ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the knowledge claims of the New Atheists and argues that they function as significant tools in atheist identity politics rather than as fully convincing analyses of religion as a sociocultural phenomenon. The New Atheists claim to have scientific knowledge about religion. The New Atheists approach religion as fundamentalism, whose religiosity is anchored in propositional beliefs and a valid prototype for all religious people. Religious identities are defined and defended in the theological responses to New Atheism and in the emerging polarized debate both sides claim to have the more accurate, better-grounded knowledge on religion. The most significant criticism to be levelled at the New Atheists is that they approach religion as if a fundamentalist may be taken as the prototype of a religious person. To condense the problem in a simplified formula: they limit religion to belief in supernatural as stated in sacred scriptures, which then functions as motivation for irrational behaviour, which in turn poisons everything.
