Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge

revere at Effect Measure is always a pleasant read thanks to imbuing his well-founded positions with strength and emotion (which we can all do) while tempering their delivery with just the right level of subtlety, irony and restraint (which would be nice to be able to do). Then again, he’s had like 250 years to practice ringing warning bells.
Naturally I enjoy his Sunday Freethinker Sermonettes, and today’s, which takes on Matt Nisbet’s recent commentary on atheists (also noted here), has sparked a great discussion in the comments. (Nothing personal against Matt, but I don’t think Blake and Torb-j-double-dotted-o-rn are the kind of commenters you want to argue with unless you bring your best game — and a valid point or two.)
Writes revere:

“[Nisbet] objects to the “Dawkins – Hitchens PR campaign” as an incitement to fear and anger among non-believers, although most of us nonbelievers react to Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ writings with delight, recognition and gratitude rather than fear and anger.”
Regarding the aims and motivations of god-free people, most of Matt’s positions are, like the one revere summarizes here, straw men. I don’t know a single atheist who has only become emotionally or rationally engaged thanks to Dawkins et al. Well before their emergence, we were already tired of the nonsense, especially given its giddy overnourishment during the Bush reign; as revere states, having eloquent, visible, and unblinking allies has been nothing but good news.
It’s the nuts and manipulators — both the idiotic public figures like Falwell, God rot his soul, and the sadly deluded members of the flock who home-”school” their kids into believing in fables about arks and magic gardens and think academic scientists, sex education, and gaiety are the greatest evils since sliced Abel — who get the blood of sensible people boiling.
Matt enjoys (in a sense) the fact that because his entire platform is “framing,” he has a plausible rationale for ignoring the content — however simple — of atheists’ words in favor of explaining where they’re supposedly coming from. But forget all of the “framing” stuff per se; Matt’s arguments are just poorly founded in any sense, dancing artlessly and stereotypically between overreaching, misrepresentation, hypocrisy, and basic inaccuracy, and this becomes increasingly evident any time either he or someone else brings up the “New atheists” topic.