To regret religion is to regret polio, AIDS and genocide.

There's a meme going around or at least a phrase that's popular describing atheist authors of recent works about religion. They are being referred to as the New Atheists. Theodore Dalrymple calls them neo-atheists in this essay. Atheists aren't new and there's not much new about the form that atheism takes in Dawkins, Dennett, Harris or Myers. Dalrymple claims to also be an unbeliever but I'm not convinced of that by reading his essay. He seems to believe in something supernatural or at least he has some very strange arguments in the piece wherein he tries to show religions contribute at least some good to civilization. The excellent prose not withstanding, I think his arguments are bunk and far too labored to be worth much attention. As usual, many others have beat me to this and did a far better job than I can. PZ was out of town and only inflicted a flesh wound on Dalrymple but the commenters there show why Pharyngula has a bazillion hits per day and finished him off in a bloody frenzy. See comment #21 by Hank Fox in particular.