It's great that people are slowly catching on, that the next evolution in human thought is starting to take hold. The author however makes several crucial mistakes and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding in the position of the "new atheists" but still nice to see the article.

For example the last sentence...

[on the position of respecting religious beliefs]
"It simply reflects our deepest, democratic values. Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there's always a chance we could turn out to be wrong."

Well, he seemed to misunderstand that both Dawkins, Harris, and for that matter likely ALL the "new atheists" would gladly admit they are wrong if evidence presents itself. Ironically, he seems to fundamentally respect the beliefs of people who aren't willing to accept that they may be wrong, a stance that a great many theists will take.

I do not have a belief of any god as I do not see any proof. Any proof or reasoning I have being given for the evidence has being broken down and proven false or flawed. There are even some gods or theories about god that I find to be impossible. This does not mean I am not open to the idea of a god, but even the best proof I have heard for the existence of a god is still bullshit.

In short I am an Agnostic Atheist who is Anti-Theist about some gods.

Coward.

I was referring to Gary Wolf. My atheism is rather powerful.

So, because his atheism isn't as "powerful" as yours, he's a coward?

Precisely.

Recall Plato's allegory of the cave? The truth hurts, and to appease those who are wrong because it is polite (especially in this context) is downright cowardly.

That's a well written article. The guy makes some valid points about what he calls New Atheism. The sad fact is that religion IS politics, and you don't win in politics by being completely unyielding.

I think the important thing for "evangelical" atheists to keep in mind is that reason is (for better or worse) NOT the ultimate answer to human happiness, because there is no ultimate answer. If we lived in a completely non-religious world, people would still suffer, and politicians would still lie, and governments would still fuck the poor over.

The political reality of this is that taking a hard-line, abolutionist stance will alienate most liberal christians, who just want to live their life. I believe that the goals of Evangelical Atheism should be simple: Politically, atheists should take every opportunity to press the case for separation of church and state. Personally, we should do our best to make sure that we don't give religion a pass from criticism, but at the same time, we should focus on the individual believers... not the church itself.

The church is powerful because of its base. Erode the base, the power wanes. Taking on the institution would be foolhardy at best, and certainly not rational.

I'm sure there's some general somewhere who said something like "Knowing who to attack, and when -- these are much more important than knowing how to attack."

If nobody said that, then give me a gold star for coming up with a quote.

It certainly is a "battle for the future of civilization". The funny thing is that theists think that too. The problem with these morons is that it is their attitude of "divine intitlement" that is fucking things up for humanity as a whole.

But, pointing out that liberal theists are enabling fundies as part of atheist's "battle" is not a genocidle view that somehow we want to spark up ovens to burn believers alive as some sort of atheist "Salem". That is a false immage believers have of atheists.

Many believers agree with atheists that the fundies are rushing to their mythical utopia to end the world in their fictional sky daddy penis mesuring contest that can and will in reality wipe out the species if humanity remains ignorant to the path it is on.

But, I do get tired of believers getting angry at atheist in the passager seat shouting at the believer that they are going to run the red light and crash.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING! Is not saying, "I hate you and want to kill you".

Atheists along with many theists are warning trying to warn these nuts of all labels not to take humanity with them in their stupid sky daddy war. That is it. And it pisses me off that they are too fucking stupid to see the needless division and hate their own belief causes because their invisable dad in the sky told them they own the planet.

The alpha male mentality must be discarded if humanity expects to survive.