That's not so clear--indeed, even by your own argument that's not so clear.

The reason it's not so clear is there is a lot of verifiable nonsense being promulgated in the guise of religion. It actively keeps many, many people far from our most truthy truths: those meticulously documented by our best thinkers via myriad pieces of evidence.

It's very hard to see how the path to truth leads through a denial of physics, biology, geology, etc. etc.. There is little else that we know better, and yet some religions pull incredibly hard in different directions, and even those who aren't pulling totally the wrong way are reluctant to reign in those who are. And though Hitchins, Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and the others do not spare any religion their ire, no views are as heavily targeted as these extremely counterfactual ones.

So I fail to see how you can be so certain that polemics that serve particularly to bash and belittle this type of pernicious nonsense are surely not part of getting to the truth.

I grant that they might not be. But of all things to be certain about, why is this the only one, when intuitively it seems quite plausible that the way to the truth may involve vigorously dispelling the worse falsehoods?