Discovering Massimo Pigliucci was very useful to me. What I find
  fascinating is that he holds one of the very few atheist
  positions that I could stand behind as I am agnostic. Yet he
  came to his conclusions from the opposite direction as I did. I
  went through various religious "questings" to agnosticism. Yet I
  never was atheist. Just didn't suit me. But Massimo Pigliucci
  went from a view closer to new atheism and found his way to an
  atheism that is more compatible with my agnosticism. I hope
  nobody tries to put me into a debate here about "what type of
  agnostic?" because I've been down the road hundreds of times
  online through the years and it's the same 20 questions. It gets
  old. The new atheist routine is predictable and stale and common
  now. That's also its big problem. But anyway, these are my
  personal opinions. I think Sam Harris is really great at what
  he's great at, but like a lot of people who are great thinkers
  in one area, when he steps out of his territory, he ceases to
  speak universally and is only speaking to a echo chamber who are
  already prone to agree with him. The process becomes
  self-reinforcing and difficult to extract one's self from. ==
  He's a great motivational speaker for the people he represents.
  He can tell a good story that engages people, convinces them to
  listen and follow along and agree with him. As far as his
  content? I can't really say. Anything I've seen by him, he
  starts off making sense but then he goes "off"... and goes
  further and further away from reasonable until he ends up in a
  place that makes no sense at all... yet those who enjoy his way
  of thinking are cheering. ==   I know he has a big fan base. I
  run into fans of Sam Harris in the Philosophy forums here on
  Facebook all of the time. I never knew exactly what he was known
  for and have only seen a few clips of his speaking. I wasn't
  impressed by his logic. It was very America-centric. I felt as
  if he had never considered any other culture as relevant in the
  world. It felt very closed. I didn't take to it. My first
  exposure to Massimo Pigliucci was
  [1]https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/reflections-on-the-skeptic-and-atheist-movements/
  and the more I read by Massimo Pigliucci, the more impressed I
  was.

References

  Visible links
  1. https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/reflections-on-the-skeptic-and-atheist-movements/