I always thought that Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris might be a little too hard on religion, in that there are non-violent practitioners of religions. But in looking at the sum effect of religion on a global scale, in current-day settings, I am not so sure now. Maybe Plato was entirely correct in his Cave analogy in that these Four Horsemen of the Anti-Apocalypse are doing these people a huge favor in trying to drag them out of the cave into the sunlight.
New Atheists aren't really all that different from the fundamentalists they hate so much. Condescending, pretentious, arrogant, closed-minded, the list goes on and on.
Christopher Hitchens had this to say about Jerry Falwell's death: "“If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.” While I agree with the sentiment, I think the statement could just as easily have applied to Hitchens himself. Why do I say that? Well, because Hitchens saw the Iraq War as a struggle between rationality and religion, which is ridiculous on more levels than I care to list. More to the point, however, is his admiration of Leon Trotsky. Although Ayn Rand's hero-worship of William Hickman was disturbing, at least he only killed one person. Trotsky, one of Hitchens' heroes, was responsible for the deaths of millions. True, he wasn't as bad as Stalin, but that's not exactly a high bar to set.
Then you have Richard Dawkins, an arrogant prick who thinks his shit doesn't stink. This is a man who compared religious belief to a computer virus. This is the same guy who did admirable work on cultural evolution.
Sam Harris credits radical Islam to the religion itself, rather than the geopolitical history of the Middle East. He's not the only Islamophobe in the movement, either. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has compared Islam to fascism.
And let's not forget Daniel Dennett, the man who compared belief in God to belief in Santa Claus. This coming from a man who views everything through the lens of Darwinian thought.
I will admit that New Atheism has done some good things. But why should we take the bad with the good?