Reply #291: I see the "religion as delusion" meme as the same as the "fundamentalist atheist" meme

[uberllama42]

in that they are both concocted to belittle others. They both reach for a term and take up a creative definition of that term to use it as a pejorative. In that regard I think Dawkins oversteps.

He's a scientist and I'm not, so I'm not going to challenge his explanation of how religion propagates. But I think his labeling of theism as a delusion is less his professional opinion based on his scientific work than it is a handle to attack people he doesn't agree with.