I usually like Matt Yglesias a lot, but this just pisses me off: I think another way of thinking about it is that Dawkins has basically tried to reformulate atheism in the evangelizing and illiberal mode of illiberal evangelizing religion. Thus, much as right-wing Christians and right-wing Muslims can simultaneously loathe each other and have structurally similar views, so, too, can “new atheists” join the party. Elsewhere you have a liberal ethic adhered to by people who identify with different spiritual traditions and also by what I think are “normal” atheists, just people who don’t identify with a religious tradition, rather than people who want to construct a self-conscious atheist identity and go to battle over it. First, conflating someone like Dawkins (who is a little pissed at religion for my taste, but otherwise a great educator and science popularizer, and quite liberal) with bona-fide douchebags like Harris and Hitchens is stupid. Second, it's a hideous exaggeration to