I can see it now we will never hear the end of it from Christians qwuoting this guy. He is going to be an apologist hero. I have not met any atheist that conflate or replace politics or science with not believing in a God. This is the type of trash that apologist love. He has a fancy title so he is therefore an authority and is right no matter what. This man is going to be a detriment to theist and atheist.

This guy has completely bought into theist tropes and stereotypes about atheism.

To address his points one by one:

1. I don't think Dawkins and others are so dense as to "confuse fundamentalism with Christianity" in general, but they are addressing fundamenatlism as an outsized influence for harm in our culture. This is legitimate and necessary.

2. The notion that human progress was invented and enabled by religion is rubbish. The notion that religion uniformly applies the theological concept of redemption to human progress is rubbish. Huge swaths of Christendom take an extremely dim view of human progress ("all our righteousness are as filthy rags" to god, the doctrine of utter depravity, etc).

3. Sure science doesn't determine values. That's the province of philosophy. So?

4. Religion neither invented, nor nurtures, the concept that history runs in cycles and doesn't necessarily end well.

5. Atheists, by definition cannot and do not hate god. We may have a strong distaste for the concept of god and how that is implemented in the world by theists, but that's a horse of an entirely different color.

6. I am completely unfamiliar with atheism "lacking faith in progress". That could be a notion that individual atheists embrace, but it would have nothing whatsoever, inherently, to do with atheism. Atheism is the lack of belief in any deities, end of story.

7. There is no "mystical atheism", there are only individual atheists who are free to pursue various forms of esoterica if they so desire. Again, atheism isn't about that.

8 ) About the only charitable thing I can say about this guy's thinking is that I agree that unbelievers should seek to "step outside of" monotheistic thinking to the extent that any one concept is rooted in monotheistic ideation and that doesn't happen to comport itself with reality or rational thought. But simply because atheism is reactionary to theism, that's a feature, not a bug. What else WOULD it be?

Can't hate something that does not exist.

In spite of the fact that he shares my surname, I'd have to say Mr. Gray is full of shit.

I don't think I fit one of those categories. I don't hate any god any more than I hate Count Dracula. I despise religion for the stranglehold it maintains on believers enticing them to sacrifice in this life for an afterlife that's not going to happen.

I can't hate something that does not exist.