"Random and illiterate hecklers"

The Mighty Shea on the current crop of British atheists:

The Old Atheists of the 18th and 19th Centuries still had the future. The New Atheists have got nuthin'. Their own ideology, everybody realizes, points to Nothing and leads to mass murder--especially the ideology of the New Atheists which is all about calling for the utter destruction of faith in general and the Catholic Church in particular. They have no positive message, nothing to say beyond Pullman's and Ditchkins' "Ecrasez l'infame!" The Old Atheists could talk about the Great Rosy Dawn, the Triumph of the Proletariat, the March of Science and Progress because the Great Atheistic Slaughters of the 20th Century hadn't happened yet. Now everybody knows that their Immanentized Eschaton is a great big steaming pile of crap--including them.