Let me fist say that the headline to my response was not written by me, but by my editors at On Faith. I would not have and do not use words like "supernatural" and it certainly would not have been my choice to signal the point I was trying to make in my entry.
Secondly, thanks for all the comments. I especially enjoyed the high brow scorn of Scrivener and Henry James. Clasic stuff. You are making this even more fun than I thought it would be. And for those who have called me a fundie, LOL.
The point here is that the new atheists set themselves against the stereotypical conservative, blind-faith and/or apologetics-oriented religious (and esp. Christian) leaders, theologians, people in-the-pews and writers. Additionally, they also set their arguments against popularized, frequently dumbed-down, and simply mischaracterized theological positions. They thus become fundamentlists in their own way. In so doing, they set up straw men and, of course, easily trample all over them. If they were responding to more sophisitcated positions and people -- those, I would argue, that represent real religion and spirituality - the debate would be taken more seriously. See Stephen Prothero's review of Hitchens in the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050301907.html
It would be good to hear from some folks who are educated in religion and theology and who have spent time around people of faith addressing the same issues that the new atheists are now addressing. This is, in fact, about to happen from some legitimate scholars. I am looking forward to the ongoing discussion.
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