One of the reasons why I ask is because Smith only relays one anecdote to support his claim. In the full version of the essay he writes:

For example, in a recent Contemporary Sociology book review, the reviewer, a senior sociologist from an Ivy League university, chides a book author for not knowing enough about religion. The reviewer then asserts that the real ‘net effects of religion and faith’ operating ‘on a macro level’ are ‘a few thousand years of horrible wars, genocide, slavery’s ideology, sexual exploitation, torture, devaluing others as not human, terrorism, and organized hatred.’ That opinion is not uncommon—I frequently see and hear it expressed by sociologists.

With the assistance of Google I tracked down this book review and it appears he has taken the quote out of context. The quote is actually presented as a counterpoint to, but not an argument against, the notion that religious belief is a net benefit to human happiness because it “is a proxy for social interaction and sometimes a spur to useful and noble volunteer work.” What the reviewer was getting at by inserting the counterpoint is that “determining the net gain of religiosity to overall happiness is a remarkably difficult task.” But that’s not what I understood from Smith when I initially read his critique, which even suggests something remarkably similar to what the reviewer actually meant. Smith writes that the “truth about religions is complex and challenging. Historically and today, religion involves plenty of good and bad, light and darkness, splendor and evil to go around.” I couldn’t agree more with Smith about the fact that the quote he reproduced presents a caricature of religion, but what about his own out of context presentation of that quote?

If the answer to my first question is that the problem Smith identifies is as serious as he claims then it would behoove of us all to do a much better job addressing it than he has. The answer simply cannot be caricaturing and misrepresenting the work of others in order to bolster an argument which ironically is itself about not caricaturing and misrepresenting something else.