The least surprising move he could have made if you were closely tied into the skeptic/atheist movement in the 2000s/2010s. The Four Horsemen of Atheism unilaterally sucked, and the New Atheist movement overall was largely just a cover to launder Iraq-war-era Islamophobia and antisemitism as intellectualism rather than blind hate. Criticism of the Christian right was largely only tolerated at best or accepted through the lens of libertarian anti-government activism, rather than a genuine concern for the majority of the movement.
Dennett is mostly okay, I think. I'd primarily fault him for not attacking his peers more aggressively, though he certainly has attacked them with severity before (especially Harris)
Yeah, Dennett and Paul Kurtz, both of whom I've met, are (or were, in the case of Kurtz) at the very least nice guys, and I found them to be generally among the less problematic New Atheist types, even if I find their strategy and thought process to be disagreeable as an accommodationist agnostic.
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The least surprising move he could have made if you were closely tied into the skeptic/atheist movement in the 2000s/2010s. The Four Horsemen of Atheism unilaterally sucked, and the New Atheist movement overall was largely just a cover to launder Iraq-war-era Islamophobia and antisemitism as intellectualism rather than blind hate. Criticism of the Christian right was largely only tolerated at best or accepted through the lens of libertarian anti-government activism, rather than a genuine concern for the majority of the movement.
Dennett is mostly okay, I think. I'd primarily fault him for not attacking his peers more aggressively, though he certainly has attacked them with severity before (especially Harris)
Yeah, Dennett and Paul Kurtz, both of whom I've met, are (or were, in the case of Kurtz) at the very least nice guys, and I found them to be generally among the less problematic New Atheist types, even if I find their strategy and thought process to be disagreeable as an accommodationist agnostic.