These are my comments regarding de Waal's piece.

"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? What does atheism have to offer that's worth fighting for?"

Some do, some don't but the fact that many Christians are so intolerant of anyone who calls themselves an atheist and are so insulted personally that they go on a rampage to condemn those with whom they don't agree, become so arrogant in their belief system, this is the real message of the intolerance as it is practiced today by religious people and evidenced by some on Mudcat.

"They speak of "coming out," a terminology borrowed from the gay movement, as if their nonreligiousness was a forbidden secret that they now want to share with the world."

For an self-proclaimed "apathist" this would not be a problem as long as he didn't advertise his non-religiousness widely and for many centuries "atheism" was a forbidden secret. de Waal just had other things to do. You could add to the term "homophobe" and "Islamophobe", "atheo-phobe".

"Dogmatists have one advantage: they are poor listeners."

I agree with this statement. But I think you have to exempt Dawkins from this in that he is a very good listener and hence not a dogmatist.

"I am as sickened as the next person, but if Harris's quest is to show that religion fails to promote morality, why pick on Islam?"

"Certainly "Non-belief in a god" is not a religion. But I don't think anyone in the history of this planet has said that it was."

This is untrue. All these threads generalizing about atheism belies that claim.

The "neo-atheist" canard is a media publicity stunt organized by religious zealots.
Atheists (for lack of a better term) have always been hounded and diced and quartered by religious fanatics who just can't let it alone and feel as though they have been personally attacked which is absurd. They are analogous to the self-styled patriots of the United States who keep attacking anyone that is critical of how US policy is carried out with the slogan "USA! USA!" Their slogan might be "Jesus Saves!" or something like that.

I think this is Harris' weakness. Every religion has its share of equal atrocities.

" Isn't genital mutilation common in the United States, too, where newborn males are routinely circumcised without their consent? We surely don't need to go all the way to Afghanistan to find valleys in the moral landscape."

Yes and this too is a product of religious belief.

"If some religions are worse than others, then some must be better."

I don't subscribe to that theory at all. They are all equally reprehensible.

"Then again, I think this is the first "atheist" thread in quite some time, that may have been actually started by an atheist. I think all the others were started by religious people."

Thanks, Joe. And his statement proves my point. Where is this "humility" that is supposed to be reflective of Christians exemplified in the Beatitudes? You won't find it here
on Mudcat among the judgmental and angry believers.