Richard Dawkins is not respected even by fellow atheists as a philosopher of religion. Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse says The God Delusion "makes me ashamed to be an atheist."

Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse wrote that Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris/Dillahunty "do a disservice to scholarship" and their "treatment of the religious viewpoint is pathetic to the point of non-being." Ruse: "Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly, he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing." Ruse calls the new atheists "a bloody disaster." Winger: if you think Dawkins is a fantastic proponent of atheism, "intellectually you are on the bottom rung of atheism."