A long essay worth reading: Michael Ruse on the intolerance, hero-worship, and self-righteousness of New Atheists

Curb your enthusiasm: High priests, holy writ and excommunications — how did Humanism end up acting like a religion?

The New Atheists believe that science replaces the claims about the world that religion makes — and therefore makes religion redundant.  Some of them think that a whole new moral system should be based on science. That’s sounding more and more like religion itself to me.  But the other unsettling way in which Humanism imitates religion — and perhaps the most notable one in the case of the New Atheists — is its claim that people who do not share its beliefs are not only mistaken but also deluded and perhaps even evil.  The line I quoted above about opposition to evolution being a sign of insanity and possibly wickedness comes, of course, from Richard Dawkins.

. . . In the caricaturing of ‘faith’ as murderous fundamentalism, one hears echoes of the bloody and interminable Reformation squabbles between Protestants and Catholics.  One also sees contempt for fellow human beings, many of whom are educated, thinking members of society.  One may question whether the present Archbishop of Canterbury was the man for the job, torn as his Church is over questions about women and homosexuality. One cannot doubt, however, his integrity or intelligence or Christian concern. To belittle a man such as this is to shine a light back on your own intolerance and failure to understand your species mates.  It is also, of course, to help the real enemy, those who turn their backs fully on science as they follow their religion.  Instead of making allies of those believers who hate intolerance as much as do you, everyone is at war and no proper defence is mounted against the really dangerous, the genuinely fanatical and fundamentalist.

There are other aspects of the New Atheist movement that remind me of religion.  One is the adulation by supporters and enthusiasts for the leaders of the movement.  It is not just a matter of agreement or respect, but of a kind of worship.  This certainly surrounds Dawkins . . .