You know, I never thought I would say this but... Richard Dawkins is a (McEwan) fanboy!

"We are the very privileged owners of a brief spark of consciousness" - wise words

Ummm... well, again we have Europeans/south Africans presuming to know what its like in America, and of course, again, they are wrong. I have lived all around this country, and I don't agree that to be an atheist is somehow an eccentricity. Maybe within the general context of the "culture wars" and its invasive maneuverings amongst the political sphere, this is true, but not so in the private-to-public EVERYDAY life of most Americans. My father was a baptist minister in the deep south for ten years, and I remember, as his son, being quite openly uninterested in the goings-on of the parish. Everyone assumed I was an atheist, though I never said so outright. They never gave me or my family any trouble about it. That's an extreme example, of course, but it is also true, at least for me, on a more general level.

I actually think a lot of this misconception about how America really is a fundamentally religious country comes from the foreign media (and ours) projecting that image around the world. Its really easy, and makes America a fun and simple target. Too bad people so seldom want to lend complicated issues such as this one their due thought.