I actually think he's well meaning but, if you'll pardon my French, he's a bit of a wanker. He's a silver tail, born to luxury, who writes little bookies for everyday ordinary folks, you know the type he doesn't actually socialise with, so as to bring philosophy and meaning into their hum drum lives. Oh how nice for him. A journalist once nailed him about how much he really knew about everyday people working their tails off to survive, and he babbled on about how he can sympathise and empathise and generalise with them and their struggles (no doubt in his multimillion dollar apartment in London). He's a kind of atheist, but tie him down and you have to be good. He thinks atheists should emulate the social aspects of religion, although he doesn't recognise that church social interaction is in decline, and anyway there are better models. A couple of years ago he made an utterance about creating Atheism 2, gentler and kinder, or something like that, gave a talk on TED, and the atheist world seemed to me to yawn with indifference. I watched it and still couldn't work out what he was saying. He turns up here in Australia occasionally and the new age set and the sort of religious progressives gush over him, but in my view he makes little or no REAL contribution to the global atheist debate other than vague motherhood statements, doesn't inspire me in any way like the atheist activists (Dawkins et.al) do, and I see him as a pop philosopher who has etched out a nice little market selling pop philosophy books. Frankly, I wish he would stay out of the atheist movement and debate. He brings little or nothing to it. If others like him, well that's fine. But I groan every time I see him.