Conviction and even passion are one thing. Radicalism is a different animal altogether, because it presupposes the annihilation of its nemesis through the deep, and often cohersive change of its fundamentals. Radicalism isn't concerned with persuasion. It needs to trump, conquest, crush and vaporize any idea that doesn't fit it's tight belief system. Ridiculing the adversary from the onset instead of getting to know what he thinks and why he thinks that way is but a sign of radicalized thinking.
A prominent atheist, Ed Brayton, wrote that "ridicule may lawfully be employed where reason has no hope to success", and some in this forum seem to wholeheartedly agree with this proposition. However, they should first consider what law allows them to ridicule, and, second, if they have tried hard enough to use reason to conclude that its hopeless to keep using it. Usually they are too lazy, and it doesn't take long for the ridiculing to start. That laziness is also a sign of radicalized thinking.
Let me give you a small but tragic example of the connection between radical thinking and laziness. In Cambodja, during the Khmer Rouge regime, the government arrested, tortured and executed anyone suspected of not strictly conforming to their rules. One of those rules was that everyone should be forcefully moved to the countryside and live and work in farming communities. Professionals and intellectuals were, thus, automatically considered "enemies of the state". Anyone found requiring glasses was summarily considered a traitor, because, as the government considered, they likely spent too much time reading books instead of working. No government official would consider investigating if such person needed glasses for other sort of reason other than "reading too much and working too less". The result was execution. Radical thinking leads to lazy.
Eden
