I think Dawkins, like atheism itself, makes sense in a certain context. I haven't called myself an atheist in many, many years. It's unnecessary now. I live in

I think Dawkins, like atheism itself, makes sense in a certain context. I haven't called myself an atheist in many, many years. It's unnecessary now. I live in a place and a social context where it doesn't matter. But I grew up in a place where everybody took a shared belief in God for granted. God, if you believe in God the way most Christians do, is a concept that touches everything. Everything you do, all the choices you make, derive ultimately from your conception of yourself as a child of a benevolent God, living in a universe that He created for us, for purposes that we can't fully understand, but in which we are provided with a certain amount of guidance about his wishes for how we should behave towards each other and towards Him. Naturally this comes up in conversation sometimes. It's just too big and too all-encompassing not to. Any conversation about how people should and shouldn't behave -- which is a huge percentage of human conversation, since it include politics, gossip, and personal dilemmas -- God is right there under the surface, and can come up explicitly at any time. When God comes up, you have a couple of choices: 1. Use the same language as everybody else, internally translating what other people say into concepts that you find meaningful and compelling, and translating what you want to say into Christian language, even when such translations are inaccurate. Or, 2. Channel your inner Christian, and play a Christian role in the conversation. (Definitely an option for folks like me who were Christian when they were younger.) Or, 3. Speak the way you think, and be prepared to be misunderstood, met with horror, judged, and/or forced to explain yourself. Choosing option 3 becomes exhausting over time, and calling yourself an "atheist" is one way to make it a little bit less exhausting. People wonder why "atheists" are constantly refuting all of the naive, amateur-hour proofs of the existence of God and not grappling with more philosophically sophisticated ways of conceiving of God. Why so much straw-manning, why so much punching down? In my opinion, it boils down to this: if you are talking to someone who believes in a philosophically sophisticated concept of God, then you probably aren't being forced to play the role of "atheist" because you aren't being faced with active astonishment, perplexity, and/or hostility about your lack of belief. I have virtually never needed to be an "atheist" in the last fifteen years, because I live in a nice blue urban bubble where everybody understands that their concept of God is not a universal that they can assume as common ground with everyone they meet. When someone wants to talk to you about what they believe, they aren't filled with disbelief, disgust, or fear, and they aren't looking to come to a successful resolution of your spiritual sickness by the end of the conversation. Because my need (and, I suspect, many other people's need) for atheism was driven by the context of being surrounded by people who shared a religious belief and found it baffling, horrifying, and/or disgusting that I didn't share it as well, I never needed atheism to be sophisticated or subtle. I never needed it to be convincing for educated people. I only needed it to give me a voice and a label for myself in those situations. I found it useful then, and even though I've been able to put myself in a better situation where I can leave it behind me, I understand why other people still need it.