Center for Inquiry leader's review of Noah

Here's the review . He makes some good points, a few excerpted below.

"One of the persistent criticisms of the so-called New Atheists [...] is that many of their arguments, although directed against religious belief in general, are really relevant only for fundamentalists. Sure, if you interpret the Bible literally, God comes across as a homicidal, genocidal, misogynistic monster, but this crude understanding of scripture is held only by ignorant believers, who, at most, constitute a substantial minority of the faithful."


"Mmm, OK. Well, now there's the perfect opportunity for all those moderate religious leaders [...] to publicize their rejection of the simplistic, literal interpretation of scripture. [...] Indeed, one would think these religious leaders would feel obliged to repudiate the literal interpretation of the biblical story, lest the faithful misapprehend the true nature of God. [...] But we know this is not going to happen. [...] Unless they are leaders of denominations which have expressly moved away from reliance on scripture (e.g., the Unitarians) religious leaders generally keep quiet about their skepticism. Because the dirty little secret of moderate religious leaders is that their authority ultimately depends on the continued loyalty of the naïve believer, that is, the person who does accept these Bible stories more or less at face value, and it would not be prudent to have these believers begin to doubt scripture. [...] Without the authority of scripture to legitimize their positions, religious leaders are out of business."

Same can be said of the Republican Party, but that's another 'biblical' story.