The difference between New Atheists and Old Atheists

I've noticed that 'New Atheists' have been making a bit of a stir in the past couple of years. The New Atheism movement includes people like Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett. They have attracted a lot of support on the internet with lay-philosophers. What I will term 'Old Atheists' are those philosophical atheists of the past couple of centuries and further who did/do not believe in the existence of God; people like Nagel, Hume and Russell come to mind.

There are several differences between the two atheist groups. New Atheists tend to approach the God question from a scientific perspective whereas Old Atheists usually considered science incapable of answering the God question; New Atheists are far more 'evangelistic' in promoting atheism; and New Atheists generally see religion as actively harmful to society.

But I think that beyond these surface differences, there lies one key difference which leads to the others: New Atheists think that the question of God is easy. That's the difference. They think it's obvious that God doesn't exist and anyone who believes in God has either been brainwashed or exposed to misinformation. Whereas most of the Old Atheist group had great respect for theists (Nagel in particular, who wondered if anyone could objectively answer the God question and truly not care what the answer was), the New Atheists see theists as almost mentally deficient. I think that the reason for this is that the New Atheists have (without exception, as far as I am aware), not had any academic philosophical experience, and are blissfully unaware of the many philosophical arguments for God. I am reminded of Dawkins' God Delusion where he, in the course of a single A5 page, 'disproves' four of Aquinas' five proofs for God. He takes three lines over the First Cause, First Mover and Cosmological arguments combined. I suppose perhaps the New Atheists are not unaware of the philosophical arguments, they just think that science is better placed to answer the question (which is of course a philosophical position!).

It is the fact that the New Atheists think that the answer to the God Question is easy which leads to their choice of science over philosophy as the means of determining the existence of God (as choosing philosophy would no doubt mean that they could no longer think it easy); it is this fact which also leads to their atheistic evangelism, because of course beating the theists will be 'easy'; and it is this fact which leads to their belief that religion is harmful to society, because there is no doubt that it's essentially brain washing.

Regrettably, the New Atheists have managed to raise up a generation of internet 'thinkers' who, well, have no idea what they're talking about.

EDIT: Turns out that Dennett has a PhD in philosophy, although his main focusses are on philosophy of biology, mind and science, not religion. Harris has a BA in philosophy, and Hitchens has a BA in PPE. I wonder which one he dropped... (not sarcasm)