Atheism Lite

Like Matt Kramer,

I'm completely devoid of religious sentiment, and indeed I find it bewildering that anyone past the age of eight could retain a belief in God any more than in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.

But like Norman Geras

I see religion as meeting certain deep human needs and anxieties irrespective of its truth value....religious belief has no monopoly on harm; conversely, good is not exclusively associated with the irreligious. It is not religious belief as such which leads to persecution, torture, murder, it is dogmatic and intolerant belief of every kind. Think of the millions killed in the last 150 years in the name of political beliefs, including would-be socialist and liberal beliefs as well as racist and fascist ones, deaths that cannot be laid at the door of religious faith. At the same time, it is a straightforward empirical fact that countless numbers of people - and I use 'countless' here advisedly and literally, not just loosely to convey the sense of very many - have been moved by their religion to do good in the world, to behave well. And this is to say nothing of what they have been moved to create.

So I can't go along with Salman Rushdie's Just give me that old-time atheism! Yet at the same time, I can't really blame him.

Update
Nor can I blame Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her campaign against Islam, which according to her could be considered a backward religion. But aren't they all backward?