The New Atheists loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it

I've been busy of late with the development of an interface for a website. The brief is very tight. I've been trying a number of different approaches to getting the required data into the "right" place to make sense for the users (without any usability testing) and ensuring that the "clickable menu system" provides access to the underlying data in a meaningful fashion AND achieving these two things without moving outside the "no more than twelve top-level terms leading to no more than twelve discrete elements". Ouch. All this meant that I have been neglecting writing here -- and nearly missed the atheism story which I picked up from The Edge.

Madeleine Bunting says (The Guardian 7 May): "Anti-faith proselytising is a growth industry. But its increasingly hysterical flag-bearers are heading for a spectacular failure."

Not only is it worth reading this article but looking at all of Bunting's columns for her views. My personal belief in God is actually strengthened by reading comment from or about the likes of Richard Dawkins. And, while I don't go out of my way to read his books, my son-in-law has them, and ones from similar authors, and I will often skim through.