> "Why are the "neo-atheists" of today so obsessed with God's nonexistence that they go on media rampages, wear T-shirts proclaiming their absence of belief, or call for a militant atheism?"

De Waal must live in a unique area. For every outspoken atheist I've seen on American TV (few if any of whom I'd describe as "militant" and none wearing atheist T-shirts), I've seen a score of clergymen and lay fudamentalists, some of them raving about a so-called "War on Christmas" (which allegedly has been going on for at least a decade with no obvious success) and now a follow-up "War on Easter."

They seem to believe that Christians are, really, a persecuted minority.