David Sloan Wilson, an atheist himself, has a few things to relate to ‘angry atheists’ like Richard Dawkins.

I piss off atheists more than any other category, and I am an atheist. One of the things that infuriates me about the newest crop of angry atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, is their denial of the beneficial aspects of religion. Their beef is not just that there is no evidence for God. They also insist that religion “poisons everything”, as Christopher Hitchens subtitled his book. They are ignoring the scientific theory and evidence for the “secular utility” of religion, as Émile Durkheim put it, even though they wrap themselves in the mantle of science and rationality. Someone needs to call them out on that, and that person is me.

While I understand the anger that drive Hitchens and Dawkins, I have trouble understanding talk of eliminating religion because it would make the world a more rational place. Eliminate religion? Good luck. It’s odd to hear people sworn to empircal reasoning indulge in hopes so wildly unrealistic.

The bit above is taken from a short Sloan interview in Nature. Easily worth the short read.