ANDREWR, you are simply an arrogant ass. Just because you're a prolific writer - as is obvious from your overly long, self righteous screed, doesn't mean that your anger adds anything interesting to this discussion. You meander along, blasting away at anything and everything that happens to enter your mind at that second without the slightest structure of thought, as if only you and your atheist friends are the only enlightened people in the world. You do not understand people who are more spiritual than yourself, and unfortunately you haven't been blessed with that gift and never will experience anything beyond what you can see, touch, and feel. I'm truly sorry for your personal limitations, but that doesn't mean anyone appreciates your condescending rants. The experience of God is as real to us as science is to you. And by the way, I'm an EE and both happen to fit into my life and belief system rather nicely. I'm just so sick of the anger that you militant atheists spew all over anyone who has faith. And by the way, without organized religion, there would be a lot more hungry, homeless people in this world. In fact, helping others is a main focus of most churches, and members spend hundreds of hours volunteering their time. Regardless of one's view of the reality of religion, if you think that' a bad thing then your anger is beyond help and you deserve our pity. But gosh, have a nice meaningless life.

“Jesus, like Jeremy Paxman, asked a lot of questions.”

My four year old nephew asks a lot of questions as well. What a perfectly trite comment. Just to accept the premise for a second though; just to give it more credence than it deserves, let’s just do a quick comparison with someone who actually did believe in the dialectic (Jesus didn’t by the way).

Here are some quotes attributed to Socrates:

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”
“To find yourself, think for yourself.”
“understanding a question is half an answer”

Now this guy was genuinely in the business of asking questions. Now let’s look at a few quotes attributed to Jesus:

Matthew 5:43-47
Matthew 6:34
Matthew 7:12
Matthew 22:36-40
Mark 10:42-45
Mark 8:34-38
John 18:36
John 3:16-17
Luke 11:9-10
Matthew 26:63-64

Now, maybe I’m not reading these right but they do strike me as being a little absolutist in their tone, content and overall message. They are possible some of the most arrogant proclamations I have ever heard. Now, if you dig this guy, fine, have it your way (or his way) but don’t try and suggest that this guy asked questions to try and get to some deeper truth. He’s already decided the answer before he’s asked the question so what’s the point?

“The New Atheists – notably Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris – tend not to ask so many questions, preferring instead to tell us about theology and science, ethics and history.”

Now this I find to be the most incredible statement in the entire article. I have to ask, are you being serious? Let’s take them one at a time.

Richard Dawkins – Evolutionary Biologist and author. Now, I may have misunderstood but isn’t it the job of scientist to ask questions, suggest hypotheses without assuming the answer, scrutinize the work of their peers and offer themselves up to the scrutiny of others? I’ve listened to a number of Dawkin’s lectures and the guy asks questions, ok.

Christopher Hitchens – Journalist. Need I say anymore!

Daniel Dennet – Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist. Again, are you kidding?

Sam Harris – Philosopher and Neuroscientist. Now this is the big one for me. I
challenge you to point to a single Sam Harris lecture or debate where he doesn’t ask questions or present thought experiments that involve the listener having to ask questions of themselves. It’s part of the guy’s method and technique.
So now we’ve dealt with that fatuous remark, let’s move on.

“Thinking about this objectively, they said, freed from the instincts, emotions, hopes and all the other subjective sentiments that cloud the light of reason, what evidence have you that God exists? Most of the authors of the anti-anti-God polemics that followed in their wake took the bait and found themselves dancing to a tune they didn’t choose.”

What other tune is there to dance to? Either God exists or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, or more specifically, there is no evidence to suggest that he does, every religion that claims his existence falls at the first hurdle.

“Instead, it explores Christianity from the inside, recognising that as human beings are quite important to the religion, to discuss it without reference to the human is silly.”

Well, of course it would be silly: because Christianity is so self-evidently man-made, not god made. Its obscene immorality, its internal inconsistencies and contradictions, its power-seeking representatives – all of these point to what should be an obvious conclusion to any thinking person.

“It is a mistake, he writes early on, “to suppose that it is assent to the propositions that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary.”

I could have said that, I’m pretty sure I have said that in fact, and I don’t believe in any of the BS. What I would say is that the problem’s with “feelings” is that is all they are. They are subjective and abstract and transient and should not be assumed to confirm anything within your own personal choice of theological nonsense. It’s just a non sequitur to suggest that a feeling confirms the truth of a 2000 year old doctrine.

“This is courageous for at least three reasons”

This isn’t even courageous for one reason. Nor is it insightful or witty or original.

“Unapologetic successfully skewers various atheist holy cows, including the embarrassingly anodyne, marketing-savvy advice offered by the British Humanist Association’s bus advertising campaign in 2009 or John Lennon’s dreadful “Imagine” (“the My Little Pony of philosophical statement”).”

“atheist holy cows”. Be serious. I could take apart “Imagine” in five minutes (by which time my steak would be done – made from holy cow by the way). As for a slogan on a bus: small fry, child’s play, a minor thing.

“smudged over with half-legible religious scribbling”.

Again, these religions do not exist without the “religious scribbling”. This kind of liberation theology is intellectually dishonest and, furthermore, both insulting and condescending to the individuals who actually take their religion’s seriously.
“Spufford is scrupulously honest”

He is scrupulously dishonest about what the majority of Christians tell me they believe on a weekly basis whether directly, or through various media.

“And he understands that the Christian answer to this pain, both within the human heart and beyond it, must rest on Christ and, in particular, his death.”

And now we get to it. You couldn’t quite help yourself could you? Here it is, rolled out again for all to see, the most pernicious Christian doctrine of all: vicarious redemption.
Why is it pernicious? Well, because it celebrates a single human sacrifice as though it was effective and in doing so, negates individual responsibility, providing the individual is willing to suspend their critical faculties and believe the ridiculous. It is my opinion that personal responsibility is a relatively sound foundation for morality making this doctrine wholly immoral due to its negation of individual responsibility. In other words, it’s scapegoating.

“Unapologetic is unlikely to persuade anyone who thought The God Delusion was a good book.”

The God Delusion is incompatible with Unapologetic so your statement is completely without content. Switch the book titles in the sentence and you will see what I mean.