I just finished Chris Hedges book "When Atheism Becomes Religion", about the movement of the "new atheists". It is really disappointing

I knew that Hedges is a gifted polemicist, but in this book he makes exactly the same mistake as those he criticizes (Dawkins, Hitchens et al...) : He chooses the most extreme persons, looks for the most extreme statements from their books, and then builds a straw man out of it, which he can attack.

Here's a quote from the book:
"The agenda of the new atheists, however, is disturbing. These atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists. They propose a route to collective salvation and the moral advancement of the human species through science and reason. The utopian dream of a perfect society and a perfect human being, the idea that we are moving toward collective salvation, is one of the most dangerous legacies of the Christian faith and the Enlightenment."

If that were true, then Dawkins, should he ever gain political power, would build some kind of new Stalinist empire. That is absurd.
The essential difference: The new atheists want to improve (not: perfect !) the situation of mankind and they don't want to create a "new man" like the fascist and communist utopists of the 20th century.
Even if the new atheists are fanatics, they are harmless fanatics. They do not want to torture, imprison or kill those who oppose them.