Dan S de Merengue said:
Ubique,
You speak of the atheists that were hunted to death for many hundreds of years. Could you be a bit more specific if I’m not expected to think that you are making fuzzy and indiscriminate generalisations. Who are you referring to? Could you suggest some names or perhaps some places or times eras?
I am happy to oblige
Where do you want me to start?
The Crusades perhaps?
Or the witch hunts?
The Spanish Inquisitions
The Conquistadors and their bible bashing missionaries?
How many millions died at the hands of them?
Or perhaps more recent?
6 million Jews? Many of whom never practiced any religions and were self declared atheists?
Or even Protestants killing Catholics and vice versa?
Or do you wish me to list all those who opposed religion in any form and paid the price for it?
Just as soon as you can clarify that every bit of the bible as being the absolute truth.
After all, if, as you said that scholars studied that bible now for thousands of years you’ll have no problem proving that the bible is correct and that a god exists.
Ubique

Empty myths indeed. This atheist regards monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam as empty and useless as witchcraft, astrology and cults of personality. It's interesting that Gray refers to Dawkins et al (and presumably people like me) as "evangelists". Talk about projection! And talk about ignorance. To put it another way, the Iliad (for example) is as useful to atheists as the Book of Genesis or the writings of Stalin. It's not a matter of proselytising - it's a matter of simply rejecting nonsensical beliefs.

>Though they are not true or false in the way scientific theories are true or false, myths can be more or less truthful in reflecting the human situation.

But if they're not true in the sense of being correct, what other sense is there? Who interprets them for us, an old man in a frock? And who decides what's a 'truthful' reflection of the 'human situation'?

This kind of meaningless gibberish has become the favourite style of 'enlightened' Christian apologists who desperately want to cling to the idea of a God but can't bring themselves to endorse the obvious nonsense associated with the traditional trappings of religion. The only possible response is to demand a full explanation: how can a myth about imaginary beings tell us anything at all about real ones -- except about their gullibility, of course?

My goodness! Where to begin...Almost none of the claims made by John Gray about the positions, assertions or "beliefs" of atheists in general, or Dawkins in particular, is true or even marginally accurate. The straw man argument is the easiest to refute, of course, because it is custom-designed for that precise purpose. However, from this man, even though he is a christian, we might have hoped for a little more intellectual integrity and a little more sophisticated, and honest, historical analysis than merely trotting out the tired, old, already discredited, evil atheism versus saintly christianity.
He has comprehensively misrepresented what atheists are about (those who can be bothered to say anything). Most of us don't "believe" in the lack of a god. We just think that gods are unnecessary as an explanatory theory. As someone said, "We are both atheists. I simply believe in one less god than you. When you understand why you have dismissed all the other gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." It was always like this, of course. The god-botherers are so desperate not to be wrong that they will say or do almost anything to convince themselves that they are right. They do not, as Gray avers, universally question their beliefs. To the contrary, they almost universally twist and writhe in their sophistry to justify their beliefs, and parse their "holy" books in whatever way suits their purpose as Gray has done here with his revision of Genesis.
Atheists, in my experience, constantly question their worldview. We call it "science"

Ubique, thanks for clarifying. I asked you who were these atheists who were hunted to death.

You mention the Crusades. The crusades were poorly organised military attempts to claim back regions overrun by Muslim invaders (not atheists).

The Spanish Inquisitions were an institution set up by the Spanish monarchy (largely politically motivated) which mainly targeted Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and a few protestants (not atheists).

The ‘witch hunts’ were a limited madness occurring in a few backwater villages in the early days of the American settlements (I didn’t read about any atheists among the alleged witches).

The conquistadors were attempting to claim land for Spain (but I didn’t hear about any atheists among the Native Americans).

The Jews who died in the holocaust committed no crime other than being of Jewish descent. Among those who died with them were probably as many Christian believers as atheists (as well as others).

Atheists have been with us for a long time, but in its popular form, atheism is more of a post enlightenment thing. But if we want to point score across history, you’d better not look at the millions who died at the hands of the communists (a form of atheism) in the 20th Century.

If you want to make a claim that history is full of atheists suffering persecution at the hands of Christians, you’ll need to come up with something better.

You also challenged what I said about the bible. According to studies of textual criticism, we can have confidence that the biblical texts have been passed down to us accurately. I can understand an atheist doubting the content, but if you doubt the science of textual criticism you would then have to doubt every other historical document from antiquity (e.g. the Iliad, or the writings of Josephus.)

I cannot make an irrefutable proof for the existence of God. Similarly, I would have trouble proving the existence of the sun though standing in an open field at midday. The bible claims that evidence of his existence is clear in the things God has made (Romans 1:20.)

Jon J and others,
I’m not sure we can say Gray is a Christian apologist. As one or two others have pointed out above, though he may be critiquing humanism, he is not making a case for faith. He calls himself a sceptic. Maybe someone else who knows this guy can throw some light on which side he’s on.