Originally posted by rwingett
It's not the Christians I'm worried about. They're just as stupid as they've always been. The problem is the atheists. The caliber of the atheist posters has plummeted in recent years. With a few exceptions, they're sounding almost as stupid as the Christians these days.
Without good quality theists then 'good quality atheism' (or agnosticism) is difficult to sustain. The reason for this is clear: to varying extents, the motivation to be inventive (or paraphrase an argument that has already been delivered in the past) correlates with the extent to which the majority of active theists are capable of following you, and their motivation to engage in a good battle. With the likes of RJHinds, RBHILL, josephw, Galveston, Dasa, Sumydid, and so on... representing the bulk of theistic "thought" then detail and ingenuity comes with an opportunity cost I and surely many other atheists aren't willing to pay.
For my part, posting here serves merely to distract me from the horrors of work, dwelling on going to work tomorrow, or honing my skills (as they pertain to work) when I'm at home - I have less patience for engaging the fundies in the battle than I have motivation for taking pot-shots at them.
There are some "non-atheists" who are comfortably more sophisticated than the crowd but their contributions are less frequent and easily obscured.