The New Atheists – clever, uncompromising, polite – seized the initiative only a few years ago, at least in publishing. They turned out best-sellers like The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins) or The End of Faith (Sam Harris) or Infidel (Ayaan Hirsi Ali). You can still dig up a few Old Atheists like the late Kingsley Amis, the acclaimed novelist, who described himself as ‘an unwilling unbeliever’- with ‘a deep attachment to the Christian religion.’