I’ll try to maintain the decorum that seems to be escaping you, K-Cup.
If it needs elaboration, I read Hitchens for years and years before he passed away, both his articles and his books. I studied Russell in school, read him in different contexts afterwards, and while I am familiar with several instances where he describes his approach in agnostic terms, I was also familiar with the scale he gave, which, it seems to me, is pretty close to absolute in its assertion of non-belief. I mentioned Sartre, and I could have used Camus as an example ( I have read much more of his work) , but as you know, not all those writers and philosophers described as existentialist were atheists, so I didn’t, for example, use Kierkegaard. As for “knowing a lot about existentialism” because I took two courses on it, I didn’t make that claim, and I don’t appreciate being gaslit.
I’m actually not that interested in Dawkins. Referencing him and these others spoke to the point I was making to Oyoyoy, that’s all.
Also in the context of the discussion, these authors, and several more I am not as familiar with addressed the issue of belief within the context of the 20th century, its movements, its horrors, and the way in which most if not all of them built upon the religious, political, and social movements of the past – where the earlier generations of non believers and their philosophies resided. Hence their relevance in discussion of previous generations of thinkers.
As I indicated, I was responding to oyoyoy’s assertion that today’s atheists were at a low level. In the context that is escaping you, it is the corollary of the Jewish experience we are discussing. I thought he was talking about the philosophers who discuss belief and non belief, while he later clarified to me that he was talking about the average Joe, who we both agree doesn’t even think about belief enough to consider himself an atheist or not. We’ve come to a mutual understanding. You, however, seem to need to tear a strip off of me. I hope that it gives you some satisfaction.