Andy – I get the sense you are doing me the courtesy of excessive diplomacy for which I am grateful.

Perhaps you should listen to the tone of Jillette’s comments as it’s difficult for the printed word to capture the full extent of his smirking condescension.

Another part of the context which is relevant is that the “This I Believe” series has generally been very classy, taking the high road intellectually and artistically. Jillette’s piece stands out as an exception to that rule. His theology and philosophy is cartoonish and deliberately insulting without carrying the compensatory burden of being thoughtful. It is also hypocritical in that he asserts that believers are saying “shut up” while he is obviously doing the exact same thing.

While I can see your point that theological debate shouldn’t be exempt from truth-telling and a willingness to give offense, I guess I disagree with you to a certain extent. On the narrow point, as mentioned above, Jillette picked a bad venue to play the clever obnoxious atheist. But more broadly religion strikes me as precisely the sort of subject one should try a little harder not to cause offense about, in part because faith of this kind will always be slightly immune to pure reason. That doesn’t mean avoiding the truth or anything of the sort. But if one is going to cause offense it should at least be done in a way that justifies the offense.

But lastly I’m a bit confused. You simultaneously seem to be criticizing me for offering an “angry” response to Jillette while at the same time you seem to think theological debate should be blunter. Was I being insufficiently blunt or too blunt in my “anger”? As a non-believer were you taking offense?