Good atheism journalism is as rare as good religion journalism. Assumptions about what an atheist believes more often than not are couched in terms of what he does not believe, turning it into a game of Tweedledee and Tweedledum with the theist and atheist in turn shouting ‘contrariwise’. The varieties of atheistic thought are so wide it makes as little sense for a reporter to say ‘atheists think … ’ as it does to say ‘Muslims think … ’ or ‘Christians think …’.
In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in atheistic writing and a ready market for the works of biologist Richard Dawkins, critic Christopher Hitchens, and philosophers Daniel Dennett, A.C. Grayling, Sam Harris, Thomas Nagel and Michel Onfray. However, there is no one atheistic worldview for within this genre there are incompatible viewpoints, arguments and varieties of tone.
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