is afraid of being oppressed by Islamic piety. The belief in human progress with which we all grew up looks less and less like fact and more like yet another fallible 'faith'.

In this climate of uncertainty, the New Atheism spreads exactly like any other sort of fundamentalism. It offers a clear, compelling certainty at a time of economic and social confusion. It offers enemies (the religious) and wise, benevolent leaders (Dawkins, for example, whose name today appears on the front page of his website a mere 35 times). And in America, it is a heartfelt and admirable rebellion against the religiose hypocrisies of public life - imagine the horror of having to choose between the pieties of Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton.

It is a horror with which we all must sympathise. But imagine for a moment a world with no religion, and a fresh horror appears: the success of the New Atheists' books, and the vituperative way in which they are argued, shows that all the vices of religious argument and intolerance can survive the complete extinction of religious belief. We will get fooled again.