Richard Dawkins and his comrade in atheistic arms, Christopher Hitchens, are my intellectual heroes. 

They write brilliant tomes full of coruscating wit and insightful wisdom about religion and atheism.  Their books sell by the truckload and they have had a significant influence on the intellectual landscape of their day.

Their books are scary both because their cerebral fires burns so brightly and because they are so mean and vituperative.  When I say mean, I really mean it.  Dawkins damns religious belief as a ‘‘delusion’’ and Hitchens says faith ‘‘poisons everything’’.  Atheists I meet adore them.  They lap up the abuse and repeat parts verbatim, as if intoning a divine prayer, with vengeful smiles on their dials. They are part of the so-called ‘‘new atheism’’ but in reality these authors are not that new.  Their intellectual ancestor, the utilitarian Mill, was lampooned by Charles Dickens as Mr Thomas Gradgrind in Hard Times in 1852.  Atheism is not novel.  It is venerable. And that is point.

 Atheism, tentatively founded in the 18th century Enlightenment, has been hitherto a bit of a fizzer.  Don’t be fooled by the public stature of Dawkins and Hitchens, the world is still a deeply religious place. On any measure, 85 per cent of the world believes in some faith or other.  So what is wrong here?

There are four main problems which the Dynamic Duo either ignore or exacerbate.  The main one is summed up by my mantra: ‘‘The truth, though interesting, is beside the point.’’  There are many situations where the human animal doesn’t appreciate or seek the truth.  Examples go from bad news stories, to political reality or the eternal uxorial question ‘‘Does my bum look big in this?’’  No one really appreciates the honest answer, ‘‘Yes, you look like an obese heifer whose carcase could feed three continents.’’  The universal answer given is, ‘‘You look sublime’’.   Dishonesty is marital glue.

Atheists, like me, bang on and on about truth and evidence when humanity quite blithely could not care less.  For we humans hunger after many things other than the truth.  We crave consolation in the face of death.  We desire solace for our suffering.  We need communities in which to belong.  We yearn for involving ritual.  Does a repudiation of God deliver on these needs and desires?  No, for such tedious arguments of disparagement do nothing to assist humanity with these issues. 

But religions do and often do it quite well.  Faith is social glue.  Sometimes bizarre and destructive glue but glue nonetheless.  So really Dawkins and Hitchens work is a distraction and an irrelevance to those ensconced in a cozy faith.  It probably just entrenches the faith.

The second issue is related to the first.  It is easy to destroy something but harder to build it up.  We don’t need yet another rebuttal but a positive tract, which, in a fun accessible way, creates a beguiling alternative to supernatural faith.  I have had a go at writing a godless gospel and it is very hard.  It is a far more intellectually demanding task that repudiation.  We need them to do more of this sort of intellectual grunt.  Adulterating the words of the great frog philosopher, ‘‘It’s so easy being mean.’’  What is much harder is being constructive.

The third issue is organisational.  More difficult than writing yet another book is building and nourishing an establishment that serves the people who don’t believe but still have needs.  Any drop-kick can write a book.  Even I have done that.  But to set up, maintain and grow an international alternative organisation to faith is much more intellectually difficult.  Atheism has no infrastructure or corporate entities.  It is bereft and organisationally bankrupt.  We want our heroes not to waste their time pontificating in yet another book but do the real hard yards in establishing our infrastructure.  John Wesley understood this.  The Jesuits understand this.  The New Atheists don't or can't.

Finally, if we can’t create our own, then we have to merge with the enemy.  Within the broad church of faith are many who are sympathetic and quite godless.  This issue is deserving of a blog of its own but let me quickly assert that there are many God-bothering atheists in churches, synagogues and mosques.  They belong to religions not for some supernatural God.  They are there for the three C words, to wit, continuity, community and culture.  They are our natural allies.  So we have to grow out of just bashing faith.

We have to mature beyond criticism and work with tolerant people of diluted belief to see what we have in common and share infrastructure and ideas.  That whole process is utterly undermined by the belligerence of New Atheism.  Dawkins and Hitchens, and other warriors, are actually an impediment to the growth of unbelief in large parts of our community. Counter-intuitive though it may be, our best and brightest advocates may be our main bulwarks to progress.  What do you think?  Is this fair to the Dynamic Duo?

Dick Gross is an atheist.  His latest book, a secular view of the crucifixion could paradoxically make a great Christmas present.  You can look at it here.