By ROBERT WRIGHT - FOREIGN POLICY
Added: Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:00:00 UTC

Thanks to mordacious1 for the link
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_anti_god_squad?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

Three years ago Wired magazine popularized the term "New Atheism" with a cover story about the "crusade against belief" launched by Richard Dawkins (No. 18), Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. (Christopher Hitchens, No. 47, filled out the roster later.)

Now the crusade is encountering powerful and possibly pivotal resistance.

It isn't that the citadels of faith are rolling back the tide of unbelief. Among intellectuals -- a target audience of the New Atheists -- professing traditional faith is no more common than it was three years ago, and may even be less common.

But the New Atheists' main short-term goal wasn't to turn believers into atheists, it was to turn atheists into New Atheists -- fellow fire-breathing preachers of the anti-gospel. The point was to make it not just uncool to believe, but cool to ridicule believers.

And this year doubts about that mission have taken root among the New Atheists' key demographic: intellectuals who aren't religious and aren't conservative. Even on the secular left, the alarming implications of the "crusade against religion" are becoming apparent: Though the New Atheists claim to be a progressive force, they often abet fundamentalists and reactionaries, from the heartland of America to the Middle East.
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_anti_god_squad?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

TAGGED: ATHEISM, COMMENTARY