rights than the Black Panthers. The militant feminists of the 1970s with their epithet “male chauvinist pig” did not advance feminism — they set it back. Gays have not devoted energy to denigrating straights. More apropos, missionaries don’t attack their flocks telling them that they’re evil sinners (some did, but they never had anywhere near as much success as the feel-good ministries). The best example you can offer is the political attack ad, which has been shown to be effective, but only if done carefully. Specifically, it can’t LOOK like an attack ad. It has to attack without being nasty. Political attack ads that are widely perceived as being nasty usually trigger a backlash against the sponsoring candidate.

“your argument is that we shouldn’t be doing anything to turn anyone off to begin with – but as I’ve repeatedly asked, what are and who decides the parameters for that when you’re trying to dismantle everything believers hold dear?”

Each and every one of us makes that decision individually. If you want to go house to house sneering at every believer you meet, that’s your business. I won’t try to stop you. Instead, I’m telling you that you probably won’t accomplish anything good and you’ll probably make matters worse.

Because in my experience, courtesy is more effective at avoiding nastiness than nastiness is, but that’s just irrelevant. And, as I’ve said before, courtesy is no more likely than Carl Sagan’s plain truth or Christopher Hitchens’ ballsy polemic to impress a fence-sitter to consider an atheist’s viewpoint. As I’ve been trying to tell you, I WAS a fence-sitter, I know from whence I speak, and it was an irreverent show of cojones along with a well-reasoned argument which really led me down the path to abandon faith. Reason alone had been there all along, but I’d never had an impetus to pay attention to it.

You said before that atheism has just stood around being right for a long time, for all the good it did. Inherent to that idea is also that atheism was in fact being polite all that time, as it certainly wasn’t going around trying to rile anyone’s feathers by simply being right. Then, recently, you have a wave of atheists making a show of their atheism, and whattayaknow…Suddenly atheism becomes a cultural movement.

I know “I’m just sayin’” isn’t very impressive rhetoric, but…I’m just sayin’. Do you have any data – or even personal experience – that contradicts what I’m saying here? Have you encountered any believers turned off by the New Atheists that you’ve then been able to “de-convert” using the same arguments but a much nicer, more conciliatory tone?

As I’m reading you, your argument is that we shouldn’t be doing anything to turn anyone off to begin with – but as I’ve repeatedly asked, what are and who decides the parameters for that when you’re trying to dismantle everything believers hold dear?

“your assertion that niceness will convince a believer to shed his faith where pointed jabs might fail seems far removed from any reality I’ve ever witnessed.”

I have not written that; what I have said is that a) courtesy is more effective than nastiness; and b) courtesy impresses fence-sitters, not die-hards.

What kind of question is that? I believed that God existed and that he had in some way empowered Jesus. I found partaking in the Eucharist and reflecting on the suffering of Christ to be profoundly moving. I was not a biblical literalist by any means, but as I considered scientific truths, I always tried to incorporate them into a schema which held God as presiding over nature. I was quite enamored with the ideas of God residing in the quanta, or existing within the random probabilities that govern events. I was a Ken Miller Catholic, really. But would my story be any more convincing had I been a fundamentalist?

The point here is that if individuals are so strongly committed to their belief as to be insulted by others’ irreverency and thus not open to their arguments, a softer approach is not likely to convince them of anything. They are not open to arguments. You accuse me of living in denial of psychological reality, but your assertion that niceness will convince a believer to shed his faith where pointed jabs might fail seems far removed from any reality I’ve ever witnessed.

And the other interesting point is that in my Catholic days, I was rather satisfied with my above-average but superficial and, in some instances, wrong-headed view of evolution and cosmology. It took a shaking of my faith to really make me hungry for the knowledge of how things ACTUALLY worked.