Soft and hard atheism

Apparently it's not only us who've been getting fed up with 'headbanger' atheists (that are so passionate that fairness and respect for opponents leeches away). So interesting to read that the discontent has gone public.

The gist of the story ... there are soft atheists and fundamentalist atheists, and the softies are concerned that the fundies are becoming too outspoken, too uppity, indeed that they are giving unbelievers a bad name...
The spokesman for the soft atheists has been Greg Epstein, a “humanist chaplain” at Harvard University. The Rev. Mr. Epstein is encouraging the fundamentalists or “New Atheists” to pipe down, and warns that their outspokenness is keeping fence-sitters from coming over to the side of the humanists, ...
The soft atheists have it in for three bestselling authors in particular: Richard Dawkins (author of “The God Delusion”), Sam Harris (”Letter to a Christian Nation”) and Christopher Hitchens (”God Is Not Great”).

In fact, some atheists are recognising a fact that many religious believers have had to recognise the reverse-traffic corrollary of;

Harvard’s E.O. Wilson, another secularist, has also criticized the New Atheists, and suggests their tone is alienating important faith groups whose help is needed to solve the world’s problems

I guess that might be the point of difference: some atheists believe, fundamentally that religion (and its step child, spirituality) is the problem whereas some believe that there are a lot of problems and religion, per se, can be a help or a hindrance. Actually, I'd agree with that.
True Unbelievers: A sectarian split among atheists

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