[Gideon]

I wouldn't argue that such expressions of religion aren't vulgar - they are.

The thing is... it's not just religion. There's this illusion that people are rational and sane and if religion wasn't there deluding them they'd see the error of their ways.

But that's not how it works. Authoritarian psychologies do authoritarian things. And if it wasn't religion, it'd be something else. People find excuses for those things they believe or are brought up to believe, theology or politics is just the most common way those ideas get couched. Keep in mind, religion has less to do with believing in God than it is a filter we see the world with - just like politics. Even if you look at something as fierce as the abortion debate it could exist just as easily without religion being involved in it (and there are religious people on both sides of that argument, for religious reasons). Religion becomes a way of articulating a point of view as often, if not more often, than it has to do with the supernatural.

The type of thinking that Dawkins seems to really have a problem with is the same thing your average thinking religious person has a problem with - and it isn't the belief in a big man in the sky - it's reflective life, it's the unthinking pursuit and acceptance of things. The problem is these new atheists go "that's religion" and leave it at that. But that's not all religion. But if you treat it as it is you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The religious impulse isn't going anywhere (whether it's biological or a psycho-cultural construct or real) so creating common cause that places the progressives and the fundamentalists on the same side is a destructive act. They should be addressing those concerns we all have in common - feeding the poor, healing the sick, clothing the homeless, social justice, a lack of economic and political oppression, etc.

Maybe Dawkins does a bit better than that, I've only skimmed the book - I saw enough nonsense that I wasn't going to spend more time on it than that. I have heard it's a bit better than Hitchens or Harris (which I have both authors books and have read and wrote my thesis on) but it's still full of these straw man arguments.

Ultimately, crappy people do crappy things. And sometimes those crappy people are religious, sometimes they're not. I mean, hell.. if I could make a wish and turn everyone into a good secular humanist I'd do it, but that's just not how the world works.

There is PLENTY of criticism that can be leveled at religion, and as I said, Dawkins does some of that well, but reductionism is reductionism and ultimately it is always disingenuous. I've no interest in polemics, from either side.. and I'd not spend any time on a book trying to "prove" religion, either. I don't personally care if someone is an atheist, a buddhist, a wiccan or anything else. I don't think anyone has "the truth" or is even capable of such a thing. But the dialogue and conversation do not go forward by attacking those you may have common cause with and there is no progress to be made tilting at windmills.

But.. each to their own. I live hip deep in this stuff and while I think Dawkins has good motives it's just another person distorting reality. We've enough people distorting reality. He's making a good bit of cash verbalizing a very real, honest anger at all the stupidity that happens in the name of religion. But while that rage is justified and understandable, it doesn't clear up the issue any better.