I also posted the original article from Salon.
I'm a political and social independent moderate. I'm liberal on some issues and conservative on others. I don't see how my lack of belief in a god requires me to be a straight up liberal.
Pinker is controversial because he is dismissive and contemptuous of anyone who disagrees with his highly debatable propositions, and he presents dubious political opinions as mere objective analysis of data.
I don't follow any of these folks well enough to make a sweeping opinion of them but I like what little I've heard from Pinker. I do think he's a dandy and that suggests he's "sensitive" to being brushed off but a personal trait is hardly a good reason to dismiss an idea. I think his idea about progress is not something to brush off. FWIW, I find many Atheists to arrogant, dismissive, and rather borish but I like their reasoning power. Gore Vidal dismissed Hitchins, as his successor, and he's never gotten over that rebuke. Been trying to prove Gore wrong ever since. The problem is that Gore, himself a bit arrogant, was right to do so as he wasn't yet dead. Kind of insensitive question for Gore, I thought, and it made him bristle. Some faults are at least funny.
AS IF any group with one (non) belief must be or should be or even could be cohesive on other things? What kind of "thinking" is this?
I consider the condition of being atheist to be a response to a single question. It means that a person is not persuaded that a God exists. I would end the definition there.
It does not imply that the person has any particular moral, cultural or political position.
It troubles me that so many people think the word carries or even should carry additional baggage.
That’s why I avoid the word in describing myself. I prefer non-theist.
"It does not imply that the person has any particular moral"
. . . a counter example :