Why do atheist intellectuals respect certain religious views as canonical to that religion? Isn't this equivalent to respecting the self-proclaimed authority of specific institutions? Doesn't atheism require rejecting the authority of the church as much as the authority of god?
I guess more broadly, why do intellectuals in general insist on finding passing resemblances between arguments they encounter in the wild and academic arguments, then refuting the academic argument with a canned response? Isn't this just a straw man with extra pretension?