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The mask of atheism
My experience is that the Pope's decision to form an Anglican grouping - not yet a Rite, but the difference is slight - has unleashed a vicious avalanche of anti-Catholic hatred such as I had not seen in quite a while. Catholic blogs are suddenly awash not only with Protestant and Anglican, but, more to the point, with atheist and Christian-hating trolls. And I hope my Protestant friends are not offended, but this seems to me to really throw off the masks of many so-called atheists. They do not reject or hate God. Of course, if you asked them to argue against the Aristotelian Unmoved Mover or against the Hindu Self of Selves, they would - in a fairly untroubled, perhaps even bored tone, as a duty. But what they really hate, what unleashes their rage and fury, is the Catholic Church. What makes this obvious is how the Pope's effective dismissal of further ecumenic progress with the CofE as it is, and his decision to create a Catholic Anglican area, have drawn such rage. Richard Dawkins, in his hideous Washington Post screed (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_dawkins/2009/10/give_us_your_misogynists_and_bigots.html), really throws off the mask. If he took his atheist positions - yes, those same views that have earned him millions of pounds through a worldwide bestseller - at all seriously, he would be as much against the Church of England as against the Catholic Church. Indeed, he might well oppose it more fiercely, because it means subsidizing "religion", however vague, with taxpayer money, and giving a status, however vague, as a part of the nation's legal establishment. (Compare and contrast Article 7 of the Italian Constitution: "The Italian Republic and the Catholic Church are, each in its own sphere, independent and sovereign.") But that is the absolute opposite of what he does; what enrages him is that the Catholic Church should dare to try and claim the Anglican heritage for itself. He valued the Anglican Church as a breakwater against the Catholic Church. So, basically, Dawkins is lying to someone; whether himself, or only his public, I do not know and have no interest in knowing. The point is that his supposed opposition to "religion" is blatantly revealed to be opposition to the Catholic Church alone.
As revealing as Dawkins' rant is that the Washington Post published it, and the string of horrors in the comments thread. Even the Bishop Williamson affair had not called forth so much sheer brute hate for the Church; but then, those who objected to Williamson and to the SSPX were not all motivated by hatred for the Church - they included people like me, who love it. In this case, the only thing that can possibly call forth so many haters is the Church itself; and anyone who wants to claim that anti-Catholicism is not one of the main, the driving forces in modern culture and politics must first explain away this horrible outburst of bigotry and hatred.
As revealing as Dawkins' rant is that the Washington Post published it, and the string of horrors in the comments thread. Even the Bishop Williamson affair had not called forth so much sheer brute hate for the Church; but then, those who objected to Williamson and to the SSPX were not all motivated by hatred for the Church - they included people like me, who love it. In this case, the only thing that can possibly call forth so many haters is the Church itself; and anyone who wants to claim that anti-Catholicism is not one of the main, the driving forces in modern culture and politics must first explain away this horrible outburst of bigotry and hatred.
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However, I think your analysis of Dawkins as being purely anti-Catholic is wrong. Of course in principle, the Church of England and the Catholic Church are equally misguided, from an atheist point of view, but the CoE is rather passive and almost secularized. Atheists in the U.S. are also more likely to become vitriolic about the RCC or Southern Baptists, who are much more active politically, than about Episcopalians or Methodists, who don't make such a habit of declaring atheists to be amoral deviants.
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You of all people expect people to be logical? And to be logical, of all things, about what they deny? Next you'll be telling me that Laura Hollis has made a careful and discriminating investigation of the Frankfurt School. It would have been better if you had said: "Some atheists" or "most atheists" or even "most atheists I know." Most atheism is culture-specific; something that was denomstrated to me long ago, when a Greek friend of my sister's managed to inform me in two phrases that he was an atheist, but that we Catholics were heretics because of the filioque. Mr.Dawkins is a particularly rancid and ranting product of an upper-class Oxford education - and having been to and loved Oxford myself, I would never insult the place; in fact, the reason why I am so glad of the formation of an Anglican rite is that I want to see the dignity and civility of the Anglican culture preserved. But there always was a poisonous, terrified, Titus Oatesish strand to it, and alas, it looks likely to outlast the Anglican culture itself.
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We've discussed cognitive dissonance before, and atheists are certainly as prone to it as anyone else. However, anyone who "hates God" clearly cannot be an atheist, at least in the literal sense. But I'll grant you that we're verging into "no true Scotsman" territory here; I've had arguments with atheists who were adamant that God doesn't exist, but had no problem with reincarnation or psychic powers or other woo-woo beliefs.
However, in almost every case I've seen of a believer accusing an atheist of hating God, the atheist was actually expressing hatred of religious institutions or people. In some cases, they use mocking/denigrating language when speaking of God, in order to push buttons, and of course it will sound to the people they're mocking as if the atheists are expressing hatred of a being they supposedly don't believe in.
(Which is one reason why I don't find it a very productive strategy, aside from the fact that I don't condone hatred and mockery, as a general rule. Although I make a mockery exception for Slytherins. ;) )
I usually hear the "hates God" accusation from believers who use the "I didn't get a pony for my birthday" argument: i.e., atheists don't really disbelieve in God, they're just petulant children angry at him for not answering a prayer. So I tend to be scornful of such easy dismissals of the atheist position.
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