Brendan O'Neill, writing in The Guardian, makes the same case that Michael Crichton and others have made before:

I'm as atheistic as they come, so I won't be shedding a tear for Christianity, Islam, Judaism or the other superstitious sects that now find themselves under attack by intellectuals. And yet, I can't help feeling that the new atheists are rather spectacularly missing the point....

Forget fundamentalist Christianity or Islam: environmentalism is by far the most influential death cult in existence today. It is inculcating in the masses the idea that the end of the world is nigh; that we shall we punished for our sins; that penance is our earthly duty; and that anyone who says or thinks otherwise is a "heretic" or a "denier" who should be held up to public ridicule.

The extent to which environmentalism echoes old religious values is striking. A key aspect of the monotheistic religions was their belief in an "end of days" scenario in which the world would go kaput and a new messiah would come to judge us harshly.

If so, then why are "New Atheists" like Sam Harris seemingly blind to this? I suspect part of the problem is that the environmentalist movement is made up mostly of their own 'co-religionists'.

In Harris's 10 Myths essay, he admits that movements like Communism (the last major lethal theology to convulse the globe) are essentially a kind of religion. But then Harris fails to notice that it was almost entirely atheists who promoted and advocated Communism -- which he writes off as a mere "personality cult", dismissing the utopian and justice-oriented aspects of that dogma -- not to mention its strong attraction to those far outside any dictators' sphere of control.

Yet, even if so, by Sam Harris's own admission, being an atheist apparently doesn't insulate one from "cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship." Mere disbelief in God does not seem immunize one from lethal religious fanaticism. (So where, then, is the vaunted superiority?) Sadly, Harris undoubtedly can no more look this vulnerability squarely in the eye than admit that Communism was largely promoted by atheists.

The Protestant Reformation expressed the conscience of Christians who were revolted by the worst excesses of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. Similarly, the Founding Fathers of the US (who were more than 94% Christian) also recognized problems with the faith they embraced -- and took steps to fix it -- in particular, by officially tolerating those who disagreed with them. (In fact, these Christians and (a few) Deists were so honest about the problems of state-sponsored faith that atheists often quote them concerning the dangers of religion -- omitting that almost all of them predicted atheism would be even worse.)

So, while there is much talk of the need for Islamic "Reformation", I submit that it is also atheists who need to take a good, hard look at what atheists have wrought -- and are still ushering in. And think about what steps need to be taken to reform their own "faith". I freely admit that the Church of the middle ages did many things wrong -- and I join any critic in condemning that behavior. But Sam Harris (and so many others I have met) are not equally forthcoming regarding atheism's rather spotty track record. So there is little hope for such a "reformation" from among the likes of Dawkins, Hedges, and Harris: among them there is more than a whiff of the fanaticism of Robespierre and Cromwell.

O'Neill is wrong about Christianity and Islam: for better or worse, from a global perspective, they are not yet declining and moribund. But he's absolutely right to number environmentalism as a vigorous up-and-coming competitor.