/lit/ - Literature

I'd like to hear /lit/'s opinion on the vapid anti-intellectualism in popular debates of the day and in the general population. I'm talking about the general mistrust of philosophy, theology and artistic pursuits. These positions are often lauded by the "New Atheists" who see any sort of non-empirical pursuit as irrelevant/dangerous/whatever.

It seems to me that this is the remnant of the last century where atheism and materialism ran amok, it was unfashionable to take metaphysics seriously etc.
While today, this has largely been amended and there are great overlaps in philosophy and theology, and both in relation to science, now we have the previous sort of thinking among the general population and the wide praise of a romanticized notion of "science".

I'd like to hear if my guess is on the right track, what caused this phenomenon and how should it be opposed?

So why do you guys hate Dawkins so much? I hope you can give me a proper answer without resorting to memes. I genuinely want to hear some opinions. Personally I'm not an atheist and have a different outlook on things than him, but I can still see where he's coming from and I think he has a good cause in trying to educate delusional American fundamentalists.

My point is probably that if guys like Dawkins are the "worst" the atheist side can offer today, it's not really a big threat, is it?

it's basically the same old arguments for atheism that every 12 year old makes

tl;dr: tl;dr

I think Everworld might be up there, in concept at least. The execution is not quite perfect, but I enjoyed it.