The big problem here is that while atheists think that they are the enlightened ones and that they know better, there are many more Christians that think the same about themselves. Take a look around. People who think they know better than others about one thing or another are pretty ubiquitous. What makes atheists think that their possessing 'knowledge of the truth' is a new or even significant? :rolli:
You know how annoying those evangelist street preachers are, right? The ones that stand outside pubs at 1am on a Friday night telling us 'the truth' we need to know about Jesus. Imagine what it would feel like for Christians if you stood outside a church after Sunday service and gave them your special message of 'truth'. Because that's essentially what is being advocated here by Dennett.
Dennett advocates writing about the truth to the masses. He insists on persuading them by reason. He does not advocate on forcing his views on others by being intrusive. There is a big difference between following somebody around and yelling your message out to them, or shoving your documents in their face and simply writing a book about what you have to say.
If you are doing one, it is much easier for a person who does not want to hear about your views to ignore you. If you are doing the other, doing so is substantially more difficult. In summary, Dennett does advocate revealing what what he thinks the truth is to others, however there are important differences between him and the evangelists. He supports his views with arguments and scientific discoveries. The evangelists do not. He is also much less intrusive.
That is off point however. My question is as follows; is Dennett still too intrusive? Is it a good idea to mess with people's lives, even if we have every reason to believe that we have the truth. In other words, is Dennett's work really doing more good than harm?
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Summary:Your suggestion, as I understand it is that it does harm by being intrusive, as he is being intrusive in the similar sense as Evangelists are. My retort to this is that he is much less intrusive than they are, therefore less hamrful in this regard. Secondly he is less harmful than the evangelists because there are more good reasons to believe that his message is true than that of the evangelists is.