The boring explanation is that Laoch was taught as the feet of PZ Myers and Hitchens, who operate purely in places open for debate (atheist blogs are not like dinner tables); talk about the arguments of religious people not to them, but to audiences already sympathetic to atheism, and thus care little about principles of charity; and have a beef with religion-as-harmful-organization (e.g. “Hassidic Judaism hurts queers!”) and rather often with religious-people-as-outgroup-members (e.g. “Sally says abortion is murder because she’s trying to manipulate me!”), which interferes with their beef with religion-as-reasoning-mistake (e.g. “Sadi thinks he can derive knowledge in ways that violate thermodynamics!”).
The reading-too-much-HPMOR explanation is that Laoch is an altruistic Slytherin, who wants Knitter to think: “This is a good bunch. Not only are most people nice, but they can swiftly punish jerks. And there are such occasional jerks—I don’t have to feel silly about expecting a completely different reaction than I got, it was because bad apples are noisier.”.
The boring explanation is that Laoch was taught as the feet of PZ Myers and Hitchens, who operate purely in places open for debate (atheist blogs are not like dinner tables); talk about the arguments of religious people not to them, but to audiences already sympathetic to atheism, and thus care little about principles of charity; and have a beef with religion-as-harmful-organization (e.g. “Hassidic Judaism hurts queers!”) and rather often with religious-people-as-outgroup-members (e.g. “Sally says abortion is murder because she’s trying to manipulate me!”), which interferes with their beef with religion-as-reasoning-mistake (e.g. “Sadi thinks he can derive knowledge in ways that violate thermodynamics!”).
The reading-too-much-HPMOR explanation is that Laoch is an altruistic Slytherin, who wants Knitter to think: “This is a good bunch. Not only are most people nice, but they can swiftly punish jerks. And there are such occasional jerks—I don’t have to feel silly about expecting a completely different reaction than I got, it was because bad apples are noisier.”.
I would have thought there ain’t no such critter as “too much MoR”, but after seeing that theory… ;)