Is modern atheism just dressed up bigotry? Yes.

Apologies on delay ... got caught up in a bomb threat ... true story. As I have already told my opponent, the definitions used here are irrelevant to the realities of modern atheism. We have come a long way from the days of Nietzsche, whose reasoned arguments were undeniably true even if they hurt. These days, the pretense that modern atheistic arguments have any bearing in reality is becoming increasingly dissociative, and what we are left with when we strip away the pretense of rationality is an intense misinformation campaign and increasingly a form of diatribe and invective in which the goal appears to be demonization rather than reasoned disagreement. Just as Joe McCarthy or Nathan Bedford Forrest once discovered, bile and tawdry blame can be powerful attractors of men. Charisma, however, is no excuse for what is clear as we examine what atheists produce these days: bigotry. The genesis of this new atheism can be found, in the mass marketing efforts of what has undoubtedly become the intellectual mouth piece for the rage sweeping modern atheism. Yet as I have debated thousands of atheists I have discovered that these men are treated far more like great Prophets than anything else. The force that turned them into best sellers appears to be reverence, where the book sits on shelf as testimony to the veracity of their adherence and, in many cases never bother to read the books. Time and again in my discussions with atheists, I have pulled contentions out of the works from the admirers of these prophets and simply been branded a liar. Atheists really should examine the works that serve as the intellectual basis of the New Atheist movement. The first would be Richard Dawkins, whose advocacy of atheism is synonymous with New Atheism. His comments routinely stir up controversy in the wider human community, and seem to define the acerbic and irrational finger pointing that has come to dominate the voice of modern atheism. http://www.policymic.com... His conduct is so bad, that even South Park chose to make Dawkins the focus of its satire of atheism. http://www.southparkstudios.com... How exactly did he become famous as an atheist? He wrote a book called the God Delusion. The vast majority of his polemic is little more than one criticism of religion after another. He presents arguments from religion that anyone familiar with religion would know instantly as inaccurate. Indeed, this has been pointed out repeatedly by Dawkins critics. http://www.lrb.co.uk... We have an argument against religion that begins with a straw man, and then barely taps into anything scientific. Few religious people these days actively reject evolution, with the largest denominations all accepting the basic claims of evolution. Yet Dawkins claims that the explanation of complexity, already accepted by everyone who accepts evolution (and still believes in God), and simply states that this somehow proves there is no God. Completely ignored is the oft heard religious claim that God desires us to be more like himself, and would thus leave processes that are discernable, testable, and teachable. That Evolution exists causes no problems for religious people, a point that even Darwin conceded as he published his work a century before Dawkins decided to disagree with him by pointed failing to actually prove that Evolution leads to no God. Evolution rest on a process of universe creating itself from nothing, creating Quasars and super massive stars that explode and spread elements in minerals in perfect balance into stars and planetoids that perfectly balance and heat the results in four separate processes to create the elements of DNA, which then must be combined in conditions of perfection to even get to the point of life. The idea that explaining the life can become more complex after its creation (it can also become less complex) somehow proves that the entire chain from creation is invalid is ludicrous. For such an argument to even hold the pretense of validity, it would require not just biology, but chemistry and physics to give the claim credibility. Dawkins doesn"t even try. That would be scientific error #1. Dawkins only other claim is that morality must have a genetic basis. A claim that he supports not with genetic evidence (as science would require) but by cherry picking animal behavior as "altruistic" and pointedly ignoring unaltruistic animal behavior and obvious genetic evidence that morality rests upon far more than our genes. Sociopaths, for example have strong genetic predispositions toward violence, yet they can choose not to be violent their entire lives. They can choose to identify and modify their behavior. We all can. That would be scientific error #2. And what is the conclusion of this parade of fallacy and misdirection? Its to call people delusional, and later to clarify this position that religion should be classified as a mental health disorder. Such a contention should in and of itself remove the pretense that this is rooted in science. The idea that sciences explanative processes are insults rather than explanations should give anyone pause. Would anyone accept, no matter how charismatic, a scientific study that claimed that all polar bears were mentally retarded? Yet branding the vast majority of humanity as mentally deranged seems to be just fine. Even Dawkins must realize these scientific short comings. He has published within the academic community, and knows the rigorous standards. He knows that his religious claims would never get through either philosophy department, a history department, or a theology department. He knows that his scientific claims would never get through a biology department. His decision to publish his claims as literature, held to the same standard as Harry Potter, is telling. Atheists should take pause as they put stock in a man who is viewed much like Nathan Bedford Forrest was outside his community. Nathan Bedford Forrest was greatly respected within his community, and, like Dawkins, clearly achieved some measure of success in his chosen profession. He was nevertheless a raging bigot. The steady drum beat of acerbic, ill supported claims of dubious intent at best, and obvious intent to insult, simply entrenches that perception. The more Dawkins insults religious people, the more atheists love him. As this circle of animosity leading to adulation continues, the pretense of Dawkins and his claims being rational rather than Romanesque pandering to the crowd becomes increasingly untenable. Christopher Hitchens fares no better. An examination of his claims produces yet another series of intellectual shortcomings in which no religion anywhere is spared the viciousness of Hitchens wrath. Some of the claims are almost laughable. The claim that Hitchens begins with is that he would be uncomfortable standing outside a Church in Belfast as it let out of Sunday mass. To date, there have been zero actual calls to police that have resulted from this weekly and widespread occurrence, and even Hitchens himself, who posits the important of the claim by his personal experience, apparently didn"t feel threatened enough to call in the Bobbies. It absurd to take common every Sunday events and somehow make them life threatening. The idea that paranoia serves a rational choice rather than irrational one should give anyone pause. If they need any further encouragement, Hitchen"s treatise of the New Testament one would easily note what is not in the acerbic parade of invective: Jesus. That points to a larger pattern in which historical issues are presented in an over simplified manner, cherry picked data points (like Dawkins animal behavior), and eth deliberate exclusion of factors and evidence that clearly contr