He’s not just a whiner, he’s shamelessly dishonest too:
I’m an atheist, but I wish to dissociate myself from your shrill, strident, intemperate, intolerant, ranting language.
Objectively judged, the language of The God Delusion is less shrill than we regularly hear from political commentators or from theatre, art, book or restaurant critics. The illusion of intemperance flows from the unspoken convention that faith is uniquely privileged: off limits to attack. In a criticism of religion, even clarity ceases to be a virtue and begins to sound like aggressive hostility.
I submit that Richard Dawkins is the very last person qualified to objectively judge the language of the book written by Richard Dawkins. I don’t know about you, but I often read restaurant reviews which equate taking the kiddies to a certain restaurant with child abuse, don’t you? (Actually, I’d probably read more restaurant reviews if they were written like that.) Anyhow, there’s not very many literary reviews which describe the book being reviewed as “nasty” and “sado-masochistic” unless the author is the Marquis de Sade or Brett Easton Ellis.
Dawkins has gone too far beyond his range of expertise, he has made far too many factual and logical errors that are too easily demonstrated and this hostile defensiveness is a sign that he is aware that the backlash which will likely destroy his reputation as a credible intellectual is only beginning. Given his prickly personality, I fully expect him to behave in an increasingly more deranged manner as this process unfolds.