Michael Dowd, the peculiar author of Thank God for Evolution, has a strange podcast up that promotes the New Atheists because they are the new prophets — we’re telling it like it is, and religious folks need more of that. He also urges people to read Pharyngula, or, if they want something a little gentler, to read Richard Dawkins’ site…ah, flattery.

Anyway, the gist of his argument is that “The religion that the New Atheists are attacking is otherworldly, superstitious religion when it’s interpreted as objectively real. And that’s not where the power of our religious language lies…”, which is, in part, the point I was making when I criticized those faith-heads who make up pseudo-scientific explanations for the miraculous. Of course, I disagree that there is any power in religious language, except as potent mind-games to tap into kinks and biases in human psychology.