8 atheist leaders actually worth listening to

[MattB]

Willing to listen to their positions. Not willing to call them leaders or necessarily agree. Same as with any other atheist.

I have the same position, but here's the thing - What you and I think is irrelevant because we can't control people's actions. Whether we like it or not, there are atheist organizations, associations and movements that bound atheists together for many causes (usually secularism and promoting atheism, coming out of the closet, and anti-theism) - Those organizations appoint leaders like any other, and are prone to dogma and groupthinking. If there's an atheist organization with a  leader, that person is an atheist leader - not a leader to all atheists, but to those who support or are part of the organization. Richard Dawkins is certainly a leader to some atheists and he is full of people on twitter telling him how much he is awesome and how his books rock and are perfect.

You also realize that religionists can have the same position, right? Any Christian can say they don't believe in the Pope, or that the pope is just a guy with some opinion, there isn't a legal or political obligation to obey the Pope.

If people want to stop hearing about atheist leaders (Some are self-appointed), atheist events, atheist conventions, etc, they can stop supporting those groups trough words or merely quoting famous atheists all the time. Seriously, there are arguments debunking theism since Epicurus, Dawkins and his legion of followers are not a special case.

Thanks for this. This is the kind of opinion I was looking for not the normal theist vs anti-theist flame wars I see so much of.

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You're a fucking moron. I pegged you right the first time around. Tell what to Dawkins? He's first a scientist, second an educator and only then an atheist. You people who have something against the "New Atheists" forget to actually listen to them and fall into the propaganda of imbeciles from the atheist movements who want to make as much money as these ones. You're fucking disgusting and I think you probably deserve it. Go lead a bullshit life having pretentious and wrong ideas about the majority of things like that.

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WHat's your problem with Dawkins and Harris anyway?

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL - Dawkins is known most of all by being an atheist and writing books like The God Delusion, and only then as a scientist. He has a book called The God Delusion, he gets lectures to criticize religion, he has tweets criticizng religion. he is invited for debates to criticize religion - It seems obvious what makes him famous, am I right.

My problem - They promote groupthinking as much as any other person or group and some atheists seem them as being always right and that's a very dangerous idea. I listened to them, I have read The God Delusion - I don't get the big deal about it, I was expecting something more rational and intellectually sophisticated. It's terrible to think A+ is a bad group and suddenly Richard Dawkins' following cult is ok because Dawkins is different. I have no issue with any of them as people, and some points are good, but for the most part I was expecting more. Someone like Freud who actually studied religion and knew how to criticize it made more contributions against religion on a paper than Dawkins in a lifetime

I'm not going to criticize his book haven't read it. What I am seeing is some atheist act like fundamentalist Christians with their hate. Those people both fundies and atheist I reject as leaders or teachers, Go to the Newsgroup Alt.Atheism and you will see pure hate for the most part. Then any Christain group.

BTW is the book worth reading?