It's always a very odd experience ending up in a radio studio with one of the new atheists. So little time and such an enormous area of disagreement that it is always very hard to know where to start – and you have only a few seconds to do so. I knew all this so perhaps it was daft to agree to a debate with Ophelia Benson, one of the authors of the book, 'Does God Hate Women?' I can understand why many writers on religion such as Karen Armstrong and John Gray refuse invitations finding that the discussions can be so polemical that they are simply not worth even having. I should have taken notice of afinch commenting on Benson's article in the Observer.

But the kind of strident atheism which Benson epitomises intrigues me. It's driven by a curious intensity which is really peculiar. How about this from the conclusion to her book: "religion is like the total body irradiation that destroys an immune system and lets an underlying infection take over. It's like a pesticide…" ? Or from the same page, "Religion is the whited sepulchre, the warthog in a party dress, the dictator in a pink uniform plastered with medals."

But the most extraordinary claim was "religion remains the last great prop and stay of arbitrary injustices and the coercion which backs them up". Really? Surely the "last great prop" is overstating it? Injustice is rife all over the world and much of it makes no reference to religion. Take North Korea: where's the religion there? Or Burma last autumn: there, religion, in the form of hundreds of Buddhist monks were leading the protests against the rule of the Burmese generals. It was precisely the opposite of what Benson is claiming: religion proved the most effective inspiration to resist arbitrary injustice. And that has been true of many other places in the world – does Benson not study her history books? – how can she make sense of the lives of Gandhi, Martin Luther King or Archbishop Desmond Tutu without the religions which inspired them to campaign against arbitrary injustice? I simply don't understand how someone can claim to be a serious philosopher (as Benson does) and who writes books on subjects such as Why the truth matters can make such preposterous statements.

It's not that Benson doesn't have a point, it's that she overstates it with such crudeness and lack of insight that I'm staggered anyone wants to publish it. Except that I know publishers with a keen eye on the bottom line will publish anything and atheism sells – it feeds a public appetite for outrage. I just think it's profoundly intellectually dishonest to feed that kind of outrage – there is no attempt here to open people's minds, only fuel their indignation.

Are religions corrupted by their patriarchal history – yes of course, as I've written on this site before. Does much of that patriarchy still survive – yes, in many places but in many others it is being challenged. Does it sometimes become misogyny – yes. So there is much common ground between Benson and I. It's just that I would argue that the root of this problem is men – and they have used religious traditions to restrict the freedom of women.

Instead of 'Does God Hate Women?', the question is 'Do Men Hate Women?' And of course the latter is an absurd question because some men do and some don't. On the one hand there is the evident cruelty of the rapist, on the other are many many gentle, loving men who are devoted to their children and partners. What Benson has done in her book is compile an horrific catalogue of male violence against women and then attribute it to the power of religion. What is a shame is that she has missed an opportunity to that she can't analyse religious traditions as the social, cultural systems which reflects the preoccupations of those who practise them?

In the debate, Benson didn't sound as hysterical as her prose but it's odd listening to someone who has created a caricature of religion and then pours her scorn on it. She talks about the nature of God a lot with a confidence that is bizarre – as if she had inside knowledge yet she is an atheist so all she is really talking about is her image, her understanding of God. And this is where I heartily agree with her final sentence "That is the God who hates women. That God has to go". Hear, hear Benson.