And here I return to my terminological criticism. This "spiritual" side to the new anti-dogmatism is not helped by the conflation of the terms "religion" and "faith". Dennett, as one would expect from a professional philosopher, has been by far the least sloppy in his use of the terms; but he is also the most subtle and least read of four.

Harris can slide between the terms "faith" and "religion", but his sophisticated treatment of spirituality makes it clear that his real target is the dogma of faith.

Dawkins and Hitchens are the two who most often conflate religion and faith in their use of language - and they are also the two most well known. In my view, this is unfortunate. As Dennett points out at length in Breaking the Spell, religions are social institutions that are very effective at providing community, solidarity and mutual support. But they needn't be based around dogma. By being sloppy in their language, I fear the new anti-dogmatists are driving away potential allies.

An atheist couple on Thursday appealed a federal judge's decision upholding the state's law requiring schoolchildren to observe a moment of silence at the start of the day.

Mr. Mike Huckabee’s down-home, folksy media image is just a façade. What he and his supporters REALLY want to accomplish is to turn our once great nation into a theofascist state based on a literal application of the Old and New Testaments…with divinely-appointed Mr. Huckabee presiding…all the while ripping the United States Constitution and the civil society it supports to shreds.

In short, the man is dangerous with a capital "D", with the "D" standing for "Dominionism".

Dr. Taslima Nasrin has been facing extreme hardships as a consequence of threats to her life from Fundamentalist forces for her courageous advocacy of women’s rights.

This reformation must come from within the Islamic religious community. Islam must give up its global political ambitions and its claim to supremacy over all other religions. This means an end to Islamic expansionism and intolerance, and possibly also an end to Islamic ancient tradition of despotism. One can only hope that a wise and conscientious Islamic theologian, one who realizes the dangers in perpetuating the current Islamic beliefs, will come up with a formula that will allow giving up some of the basic tenets of the Qur’an.

Here's one scenario: you're 18 years old and, even though you are a member of a fundamentalist sect that generally doesn't encourage young women to go off and study, you have plans to go to college. Then one day you come home and hear that your life course has been changed just ever so slightly and you are about to marry a man who is 32 years older than you and already has a few other wives.

In They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, never arrives at a neat definition of neoconservatism. This excellent history of the movement begins in the 1930s and deftly spans decades of American politics up to the present day. His predecessors have covered much of the older terrain, but Heilbrunn performs a service by synthesizing the existing scholarship and adding valuable new morsels. On the post-Cold War era, he has filled in a bit more recent history and improved on earlier efforts like Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke's America Alone and Gary Dorrien's Imperial Designs

Forty-some-thousand poor souls are slaughtered monthly in the Congo, according to recent news reports, but what has Him yanking his golden locks is a reportedly drunk sports personality doesn’t care for him much and college basketball coach Rick Majerus has opinions.

The New York Times reported recently that mathematicians believe in God at a rate 2 1/2 times that of biologists, quoting a survey of the National Academy of Sciences. Admittedly, that's not saying much: Only 14.6 per cent of mathematicians embraced the God hypothesis, versus 5.5 per cent of biologists

Satrapi not only likes to drink. She likes to smoke, to swear, and to draw comics about sex, politics, and religion. She is every fundamentalist's nightmare. In 1994, at age 25, Satrapi left Iran for good, moved to Paris and recorded the terrors and ironies of her life under religious tyranny in two volumes of black and white drawings. Her parents, featured prominently in her account of her adolescence, still live in Iran. Her books circulate there clandestinely.

Baptists make up one of the largest and most important religious groups in America. But who are they? Where did they come from? There are more than 50 diverse Baptist groups in this country alone, according to Albert W. Wardin, author of Baptists Around the World.