If you are from the US I hope you understand how deeply patronising it is to the rest of the world's atheists to assume that only Americans have the capacity for 'logics'

That obviously implies that faith exists on a spectrum.

Lo and behold, he writes in "For the glory of God": "Faith exists on a spectrum." He continues to write: "At one end are atheists like Dawkins who say they'll take a look at whatever evidence anyone cares to offer but they will not believe that which is not proven. A little further over are the folks who may see valuable moral instruction in religion but whose sense of reality is similar to what was called "deism" in the 18th century: There exists a creator of things but rather than a bearded old man on a throne who smites unbelievers, he is more like -- to use the classic metaphor -- the watchmaker who set his creation in motion and does not interfere with its operation.

Atheists don't agree with deists, but Dawkins and the other new atheists have almost nothing to say about them. A god who does not intervene in the world does not write books -- not even with the help of ghost writers -- and cannot inspire mischief.

Further along the spectrum, we come to the many variations of an interventionist God. In moderate form, it typically involves a vague belief that God somehow inspired the Bible -- although not the nasty bits about killing homosexuals, enslaving enemies, punishing sons for the sins of their fathers, or anything else that grates on the sensibilities of the moment. Miracles are possible, in this view, but only in the distant past -- thus avoiding blatant contradiction between scientific observation and faith in the present.

And finally, there is the muscular version of the interventionist God, the one who penned the Bible -- or the Koran, if you prefer -- and who delights in fiddling with the world in ways that defy all reason. In a side street next to the hole in the ground that was the Twin Towers, there is a monument to this brand of faith."

He also cites statistics that show that fundamentalists constitute over half of the American electorate.

Here's an article that was recently published in the Ottawa Citizen: For the glory of God by Dan Gardner (http://tinyurl.com/2d2tvo).

I haven't had time yet to review the rest of your post and hope to soon.

You can't be blamed for not having read the recent objections to dogmatism, written by the "fanatical atheists" who are the subject of Gardner's article. What is the "New Atheism Movement"? Well, you're right when you say it's no different than "the old atheism." It's simply a term coined to (inaccurately) describe the recent success of books that criticize the world's various religions. The term "New Atheism" might have been invented by Gary Wolf in a 2006 article in Wired (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html), but no one's quite sure. The "New Atheist" meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) just sort of crept in. Unlike the Brights' Movement (see http://tinyurl.com/yk8grs), it isn't a conscious effort to name non-religious people. I don't like the term "New Atheism" because it's a) nonsensical and b) automatically gives people the wrong ideas.

Nonetheless, the zeitgeist seems to be shifting. Here's a brief list of recent bestsellers:

The End of Faith by Sam Harris (published 2004 -- Harris started writing on September 12, 2001)

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett (published 2006 -- Dennett also wrote the successful 1995 book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which I thought of when I read "everything is/was chemicals" and "big wavy hand")

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (published 2006 -- sold over 1.25 million copies in its first year, was on the New York Times bestseller list for 51 weeks -- Dawkins also wrote the successful 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker)

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (published 2006)

God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens (published 2007)

God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger (published 2007)

See also: http://www.amazon.com/Top-Atheist-Books/lm/R1QQU6NEXE8GMO, http://richarddawkins.net/books, and http://www.samharris.org/site/book_category_reading_list/C36/.

Then there's also Richard Dawkins' film Root of All Evil? from January 2007, Julia Sweeney's upcoming film Letting Go of God, and Bill Maher's upcoming Religulous. You can find some excellent articles on richarddawkins.net, samharris.org, and buildupthatwall.com. On richarddawkins.net, there's also a section called "Debate Points" which includes "You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God": http://tinyurl.com/2wqyfd

I especially recommend this article: http://tinyurl.com/yv2dc6

Hope that helps!

I find it hard to take someone seriously when they "rebut" arguments they themselves made up. You can't even attempt to rebut an argument until you've taken the time to actually understand it.