A while back, I was having some beers with the founder of a small atheist publishing house. I’d recently savaged one of his writers in print, and I started laying out a pretty standard critique of the New Atheists — that they caricature religion, they’re elitist, they’re too aggressive and so forth.

The publisher listened for a while, and then told me, politely, that I was being young, harsh and stupid. Until not very long ago, this kind of vocal, proud atheism just didn’t have a solid place in the public eye. These writers had carved out some space for freethinkers to thrive. And that alone was an achievement.

Exclusive: We talk with sparring partner Richard Dawkins about New Atheism, Twitter & why he sees Ahmed as a fraud