I disagree. I think George Carlin was a crotchety old cantankerous old man who was very astute at seeing the silliness and inequities in life down to those niggly things we can not really put a name on to the big social problems. He was social commentary par excellence.
He did not give a fat rat's crack who agreed or not
I wasn't commenting on their opinion at all - but their delivery.
I agree with every word Richard Dawkins AND George Carlin says.
It is their delivery I disagree with. Now - to be fair, Hicks and Stanhope are much better examples than Carlin - but what I refer to is - the act of yelling AT your own audience, as if they are to blame
"YOU christians!" "YOU morons!" "YOU pro-abortion assholes!" when there are no such people in the audience.
The audience loves this, cus to them it creates the illusion that there are plenty of pro-abortion audience members, getting their skin-ful, when there aren't! 
I see wht you are saying and I dunno. What you say makes sense but I think with Dawkins you possibly have a point. Hicks more than certainly. Stanhope I dunno. Carlin, always struck me as basically doing a "I will tell you what I think and I don't give a fuck." attitude
Early Carlin, definitely, he was very calm and laid back. Same with early Hicks, actually. But both Carlin and Hicks seem - to me - to have responded to a public desire for more yelling.
Early Carlin I consider to be very, very good comedy, like when he muses about the meaning of words, and such. Early Hicks likewisely are good exampled of a calm, jaded, black dressed world-hater.
Anyway, it's not a very important point - but compare it to Dara O Briain - who does not point fingers at his audience, to find the guilty ones, but rather lays his arm around the audiences shoulders - so to speak - to laugh at the world - WITH them!
After all - they paid tickets to come hang out with him!
Dawkins' atheist preaching, it has very little merit - cus at least a comedian can use it as just a detail "am I right?" while Dawkins must base his entire monologue on ranting on to people who allready agree with him. He must either turn the whole rant into "you stupid christians" while pointing at his atheist audience, or he must turn the whole tour into a long hi-fiving extravaganza, where all he does is "christians sure are stupid, am I right?"
But yeah, to be very fair, Carlin is not the best example of an angry yeller type comedian, although in his older days, some of his routines turned into that, and I find those his least pleasing routines.
phobia.
