(February 18, 2013 at 10:48 am)naimless Wrote: There is a lot of eye for an eye shit going around between theists and atheists alike and it really makes one question the objectivity of atheism. There is clearly a part of the brain that people access a feeling of god with and some need to feel it more than others.
Neither atheism nor theism are doctrines that tell you how to act or think, they are merely differing conclusions about the reality of the existence of a God or gods. It makes no more sense to talk about how 'atheists' should act than it does to talk about how 'theists' should act. How a theist should act depends on their religion, if any. How an atheist should act depends on their moral philosophy, if any. How an atheist or theist actually DOES act is based almost entirely on their personality, no matter what they espouse. There's research indicating a big difference in personality type distributions between atheists and theists, which probably has a lot to do with willingness to hold an unpopular position. Most atheists (in the USA) are introverts for example--more focused on their internal processing-while most theists are extroverts-more focused on their interactions with others.
Dawkins is outspoken because he is an outspoken man. It's not really very mysterious at all.
