Do not believe

Damon Linker, writing in the TNR, says that the New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens) are themselves intolerant:

"Yet the fact remains that the atheism of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens is a brutally intolerant, proselytizing faith, out to rack up conversions."

Yes, the New Atheists are proselytizing—they are trying to argue their case. In the sense that they are out to convert people to their point of view, then yes they are out for conversions. And yes, they are intolerant of faith, that is, the willingness to believe things without evidence. If faith merely resulted in silly beliefs with no other effect on society, we might be more tolerant of it, but in fact faith plays a major role in terrible tragedies, like 9/11, violence in the Middle East, and deadly riots over Muhammad cartoons.

Of course many people of faith do not engage in such moral atrocities, so there is an important distinction to be made between virulent and benign faith. Dennett, in particular, does a good job of distinguishing between the two. Dennett and Harris are less kind to religious moderates. In my view, we may be tolerant of virulent faith legally, but we should not tolerate it morally. As for benign faith, though I see no reason to believe in its claims, I don’t think it is so very harmful to society. So I don’t see such an urgent need to crusade against them. But I do think we ought to remember that virulent faith and benign faith share some things in common (i.e., the willingness to accept propositions without evidence) and we religious moderates owe it to themselves to remember this fact.

More importantly, what I think we ought to crusade for is the inclusive treatment of atheists in society (they are the single group, besides criminals, who are most discriminated against in seeking public office). Linker says:

"The United States remains a very religious nation. While there are small communities of atheists, agnostics, and skeptics in every state, and substantial ones in a few--Washington state leads the country with 25 percent of its residents claiming to worship no God; North Dakota comes in last with 3 percent--there aren't nearly enough unbelievers to leave a significant mark on the nation's culture or politics as a whole."

He exposes how poorly organized atheists are. Atheists are the second-largest “denomination” in America (after Catholicism), but have no effective unity. And there is only one openly atheist member of Congress (Pete Stark, from CA)—though surely many members of Congress are closet atheists. Certainly atheism needs a better PR campaign, but you have to give the New Atheists credit for bringing attention to the discrimination against their people.