Each day brings us new evidence of quasi-pathological faith-derangement among members of our ruling class, and not just those of the GOP: Despite the monumental, universe-explaining 2012 discovery of the Higgs Boson, Hillary hews to her belief in the supernatural, and President Obama, even after Islamist terrorists murdered 14 people in California, cannot bring himself to call the Islamic State Islamic. Where religion is concerned, darkness and confusion rule.

The battle for American hearts and minds – the religious might say souls – is on, and reason must prevail. Now more than ever, secularists, rationalists and supporters of First Amendment rights need a mediagenic figure to debate, on-air and live, the enemies of our (fabulously godless) Republic, whose ranks include top Fox News talk show hosts, the obscenely voluble Donald Trump, and crudely theocratic Republicans including, but not limited to, Sen. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson.

And such a figure has emerged — David Silverman, the president of American Atheists. Silverman has just published a book, “Fighting God,” which will be an inspiriting read for nonbelievers fed up with religious privilege and yearning to glimpse the better, more secular future that, surveys show, is on its way.

Silverman cut his teeth as the cable-news paladin of secularism a few years back. He barely flinched when, in 2012, Fox News megastar Bill O’Reilly called “insane”American Atheists’ position (and by extension, its irreverent, “Keep the Merry! Dump the Myth!” billboard campaign) on the U.S. government’s preferential (and thus anti-constitutional, on First Amendment grounds) treatment of Christianity on Christmas day. (American Atheists are mounting another billboard campaign this holiday season.) But when the Fox News talk show host referred to him and American Atheists as a “merry band of fascists,” Silverman came close to losing his cool.

“Fascists? Fascists? You call me a fascist?”

“Absolutely!” replied O’Reilly.

“I am a patriot, sir,” Silverman fired back, “who’s taking the craziest notion that everybody in this country is equal and that the government has to treat everybody fairly. That’s fascism?”

O’Reilly tried to talk over him and misstate Silverman’s argument, but Silverman retained his sang-froid and actually out-bullied O’Reilly: “We demand equality from the government and it’s our constitutional right and you should be demanding it along with me!”

Multiple encounters with Sean Hannity have yielded similar scenes, with favorable outcomes for the rationalist team. (Check out this one for starters.) Really, after other equally humiliating encounters with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, you would think the Fox News Duo of Faith-Deranged Dunderheads would have wised up. But thankfully, the Lord keeps them at it, which at least assures the rest of us a good laugh.

“Bashful" is not a word that describes Silverman. If “New Atheism” has its established authors – Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, and the evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne – it also now has Silverman, the 49-year-old who has led American Atheists for the past five years, years in which stats now demonstrate the unprecedented rise of nonbelief. His “Fighting God,” with its tightly pleached, often data-based arguments for firebrand atheism, stands as his contribution to the godless canon and will take its place alongside the works of the above-mentioned writers.

I caught up with Silverman on Skype last week while he was in Seattle on his book tour, which actually began before publication, in July, in Shanghai. We talked for just under an hour, and covered the goals of American Atheists, politics and what he really thinks of his Fox News opponents.

“I’m not seeking to outlaw religion,” he said. “Every American has the right to practice a religion. But we would be a freer state, healthier, if we dropped the myths of yesteryear. We’d be a more knowledgeable country. Just look at Scandinavia. We see the positive effects of atheism there.”

The most critical flaw of faith, he told me, was the notion it offers of an “objective morality” – that is, unquestionable, immutable, heaven-decreed moral absolutes that cannot evolve as our consciousness does. “The lie of objective morality that make people do bad things and think they’re doing good,” with ISIS atrocities and attacks on abortion clinics serving as obvious examples thereof. Such murderers “think they’re doing God’s work, they think they’re doing good.”

I asked why he chose the present moment to publish “Fighting God.”

“We’re seeing this rise in religious hatred all over the world,” he said, “and a pushback against criticizing religion. Yet religion is the problem. We see its influence all over, in abortion, gay rights, climate change. In Europe, the rise of Islam” – especially with the influx of Muslim refugees – “is leading to the rise of firebrand atheism, as atheists are being pushed into realizing that they have something to fight, and something to defend. In Heidelberg and Basel and Zurich I spoke to packed crowds who wanted to know more about firebrand atheism because of the fear of the rise of Islam. Religion is hurting our species, it’s hurting the entire world, and yet we protect it. We need to put religion in its place, which is back in the church.” He paused. “Religion is a scam, a lie codified in our society, demanding respect, even from the non-religious, and cannot be challenged. But religious opinions are opinions just like any other opinions. It’s about time for the lie to come to an end, for the lie to die.”

“How exactly is it a scam?”

“A scam takes money from people for a promise that’s never kept. Religion tells people they will get to heaven. But they never get to heaven. Religion lies, takes money, funnels money to preachers and then demands respect. No really powerful god would have to demand respect. So I refuse to give respect.”

Does disrespecting faith work as a tactic?

“Yes! When no one shows disrespect for religion, those inside the churches feel afraid and abandoned. Yet religion deserves no more respect than tarot cards or astrology. This is an outreach effort to those inside the churches. We’re saying, you can get out! We can grow the movement by spreading atheism, but also by getting atheists who don’t call themselves atheists to call themselves what they are. Ninety percent of atheists don’t call themselves atheists; the real number [of atheists] isn’t 3 percent but 35 percent. All I need to do to multiply the movement by a factor of ten is get atheists to call themselves atheists, we don’t have to change opinions about God. There are even atheists behind pulpits.”