I am not humbled! how could I be; a non belief is just that ,simply, its not a cause or a battle just a choice. And I have a right to my choice- making it into a competition is crass.

"Religion is not a “primitive type of science,” as Gray puts it. It is a form of life." This author (whose triumphalist tone is hideous and betrays a less-than-thinly-veiled bias of such magnitude that this article should have been unpublishable) is correct in this statement.

The problem is that many religious forms of life (and belief) get directly in the way of accurate knowledge about reality (science included). And get directly in the way of other forms of life (including other religious ones). And get in the way of good solutions to the problems of life.

It is not a mere "form of life", but a form of life that causes many problems and gets many things wrong. That opens it up to legitimate criticism, with science but a part of that. Science and religion may not be fundamentally in conflict, but in practice they genuinely conflict enough (often at religion's fault) that the statement does capture some truth.

The facts are... Young people are abandoning religion, the number of "nones" as counted by Pew is at an all time high, and the US remains one of only a small handful of Western Nations where the religious are still in the majority.

So who's humble already? (Feel free to read that in a Jewish-sounding voice.)

I'm a proud atheist. I'll put my atheism up against anyone's theism in 10 rounds, last one standing.

Religion! Bah! A lot of fairy tales it is! Who needs it? Nobody, that's who!

"Religion is not a “primitive type of science,” as John Gray puts it. It is a form of life.“

IMO this is a very true statement. Many people think that religion is an attempt to explain nature through far fetched magical thinking—that the religious are cowardly people who need a comforting belief in the supernatural in order to face life and death.

While that version of religion might have some presence, that does not tell the whole story. Many deeply religious people exhibit profound courage by maintaining a life of attention, awareness, awe, appreciation and gratitude for existence. For them religion is not about faith or belief in scriptures or trying to be good, and it is not about explaining nature. It is about standing in awe of the unexplainable. It is not about knowing but about wondering.

It is perfectly reasonable to point out that biblical myths are unscientific. It is commendable to criticize organizations that promote such myths. It is not reasonable IMO to attack religion in general.

I don't appreciate the tone this has towards atheism. Atheists aren't asserting anything. Atheism isn't a belief that people choose or don't choose. It is simply the lack of belief. If it wasn't for religion dominating the world since the dawn of time we wouldn't even need a label to describe it. Just as there isn't a label for nonbelievers in Santa, the tooth fairy, or Thor, simply they are just people that have grown away from believing unsupported claims. I despise that we must be placed in a group as opposed to just existing without the imposition of religion, but it is the unfortunate truth of our society. There is no "missed mark" of atheism. It isn't a counterculture nor a movement. We all ascribe to many movements and cultures as atheists, but atheism isn't one.

Excellent point. Many of the "New Atheists" never really understood the religious except from a narrow literal viewpoint and so had limited success.

Atheism is amorphous. We who don’t believe don’t prosthelise, or try to convert. We don’t stand on street corners and berate those who believe in god. We don’t organise into groups and wield political power. We don’t wage wars in the name of atheism. We are quite passive in the face of hostility and sometimes downright hatred from the religious. We have never really made a concerted effort to make the believers change from their superstition. I personally don’t want to change into a militant atheist, I just want my views to be respected and the religious to keep their views out of politics. No you are right, atheism hasn’t made much of an impression in debunking religious belief despite scientific proof that contradicts biblical texts, but was that ever an objective?

Certainly the idea of a personal spirituality seems to be the 'new church' and it can take many forms. If it involves personal communion then it can only be beneficial.

Personally, I don't feel that science should be involved in a conflict arena with religion per se as science, to my mind, is about unveiling and exploring.not confronting. Science's undeniable strength is proof, not force. Religion will always be with the human mind. Religion is not the problem. The problem is with the manner in which many individuals are moulded and manipulated by institutionalised selfishness.

History shows that religious ideas cannot be suppressed and enquiring minds will not allow science to go away so best to work together to find points of similarity instead of difference

Yeah, that's a load of horseshit.
The actual numbers tell a MUCH different story.
The more believers that die off, the fewer younger ones are there to take their places.