I take a live and let live attitude toward religion - my beliefs can probably best be described as agnostic, tending to notional Christianity. Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, has decided that any religious belief is not only incorrect, but should be stamped out. If he wants to evangelize atheism, that's fine - more power to him. This (from Wired) is the road to you know where, paved with intentions that I'm not sure how to classify:

"How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?" Dawkins asks. "It's one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?"

Well, that's just great. He has his belief, which he cannot prove scientifically (he admits as much here):

"There's an infinite number of things that we can't disprove," he said. "You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it's wrong to say therefore we don't need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don't need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There's an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there's not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it."

Lacking an actual argument, he just goes ad homeneim. Great use of the scientific method there, dude. Based on the article, he seems to think that atheism will usher in a new age of reason, untainted by fanaticism. Here, he's pretty clear about that:

For the New Atheists, the problem is not any specific doctrine, but religion in general. Or, as Dawkins writes in The God Delusion, "As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."

There was a movement that had that theory - perhaps Dawkins has heard of it. It worked out so well for the millions and millions of people sacrificed on that particular altar.

People like to believe in things. Remove deist belief, and that need won't go away - it will simply shift to some other kind of belief. Take a look at the far reaches of the environmental movement, for instance - if that's not secular religion, then nothing is. Dawkins has an abiding faith in the idea that "reason" can save people from fanaticism. History simply doesn't bear that out. The Soviet Communists and the German Nazis didn't kill for God - but kill they did. I fail to see how Dawkins' faith is any better than the people who walk my neighborhood handing out pamphlets. At the very least, they aren't trying to get children forcibly removed in order to teach them a "higher truth".

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