From the article in the Laughington Post:
There is, as has often been noted, something peculiarly evangelistic about what has been termed the new atheist movement ... It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism — an atheist fundamentalism. The parallels with religious fundamentalism are obvious and startling: the conviction that they are in sole possession of truth (scientific or otherwise), the troubling lack of tolerance for the views of their critics (Dawkins has compared creationists to Holocaust deniers), the insistence on a literalist reading of scripture (more literalist, in fact, than one finds among most religious fundamentalists), the simplistic reductionism of the religious phenomenon, and, perhaps most bizarrely, their overwhelming sense of siege: the belief that they have been oppressed and marginalized by Western societies and are just not going to take it anymore.
1) The conviction that "New Atheists" are in "sole possession of truth" doesn't seem to me to cross the boundaries of merely arguing that they do hold more rational stances on a lot of issues than their critics, and I fully agree with that. The difference between many New Atheists and religious fundamentalists in general is that New Atheists repeatedly present arguments as to why they believe their stances are more correct than their critics'. Contrast that with merely throwing scriptural verses in their critics' faces and you should be able to see why comparing them to religious fundamentalists in this aspect is superficial at best, even if both sides deceptively seem similar.
2) "Troubling lack of tolerance for views of their critics" strikes me as the kind of conflation that so many liberals engage in nowadays to dismiss criticism of religion. So what if New Atheists don't tolerate views they consider irrational as long as they aren't intolerant toward
people without justification? I have no tolerance for the belief that homosexuals are inherently sinful, for example. Actually, I think intolerance toward certain views is healthy and sometimes necessary.
3) Literalist reading of scripture: the author may have a point here in that Dawkins, for instance, has expressed black-and-white opinions concerning religious belief, but to generalize and say that this is the norm among New Atheists seems rather simplistic, not to mention that many religious people
do subscribe to the kinds of literalist readings that people like Dawkins criticize, so it's not like the likes of Dawkins are making up such readings. Generalizing and saying that all religious interpretations are literalist is incorrect, but criticizing literalist readings overall, especially considering how popular they are with many religious people, seems very reasonable to me.
4) "They have been oppressed and marginalized by Western societies"? I agree 100%. Maybe it's less common nowadays than it used to be, but ask yourself this: what would happen if a presidential candidate openly came out as an atheist in the U.S.? Would he or she stand a chance against, say, a Christian? Furthermore, in certain religious communities, in Western societies or not, coming out as an atheist puts one at risk of shunning and social persecution, so New Atheists have a point there.
Overall, I think so much of the criticism aimed at New Atheism and New Atheists in general is unreasonable and holds them to different standards than other groups, such as religious ones. I don't recall the last time a public New Atheist intellectual has said that religious people will go to Hell, for example, or that they deserve eternal torment. When you consider the fact that millions of religious people believe such things about atheists, it should put into perspective just how lopsided much of the criticism of New Atheism is.
Edit: Also, no, I don't think atheism is a religion, since it doesn't have tenets, doctrine, or teachings. It's only the lack of belief in any god or gods.
