Standard Disclaimer: When I talk about "angry atheists" or "anti-theists", I don't mean all atheists, just those who seem to have a deep-seated hostility towards any faith. I consider many atheists to be good and decent people (including many "angry" ones, like Hitchens), cherish some as allies (again, Hitchens for example), and fully recognize that there are many who disbelieve in God without being angry that some people feel otherwise -- I have no quarrel with such people, and am not referring to them here.

I generally like Christopher Hitchens. I generally dislike Sam Harris. Both have authored best-selling books which warn us of the pernicious evil that all forms of religious belief pose.

Hitchens' book was prompted by a question from Dennis Prager -- a question which I personally heard Hitchen's admit he had gotten wrong. (A large error, when that's your thesis sentence.)

I see Prager has provided a response to Hitchens' straw man, which, crucially, converted Prager's question -- which focused on the impact of Judaism and Christianity -- to an implication that all religion must be positive. Only an atheist would make such a mistake: all serious religious adherants admit there are good and bad strains of religion. (If not, they could not distinguish among them, nor explain why they adhered to one and not another.)

Apparently lacking this sense of nuance (sadly, like many atheist apologists) these two seem to lump all flavors of religious belief together -- as if proving that milk cows were quite dangerous by saying animals kill, and then pointing primarily to lions and wildebeest.

I'm not exaggerating much: Though Prager specifically asked if those attending a "Bible study" (implying Christians or Jews) were more or less dangerous than average citizens, Hitchens' list of places made dangerous by religious adherants ("Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad") focuses only on radical Islamists (4 cities) and nationalist armies (3 cities) -- the latter whose fight was centered on their culture and heritage, not triggered by taking the gospels (or Talmud) a bit too seriously!

But the truth is that lions aren't cows, and there's not much in common between Jains and Bahaiis (both radical pacifists) and Islamists (who were involved in the fighting in 5 of the 6 examples Hitchens cites).

Sam Harris (who is similarly fond of such argumentation) provides an amusing counterpoint to this error in his 10 myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism:

Myth #2: Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions...

Let's be honest here: Just as some of those who fight in wars around the world are Christians (even if that's not their main motivation for fighting), so also many of those who committed the worst atrocities in history were atheists (even if we can also say "atheism" wasn't their main reason for doing so).

"Theism" isn't a specific religious sect -- neither is "religion." There are meaningful differences among those who believe in the supernatural and/or a God of some sort.

Similarly, Harris admits here that there are variations among those who insist God does not exist. He is very quick to argue that some atheists aren't like others, and instruct us that all atheists should not be judged identically -- there and good and bad atheists. I agree, but wonder: Why he is incapable of judging religion by the very criteria he demands we apply to some of the world's most influential atheists?

Finally, I doubt he's noticed it, but his argument is nearly fatal to his cause: if atheists can easily be, shall we say, 'contaminated' by strains such as Marxism, Facism, or Communism -- which Harris say are "too much like religion" -- then Harris has simply admitted that atheism itself is no guard against fanatical "religous" zeal! What good then is atheism?

Worse: though Harris claims "dogmatic" atheistic regimes are merely "indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship" (as if sincere lovers of Kim Jong Il and Jesus are identical) -- it seems atheistic fanaticisms have been, numerically, even worse than the excesses Jews and Christians have fallen into -- worse, still, than even radical Islam!

Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok...

Likewise (refering back to Hitchens a moment), I'd point out the NRA and Serbia are also examples of "political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok." But that's an explanation, apparently, which can only be used to dispell the taint of sin from atheism, not theism.

Many "angry" atheists in the public eye are intelligent, personally kind, and decent people. They are often quite knowledgeable on certain topics, and are clearly capable of brilliant argument and intellectual consistency.

But, unlike most other specialists and hobbyists, these "angry" atheists seem to become dumber when they shift to their alleged specialty, employing reasoning which they themselves, by their own words, reject as unsound or immoral.

Dogmatic atheism is not a tremendously rational belief system, in my experience.