I'll take.... Grey hair for $200, Alex

Not sure I follow you, darth_josh. Are you saying I'm wrong to mention the similarities in Sagan's and Dawkins' philosophical views? Or that critics of Dawkins are wrong to compare him with Sagan, as if he should conform to someone else's methods? Or both?

I agree Dawkins' critics are misguided, but I think I can defend the similarity in their views on wonder and science. Not sure if your comments were directed at the article as a whole.

That is actually what I was saying in the post. Perhaps I wasn't clear.

The whole thing about method was really just a throw-away line to show that in fact differences in method are not that important. There is a deeper similarity, which I wanted to emphasize. I think the critics of Dawkins are focused on petty issues. The post was not supposed to be about method, it was supposed to be about a shared, common philosophy, underlying all of those different voices. I guess that's why I was confused by your response, as it seemed to be saying I shouldn't focus on method, when I wasn't even trying to.

It's like if two people are arguing over whether John Glenn or Neil Armstrong was the better astronaut, and I come along and say, "Actually, the two had more in common than they had differences. They both showed the values of X, Y, Z, and that's why they were both great astronauts. Let's focus on X, Y, and Z instead."

So I guess I'm still not clear on what you're saying. Do you still see a problem with what I was saying? If so, could you quote me to show me where? Maybe it was ambiguous language?

Don't see any pantheistic deistic whateverthefuck there. Just natural expressions of wonder. For the record: Wonderism and atheism

I still don't get what you're saying. I don't think they are that different at all. Do you actually think they are that different? To me they are peas in a pod, one slightly more wrinkly than the other. What are these Earth-shattering differences you see?

I really, truly, have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. I don't see how this is anywhere close to the territory my OP is about. Could you please put things in concrete terms, and perhaps quote me and explain your reaction to what you quote me saying?

Taking the rest of the post, and replacing the first part, and what? I don't think you finished your thought there. I certainly don't understand what you're trying to say.

My OP said:

1, A lot of people say they are very different. This is true. A lot of people do say that.

2, I don't see it that way. I think they are very similar, and the only real differences are in tone, which is trivial. Do you have a problem with that idea?

3, The similarities are significant, in that they are shared by many people who all seemed to share a core philosophy about communicating the wonder of the natural universe discovered through science. Do you disagree with that?

4, Many atheists, especially 'new atheists', share these same values/philosophy, and I think it's worth pointing this out and acknowledging it. Is there a problem with that?

From what you've written, I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say. Sorry. I'm trying to understand, but I can't figure it out. It seems disconnected from my OP, and I can't see the connection.

See, this is why I was asking you to quote me directly from the OP. Here is what I actually said in the OP link:

I clearly made several qualifications as to the subject matter of the comparison (bolded for emphasis). I'm not talking about their general lives, I'm talking about how they communicate science in regards to religion. A lot of people do, in fact, compare Sagan to Dawkins in an attempt to show that Dawkins should change to be more accommodationist. Here's an example:

Given that this is the context of comparison, I proceed to try to emphasize that aside from a minor difference in tone, their personal philosophies with regard to communicating science and religion are far more similar than those critics imagine. They are like peas in a pod in that regard, one slightly wrinklier (tone) than the other.

So, your talk of which science they study or where they grew up or whatever is completely tangential to that point, and hence why I had no idea where you were going with it.

Perhaps that's the root of our misunderstanding. Because I see it as highly significant. Have you been following the ongoing debate in the science blogs about accommodationism vs. 'new atheism'? Search: accommodationism "new atheism". It has since been framed as an 'atheist schism' (which is silly, but hey, that's what people are talking about). Search: atheist schism. This is what my post is about. If you don't see this debate as significant, then I guess it's not intended for you. However, I think it's very relevant, especially to groups like the RRS who take a strongly unapologetic approach. When faced with the critique that Dawkins (and by implication 'we') is rude and should be more like Sagan, my article provides a strong counter-argument (IMHO).

I wish you wouldn't ignore it, because it's a core topic of my post. To ignore it would be to completely miss the concluding point of the post. BTW, I use 'new atheists' there as the popular label for the popular authors of atheist books, blogs, etc. This includes people like PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, Ophelia Benson, Russell Blackford, etc.

The whole point of the post is about how the common philosophy about communicating science via wonder a) really exists, b) is mostly unrecognized, and c) is shared by many of the outspoken and popular atheists:

Given a), b), and c), I think it would be worthwhile to acknowledge this common philosophy and bring it out into the open. It can help define a subset of the recent atheism movement as more than simply 'atheists'. It also provides a well-supported method of communicating about science in relation to religion, something both Dawkins and Sagan would likely have agreed upon, despite what the critics of Dawkins say.

But that is directly relevant to the topic of attracting people to science with wonder. That's the whole reason for making the argument I'm making in the first place. People say they are so different in the communication, I say they are the same because they share this common philosophy of using wonder. That's the main point. The second point is that atheists would do well to acknowledge this, because they also (many of them) share the same philosophy.

That's probably because it is a counter-argument to a common argument about how we should communicate science/atheism with regards to religion.

I think I understand much better where you were coming from. Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. I wonder what your opinion is on the whole accommodationism/schism controversy? Do you really think it is irrelevant? I mean, there have been more than one book written on the topic (e.g. Mooney's Unscientific America). It's the basis of Stephen J. Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria Argument (NOMA).