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A Really Long Essay About The Nature Of Religion

I find Dawkins troubling, because for every five intelligent things he says, he comes out with two really annoying things. He's a proselytic atheist, which is sort of hard to wrap one's head around. And he is the patron saint of atheists who think they are, axiomatically, intellectually superior to non-atheists. Typical conversation:

A: "Religious faith is for the weak-minded."

B: "What? That's an insulting thing to say."

A: "I'm sorry if you thought I was being insulting. Really, what I meant to say was that only a childish idiot could believe in something as obviously ridiculous as an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do."

B: "What? You can't be serious. I guarantee you, people who are much more brilliant than you or I have been sincere religious believers."

A: "I'm sorry if you feel I'm insulting your religious faith."

B: "I don't have any religious faith! I just think it's incredibly arrogant of you to claim that you are intellectually superior to everyone who has ever had religious faith!"

A: "I never claimed to be intellectually superior. It's just that religious beliefs are so obviously insane, how could a sane, intelligent person believe them?"

Anyway, in the interview above Dawkins makes some good points about how people need to start coming out the closet as atheists, and how society needs to be accepting of that. I believe that. I believe that people who are atheists should feel free to say so, and it shouldn't negatively affect their chances of getting elected, or hired, or whatever.

But he also says a few things that I can't agree with at all. For example, this:

    Yet moderate religion makes the world safe for extremist religion by teaching that religious faith is a virtue, and by the immunity to criticism that religion enjoys.

    The world is made safe for people like them and Osama Bin Laden because we've all been brainwashed to respect religious faith and not to criticize it with the same vigor...