By layman all i essentially meant was 'not in any great detail'. That is pretty much the new atheists topics, they sometimes touch on the philosophical arguments in a semi formal style, although not all that often or all that well, most of their good arguments are against objections to atheism or design arguments (Which are usually just personal incredulity fallacies), their moral responses are mainly objections to theists claiming more morality or an argument that atheist morality is superior, rather than addressing the actual questions (See Hitchens vs Craig debate). Dawkins and Hitchens always bring up historical atrocities too, which isn't really an argument against anything, they start by pointing out that x believed y and also did horrible things but then say therefore y = cause of x, which is just poor reasoning.
That is essentially what is the layman atheism is imo, a general understanding of the basic arguments and knowledge about what makes a good argument and what is poor reasoning, the objections to the common arguments for theism, an understanding of why their beliefs are unsubstantiated etc. I think most people here are well above that level, like when you read Dawkins book and don't really do much but agree on tons of points that you already understand or have opinions of, or think of ways he could have rephrased it to be more coherent, or see some mistakes in it. That is imo when you have more than a layman understanding of the subject. That doesn't mean any of the guys writing these books are laymans, because they clearly are not, they could all talk about each point in their book to an extend that could probably fill another book... It's just the book it's self that is mostly aimed at layman understandings of the arguments (in most but not all cases).
That is essentially what is the layman atheism is imo, a general understanding of the basic arguments and knowledge about what makes a good argument and what is poor reasoning, the objections to the common arguments for theism, an understanding of why their beliefs are unsubstantiated etc. I think most people here are well above that level, like when you read Dawkins book and don't really do much but agree on tons of points that you already understand or have opinions of, or think of ways he could have rephrased it to be more coherent, or see some mistakes in it. That is imo when you have more than a layman understanding of the subject. That doesn't mean any of the guys writing these books are laymans, because they clearly are not, they could all talk about each point in their book to an extend that could probably fill another book... It's just the book it's self that is mostly aimed at layman understandings of the arguments (in most but not all cases).
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