newatheism

As may be inferred from a link in an earlier post, I am an atheist. That is to say I do not subscribe to the popular belief that there is someone in charge of the whole universe.

I find it odd when people respond (or attempt to do so) to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. When people say it is especially angry, agressive, strident, militant, etc., I wonder if maybe they read a different book than I did. On the whole I found it to be a very dry read. The basic pattern is "here's a common reason given for why you should believe in God, here's why that reason is not valid." Repeat, repeat.

"The New Atheism" (a term I first saw on the cover of Wired magazine), is really the same as old atheism. The only noticable difference is mostly attributable to Sam Harris: whereas in the past atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers considered liberal religionists common allies against conservative and fundamentalist religionists, Harris posited that liberal religions share some guilt for the continued strength of fundamentalism. His idea is that liberal and moderate religionists try to elevate faith itself above criticism, and promote religious beliefs as being inherently more worthy of "respect" than, say, political, social, and economic beliefs. This allegedly serves to make people in society more receptive/vulnerable to the kind of fundamentalist religion that elevates faith in an authoritarian god/church above everything else.

It's particularly bothersome when someone attempting to respond to "the new atheism," repeats that "well, Hitler and Stalin are examples of atheism run amok" crap. All of the recent wave of pop-atheism books have at least a whole chapter devoted to countering this claim. (Quick sum-up: Hitler in fact claimed to be Catholic. The features that make Nazism, Fascism, and Communism so egregiously horrible are those features they have in common with politically powerful religions in the past. And these political ideologies are quasi-religious in that they have a faith in a purified model of society, considered in itself so inherently good that anything done to achieve it is justified.) Yet so many people thinking to discredit atheism repeat the myth without even addressing the counter. It's one thing if it's a "yes, but" where you acknowledge the defense then provide a reason why the attack still works. But most responders don't do that, they just repeat the same lie that "atheism caused Hitler and Stalin." This strongly implies they never actually read the books they're responding to. I guess intellectual integrity is too much to ask of some people.