RD is a very clear thinker and an exceptional mind. I nominate him troll of the previous decade. I also understand why some people are irritated by him. It's partly because they're hearing something they don't like, but also that they're being preached to. But I think this is OK to some extent, in order to redress something that has been out of balance for a long time. Many of us have had a whole lot of being preached to by evangelical Christians/Muslims and others. So there's a certain amount of the shoe being on the other foot for a change. I doubt this will cause vast quantities of introspection, but at least pine finds it humorous that many religious people find Dawkin's propositions outrageous bullshit, because funnily enough that's pretty much exactly... Well anyway. Pine is clearly enjoying the schadenfreude moments, so precious!But in all seriousness you have to read The Selfish Gene to understand his ideas proper. In fact you might want to read the Origin of Species as well. Many of his statements that people take the wrong way are actual biological statements of fact and it's not a matter of "well, that's just your opinion man". These may not be what you think they are, you have to read his stuff. You cannot describe something as arrogant if it's actually true. Dawkins pissed off a whole bunch of people who were going along with the concept of 'group selection' for example. It's not that he's militant about religion in particular. He's militant about anything he sees as an untruth.For example. Pine's obvious pet example. People are completely wrong if they don't accept they need to hide the paperwork related to their illegal transactions from LE agents using cryptography. Is that arrogant? No. It's a description of reality. We know empirically that people who don't use crypto get mowed down in a bust. If you do the (grisly) research of reading the court statements from situations like child exploitation rings or stolen(intercepted!)/declassified LE and intelligence documents, this will just jump out at you. Nonetheless, there is a distinction between telling people facts and calling people names. It's fun to call people names, but not very productive if you want people to see your point of view. FWIW RD isn't trying to convert people to 'atheism' or something. He's trying to unearth those people who are mild mannered, who aren't believers but are 'quiet' about it to make life easier. Since he began his project along with a few others, the number of declared agnostics/atheists in the USA has dramatically increased in the polls by several hundred percent or something crazy like that. It's not that they all didn't exist before, it's that they were, well, afraid to express their opinion too openly.The only real distance between Dawkin's views and mine is that I'm content with a certain type of believer. The type who are thoughtful enough to think logically about their worldview, often have a very different point of view to the classical believer (follows church social custom but hasn't actually read his/her bible and thought about the contents). I wouldn't describe them as more 'liberal' in their views, they're frequently more extreme. But they are consistent. That's important. So long as they are able to converse without finding it a personal affront that somebody else has a different opinion, I can live with such people. This is called tolerance, and it's in short supply. Dawkins is never going to physically force believers to change their views, but many Christians in the States could take a leaf out of the Bible (some biblical principals are excellent, a fact that Dawkins also recognizes, his critique is actually a whole lot more selective than you might imagine at first) and turn the other cheek, probably some unbelievers as well.The only thing that confuses me about Dawkins is that he is a socialist. To me that's replacing a metaphysical god with a secular one, but that's another story. Conversely it is also inconsistent, at least to myself, when believers in god appreciate the market, but don't apply similar principals elsewhere. Competition and the division of labor are universal principals, whether we're calling them titles like evolution or capitalism.