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<\/a><\/div>\nSometimes, when I complain about certain kinds of rhetoric used by atheist leaders, I think I\u2019m not being clear enough. \u00a0When I complain about people who are tarred as \u2018angry atheists\u2019 I don\u2019t have a problem with feelings of frustration and urgency \u2014 there\u2019s a lot to be upset about<\/a>.<\/p>\n So instead getting sucked into condemning anger \u2014 a rhetorical trick that delegitimizes any strongly expressed critique of the status quo \u2014 let\u2019s say I have a problem with choler.<\/p>\n Choler<\/a> was one of the four humors<\/a>. \u00a0It\u2019s also known as yellow bile and\u00a0biliousness, wrath, and\u00a0irascible\u00a0bad temper are exactly what it was thought to produce.\u00a0 What I\u2019m trying to speak against is the practice of just venting our spleens and then patting ourselves on the back as though we made an impression or any kind of argument at all. \u00a0Let me give an example.<\/p>\n P.Z. Myers is an excellent biologist and is very good at presenting cogent debunkings of anti-evolution arguments, but his confrontational reputation and the attention it draws seems to push him to pick dumber fights. \u00a0I thought one of his recent twitter fights (pasted below) was a puerile waste of time, and then Myers compounded the fault by\u00a0promoting\u00a0it to his followers as though he scored a coup<\/a>.<\/p>\n