The New Atheism

Not new and improved, just new. For this week's online essay, go read Mohler's The New Atheism?, posted a couple of months ago when everyone was talking about the new books by Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris. He is responding to a Wired article entitled The New Atheism: The Church of the Non-Believers, in which each of the Big Three are interviewed.

Here's a quote from the Wired article:

Dawkins looks forward to the day when the first US politician is honest about being an atheist. "Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists," he says. "Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. It just doesn't add up. Either they're stupid, or they're lying. And have they got a motive for lying? Of course they've got a motive! Everybody knows that an atheist can't get elected."

Well, Jefferson and Taft both got elected president, and they were both accused of being atheists. So is it really harder today than in the 19th or 20th century for an atheist to get elected? Maybe atheists are just too grumpy to attract enough votes. Maybe atheists just don't find any moral basis for making the sacrifices inherent in public service. It seems odd to blame the electorate. And it seems odd to liken atheists to a persecuted minority in a secular 21st-century culture that is friendlier to godlessness than any prior era.

Here's a quote from the Mohler article, commenting on Harris:

Harris' self-proclaimed religion of reason bears uncanny resemblances to the features of New Age thought--something that offends many of his fellow New Atheists. Still, Harris' books have sold by the thousands and he has transformed himself into a poster child for militant atheism. Like Dawkins, Harris sees time on his side. "At some point, there's going to be enough pressure that it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God."

I'm sure anyone who has read anything by one of these three authors will find both articles quite interesting.

Comments

[Doc]

Where I see the new atheism heading is prejudice, war and religious oppression in the name of atheism. I guess Dawkins will then have to admit his atheism is then a de facto religion.

[Matt W.]

In a class I am taking for school this came up. We were discussing cultural barriers and how the impede geocentrism. One student suggested that "religious fundamentalism" was the primary cause. After much discussion, it seemed like the cause was really intolerance for difference. It seems like to me that Harris, Dawkins, and others are simply pushing for a new form of intolerance.

[Connor]

Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists," he says.

Reminds me of a scripture or two...

[Matt W.]

Careful Connor, we as LDS often pride (A sin, I know) ourselves on the fact that Activity in the LDS church actually increases as education increases, as opposed to most religions.

see here for an example.

[Jared E.]

Interesting articles.

I think my favorite quote is "Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there's always a chance that we could turn out to be wrong."

So true, so true.

[njensen]

I think Thomas Jefferson would fit more under the title of a deist than atheist (I am not insinuating that he was not accused of being an atheist).

Atheism would become much more accepted if it wasn't linguistically and idealistically opposed to something, in this case, belief in God. Most communists or socialists (I'm choosing "taboo" or "formerly taboo" U.S. examples) are going to define themselves by what they do believe, not by what they do not believe

[Topher]

I have read all these books and the one thing that bothers me the most about them is the fact that none of them, Dawkins in particular, believe that atheism itself can be a source of violence and oppression.

They dismiss communism as a kind of religion, and do not mention any other instances of anti-religious violence, (French revolution, Spanish civil war, civil war in Mexico, just to name a few off the top of my head). This is not to belittle the many examples of religious hate out there, but it makes me a little nervous that they do exactly what the most dangerous religious believers do, divide up the world into two camps, and demonize the opposite side.

The New Atheists just seem a bit too sure of themselves and too sure of the evil of religious people for my taste. I would not want them in power, not because of their atheism, but because of their closed minds.

[Dave]

I'm with you, Topher. Maybe we can call them secular non-humanists rather than new atheists.

[Jeff G]

I agree with Topher to a large extent. I used to think that atheism could not kill in the name of God since they did not believe in God. This, however, is a bit of a misconstrual. What matters in killing in the name of an ideology.

There is, however, a difference between the two. Namely, theism commits (hypothetically) crimes in the name of not only an ideology but by following the commands of an external agent which is beyond criticism, investigation, etc. Atheism does not really go beyond the committing crimes in the name of an ideology. I'm simply not sure what this difference really amounts to.

[Matt W.]

an external agent which is beyond criticism, investigation, etc.

Deity is not beyond criticism or investigation. There is obvious evidence to support the fact that many investigate and criticize their "external agents"