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Originally Posted by Mondak
Theists feel intense cognitive dissonance when presented with atheists. These conversations usually result in anger on the part of the theist. This anger is the precurser to violence, even if the individual them self never resorts to it. They simply have no other course open to them.
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I don't think this is true at all. From what I've seen, most theist on atheist conversations result in anger on the part of all involved, and the anger has less to do with who was right than with the fact that conversations like that tend to bring out the inner douchebag. There is no shortage of misplaced smug self righteousness on either side of the debate.
What you're claiming seems to me to be more like rationalization, perhaps a tad self serving) of the communication problems inherent between two fundamentally divergent perspectives. Cognitive dissonance would only come into play if the theist in question believed that faith and reason weren't compatible. Some theists do some theists don't.
And as far as Ayn Rand and reason vs. brutality, didn't one of the protagonists in The Fountainhead rape on of the other protagonists into loving him? Isn't her version of a free market utopia based on the rich, intelligent, strong people (I guess for her these words are synonyms) force the stupid, slovenly, poor folk to submit?
Aside from that, I think it is generally a stretch to claim that men ever really deal with one another from a basis of pure reason.