But this version of the conversation [the version represented by Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens--ed.] has gone on too long. We have allowed three people to frame it; its terms—submitting God to rational proofs and watching God fail—are theirs.

But this approach to discussing religion far pre-dates Harris. It’s found in much of the usual list of great religious thinkers: Augustine, Anslem, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Clarke, Berkley, Kant, Paley, and many others, up through Richard Swinburne and William Lane Craig in our own day. The historical ignorance required to attribute this approach to discussing religion to a few recent atheist writers is breathtaking. Beyond that, of course, trying to define this issue and ask what can be made on both sides is how normal people who care about the truth discuss things.