In short – that people are justified in criticizing certain aspects of religious faith in harsh tones because of the particular dangers they pose to others.

Actually, having now read those quotes, they’re rather laughable. If this Orr fellow really doesn’t know how beliefs “replicate,” he isn’t even qualified to comment. He also is just flat-out wrong when he says that the meme cannot help us understand the differences between eastern and western religions. The one and only valid criticism of Dennett in anything she references is when he says Dennett doesn’t offer a criteria by which memes (beliefs, whatever) are selected – but that doesn’t mean they aren’t selected. A few moment’s thought will reveal at least a few aspects of a meme that will lead to its being selected for more frequently. That both Orr and Dennett (and even Gilbert) fail to list such aspects is more a reflection on their priorities and mental faculties than it is on the theory of memes. Even if Orr honestly couldn’t come up with anything, that isn’t a valid criticism of the view: at best it gets him to an agnostic position with respect to memes. Honestly, this whole uproar over memes is just pathetic. If you really don’t get it, try reading Warren Ellis’s fantastic graphic short story at http://www.artbomb.net/comics/superidol.jsp – it isn’t a technical demonstration of the idea, but at least it shows that it can be plausible.

Further, does she herself understand the idea of a meme? The comment she references that a meme is indistinguishable from a belief is particularly telling – a meme is a belief. To complain about that betrays a huge misunderstanding about what the concept of a meme is supposed to convey. If she herself understands that concept, then why quote someone who lacks the ability to? If she doesn’t understand it, in what sense does she think she can satirize it? I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate me satirizing the Trinity because I’ve never taken the time to understand what appears, on the surface, to be a truly insane idea.

Let me be clear: generally I think Dennett is kind of a nut. A lot of his most serious arguments that I’ve read are either fallacious, meaningless, or both. With memes, though, I cannot see him being mistaken. I have yet to hear a convincing attack on the meme, and I’m hoping she might offer one (or, at least, point me to one).

I’ll still never understand militant when referring to atheists. Strident, passionate, etc, but never “militant”. Nor fundamentalist either.

Atheists have never blown up buildings, rammed planes into buildings, blown up or shot up abortionist clinics, or waged war for centuries over “holy land”. If atheists are militant, what the hell, used for irony , does that make theists?

I’ve heard many atheists make this complaint about the use of “militant”. But I find it hard to believe that none of you are aware that “militant” does not always, or even primarily mean “militarily violent”. The #1 definition of “militant” at Dictionary.com is:

1. vigorously active and aggressive, esp. in support of a cause

and synonyms are given as “belligerent, combative, contentious”

I suspect it is in this sense that the word is being used of the New Atheists.

It was his publishers, not Hitchens, who refused to allow excerpts.

Perhaps they were acting under orders from Christopher Hitchens.

Who can say?

CARR
I think Becky is satirising herself here….

Nobody could be that dumb, surely?

I see.

So these atheist books never have any real criticisms of the arguments that God exists?

I think you misunderstood the part of my argument that you quoted. What you quoted was my summary of the argument that Dawkins specifically makes in The God Delusion and that others make in different forms as well. I am making the case that this is an incorrect assumption to make given the flattening of all manifestations of faith that Dawkins makes in his argument. It is this flattening rhetoric that erects a classic straw man on his part.

Hope this helps. I did post this argument in a much more nuanced fashion over on my blog under Atheist Inquistions in a few different posts if you are at all interested in pursuing it.