What many religious people do is define any criticism of their religion as an attack.
This is their reactionary stance against non-believers.

That's right. atheists are bullies, poor listeners, have a new belief system, are militant, are quasi-religious, act just like fundamentalists... and that's why poor old besieged religion has had to resort to excommunication, ostracism, fatwas and heresy laws in order to defend itself.

Richard Dawkins has been accused of this despite his reasoned calm approach to the subject. He is open-minded and interviews many fanatical religious people with the true purpose of inquiry, not censuring.

And he's a very good listener who responds to his opponents by addressing what they say with calm, reasoned and measured words.