God is great"). Conversations about the practical impossibility of God's existence and the science-based irrationality of an afterlife slid seamlessly into xenophobia over Muslim immigration or the practice of veiling. The New Atheists became the new Islamophobes, their invectives against Muslims resembling the rowdy, uneducated ramblings of backwoods racists rather than appraisals based on intellect, rationality and reason. "Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death.

The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

We do not respect people's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons. If my reasons are good enough for believing what I believe, you will helplessly believe what I believe. I will give you my reasons and reasons are contagious. That is what it is to be a rational human being.

[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.

While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive.

Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am extremely critical of all religious faiths.

An average Christian, in an average church, listen to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse -- and there have been some extraordinary arrogant scientists.