The historical origins of atheism

Damon Linker has a thoughtful piece in TNR about how the militant atheists Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris are really heirs to an illiberal tradition of atheism that owes more to the French Revolution and Emma Goldman than it does to Socrates and Camus. His argument is articulate and convincing. It's also boring. Moderate justifications for secularism just aren't as entertaining as, say, Hitch's comparison of America during Christmastime to North Korea. Perhaps the audience for the polemicists is smaller, but it's also laughing a lot harder.