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By 'new', they mean 'vocal', although the word vocal isn't 'media' enough, so that becomes 'fundamentalist' or even 'evangelical'." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 22:35:18 GMT"/>			<outline text="Criticism is made of said 'new atheists' for not providing a comprehensive account of why people are religious. Not to draw any equivalence, but they say something along this line:" created="Wed, 09 May 2007 22:36:42 GMT"/>			<outline text="&quot;Of course, Dr. King has a powerful argument against racism - showing the ways that it is based on an incoherent and incorrect understanding of human nature, and how the belief in the difference of races leads to quite a lot of unfavourable consequences for blacks including racially-segregated schools, buses and drinking fountains. But &lt;i&gt;this doesn't get to the root problem&lt;/i&gt;! Dr. King can huff and puff all he likes about the inequities of the situation, and talk about how illogical and unreasonable racists are, but unless he finally gets to the point of providing a coherent explanation for why racists exist, we really should sneer disapprovingly. Dr. King has not understood the many complexities of the different types and strands of racists - he has not seen how racists differ in their opinions. He just blithely discredits their opinion as unfounded and immoral. This kind of simplistic thinking &lt;i&gt;will not do&lt;/i&gt;!&quot;" created="Wed, 09 May 2007 22:37:23 GMT"/>			<outline text="Before I get anybody howling, I am not drawing an equivalence between the conditions of blacks in the time of Martin Luther King and the conditions of non-believers in the era of YouTube. That's not what it's about. What it &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; about is the thought process that goes along with it. It's a modified form of wishful thinking. If you substitute racism for religion and 'Dr. King' for 'Professor Dawkins', you have got one of the drearily tedious tropes of the reviewers of the books by &quot;new atheists&quot;." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 22:41:43 GMT"/>			<outline text="Combine that with &quot;but people &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; religion, don't they?&quot; (notice it's always a third party who needs religion - young buck in the Opinions and Editorials has no such need, for he writes for a newspaper, but the dear Common people need their religion, so we best not take it away from them), and we have all these ridiculous reviews stitched up. Of course, there's the old &quot;but Dawkins is so theologically &lt;i&gt;unsophisticated&lt;/i&gt;&quot; argument (as if being able to tell the difference between a Franciscan and a Cathar makes any of it &lt;i&gt;true&lt;/i&gt;)." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 22:46:40 GMT"/>			<outline text="If you wish to become a newspaper columnist, I can offer some advice - learn all of the logical fallacies, and then find new and creative ways to sneak them all in to your columns. A sterling career awaits those who combine that with a savvy collection of the clipped cultural currency. In the case of Dawkins, I'd recommend using the following phrases: &quot;high Victorian atheism&quot;, &quot;atheism is a faith &lt;i&gt;too!&lt;/i&gt;&quot; (if I hear that statement one more time, I am going to strap on a bomb, praise Bertrand Russell and blow up a fucking commuter train! I think this &lt;i&gt;faith&lt;/i&gt; is getting to my head!) and, oh, whatever other nonsense you can concoct - make sure you include 'reductionism' - that usually quietens the mind in between sips on the latte." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 23:04:44 GMT"/>			<outline text="Here's a good one - simultaneously accusing Dawkins of both being a novelty-peddler (and then draw symbolic parralels between the good Professor and, well, L. Ron Hubbard or Sun Myung Moon) or some kind of ancient demon from times past (again, the 'high Victorian atheism' thing - tie it in with our good friend Ebenezer Scrooge, since Dawkins wants to rob the proletariat class of it's religious beliefs and replace it with the cold, hard logic of the capitalists). All of these techniques allow you to have had an 'opinion' that'll hold aforementioned latte-sipper's attention for fifteen minutes while you scamper off without having to actually provide any type of critical appraisal at all." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 23:21:37 GMT"/>			<outline text="The strange thing is that there &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; valid criticisms to be made of Dawkins' book (and, I bet, others). I think that Dawkins' coverage of the philosophical arguments for the existence of God is lacklustre at best, bordering on slightly shoddy. These arguments, like the God-addled brains of their proponents, &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; evolved beyond the time of Aquinas. If you are to include them, you have to take them a little bit more seriously. And a review which covered these points would actually be interesting to read and provide some value to the reader." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 22:55:58 GMT"/>			<outline text="It seems that reviewing books for newspapers is a task that we could farm out to robots relatively easily. You just need to find 'things to say' - it matters little that these things have all the intellectual weight of microwave popcorn. This is the same mainstream media that accuses bloggers of being narcissists. Yeah, the difference is simple though. When we haven't got anything to say, we shut up and post cat pictures. You guys hire these word churners who produce absolute dreck and splatter it embarrasingly across pages and pages of your papers." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 22:53:20 GMT"/>			<outline text="If it were only in the reviewing of atheist tracts where this little problem arose, I would have only minor irritation with it. But it's everywhere! It seems every newspaper's op-ed column and reviews section is brimming with wishful thinking-based misdirection. And it's in politicians everywhere." created="Wed, 09 May 2007 23:00:44 GMT"/>			<outline text="&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.haloscan.com/comments/tommorris/techniqueOfTheWeekMisdirection86755/&quot;&gt;&lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;postCount('techniqueOfTheWeekMisdirection86755');&lt;/script&gt;&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.haloscan.com/tb/tommorris/techniqueOfTheWeekMisdirection86755/&quot;&gt;&lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;postCountTB('techniqueOfTheWeekMisdirection86755'); &lt;/script&gt;&lt;/a&gt;"/>			</outline>		</body>	</opml>