I don't feel persecuted. As for knocking anything off, I have as much right to my opinion as jack does and to express it here on Mudcat. I really am not trying to win any argument here but when I see a hero of mine such as Dawkins attacked and misinterpreted, I really have to speak up in his behalf.

Atheism is another example of misunderstood positions. There are atheists who are dogmatic and foolish because they are human. That doesn't mean that someone with a differing opinion shouldn't express it. When this discussion becomes about personalities and ad hominem, it should be corrected. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism have set themselves up as the only religion and way to think, thereby it is necessary to criticize them without taking the criticism personally.

If the discussion is about the religion and not the person who either believes or disbelieves, then some value is offered.

Christianity has gone through many cycles of historical change even before Constantine.
It has been reinterpreted and misinterpreted starting with ignorant (unread) scribes through agenda-driven clerics. Most of the disciples who reputedly wrote in the bible wrote their pieces when the historical mythical Jesus was dead according to latest historical records. Jesus isn't mentioned, for example, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The King James edition was written to keep the various warring factions of religion from being at each other's throats. So what is Christianity? It appears to be a historical hodge-podge.
The same can be said for other supposedly holy books. Their value is only predicated on whether you believe them to be true accounts.

All this said, I think the Beatitudes have something of value to say. Their implication in the parables are decidedly anti-war. The quotes attributed to Jesus in the King James are contradictory in other parts of the bible.   Some of the rules about selling daughters into slavery are ridiculous and dangerous when you consider that slavery in the US in the 1800's was predicated on religious beliefs.

It is significant that Thomas Jefferson, a slave-holder, excised many nutty parts of the King James and it published it as the Jefferson bible.

I am making no personal attacks, here and attempting to keep away from ad-hominem.

The reason that this thread is ambiguous is that the definitions of atheism vary depending on the nature of the criticism.   I maintain that all it really means is non-belief and whenever that is expressed, it engenders hostility by the "faithful".