What is "new atheism"?

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veinglory

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lizmonster

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Skimmed the articles, so I won't claim any authority. But the term seems to refer to the apparently startling revelation that atheists can also be right-wing.

Personally? Having grown up around a whole lot of atheists as well as a whole lot of non-atheists, I never noticed much correlation between belief in god/gods and political philosophy. I'm not saying the correlation isn't there - but the concept of some atheists being conservative isn't odd or "new" to me at all.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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The New Atheists refers to a specific set of people: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and co.

What made them new wasn't their atheism, it was their militancy. They weren't quiet atheists, or each of us goes our own way atheism. They were forthright and publicly argumentative.

But they are not specifically right wing. Some libertarian atheists are, but these guys are strongly opposed to religion as they understand it. They have all, more or less, taken a particularly strong anti-Islam position. That's the core of the falling out mentioned in the National Review.

Their arguments are problematic, because they generally take a fundamentalist view of religions (i.e. they accept the claim that fundamentalist forms of a religion are the real forms of that religion). This is annoying because each of them has at various times made solid pro-atheist arguments, and strongly challenged the claim that religion is the source of morality.
 

veinglory

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Okay, thanks--I can understand what that is as a movement. IMHO it is perpendicular to traditional ideas of left or right because it has a fundamentally different motivation.

I am not aligned with militant "new" atheism... more like secular passive aggressive atheism. I don't think it is my job to tell other people what to think, but they shouldn't get to discriminate against or erase the role of groups because they believe differently.

It seem to me that a lot of people feel religion is what is causing wars and pollution etc. But I have always felt that people do good or bad things regardless. Without religion the world would be a different place but I sure am not going to assume it would be a better one.
 

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These new atheists also have this thing called “street epistemology,” where, under the guise of leading believers to more reasoned thought, they ask for concrete explanations for faith. On YouTube at least, these “SE practitioners” almost always come across as smug and disingenuous. And although SE is based on a book about “creating atheists,” new atheists always assure people that they are only interested in guiding them toward thinking more clearly and to embrace science.
 
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Dawnstorm

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I had to google "Street Epistemology". I found a site with a blog. I'll just leave this here. I'm not sure what to say, but, yeah, that's very much not my thing.
 

Opty

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I have seen this term in a couple of essays now (see below), but I still struggle to "get" what it refers to. Is anyone familiar with what "new atheism' is meant to refer to?

http://www.salon.com/2017/07/29/fro...ages-how-new-atheism-slid-into-the-alt-right/
http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...can-left-wing-schism-islam-organized-religion
1) Salon.com is a garbage dump of stupidity and extreme bias, devoid of any kind of journalistic standards or integrity. Which is probably why most of their good employees fled that dumpster a few years ago and why now Salon can't even pay their rent. In my opinion, it's the far-left's version of Breitbart, so take everything there with a huge grain of salt (my best advice would be to avoid that website entirely).

They've made a habit out of trashing atheism and attacking so-called New Atheists all the time in a viciously dishonest way:

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/nasty-atheist-bashing-in-salon/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friend...riticize-the-kind-of-faith-that-doesnt-exist/
https://thedailybanter.com/2015/12/salons-treatment-of-sam-harris-is-shameful/
https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/sam-harris-the-salon-interview
https://www.gspellchecker.com/2014/...tation-dubious-ethics-and-unoriginal-hackery/

2) As to what "New Atheism" is, the New Atheists would likely tell you that it's just atheists who don't remain quiet about their non-belief. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett are known (tongue-in-cheek) as "the Four Horsemen of New Atheism" mainly because they all released books on atheism all around the same time (Dawkins' and Hitchen's books were rather aggressive, if not polemic).

These days, it seems to be used more as a pejorative against any atheist who pushes back against religious extremism or violations of church/state separation. In much the same way that people on the far-right seem to label everyone (even reasonable conservatives) who says things they don't like as SJWs, and people on the far-left label everyone (even reasonable liberals) who says things they don't like as "alt-right" (evidenced by the Salon story linked in your post), there seems to be a lot of people out there (on all sides) who like to label any atheists who say things they don't like as "New Atheists." That's just my perspective, though.

These new atheists also have this thing called “street epistemology,” where, under the guise of leading believers to more reasoned thought, they ask for concrete explanations for faith. On YouTube at least, these “SE practitioners” almost always come across as smug and disingenuous. And although SE is based on a book about “creating atheists,” new atheists always assure people that they are only interested in guiding them toward thinking more clearly and to embrace science.
To me, that seems like an incredibly distorted view. I know everyone's experiences are different, though. But, I just haven't perceived SE in any kind of an overall negative way. To me, it seems like an interesting approach to faith discussions. YMMV

Although Peter Boghossian (the person who coined the term "street epistemology") can come across as a bit of a blowhard, the guy who actually started the movement on YouTube is Anthony Magnabosco, and I just don't see how any reasonable person could describe him as smug or disingenuous by any stretch of the imagination. However, I don't doubt that there could be jerkish SE's out there. On the flip side, there have also been some Christian apologists who have willfully lied and misrepresented SE while talking to believers.

Here's an example of how he conducts himself. There is nothing smug or disingenuous about him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ixyjdc0os


Here's another guy who calls his channel "Cordial Curiosity," and he also doesn't (to me) come across as smug or disingenuous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvz5fcuw9j0
 
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escritora

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Thanks for your post, Opty. Been thinking the last couple of days on how to respond. Yours was perfect.
 

indianroads

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These new atheists also have this thing called “street epistemology,” where, under the guise of leading believers to more reasoned thought, they ask for concrete explanations for faith. On YouTube at least, these “SE practitioners” almost always come across as smug and disingenuous. And although SE is based on a book about “creating atheists,” new atheists always assure people that they are only interested in guiding them toward thinking more clearly and to embrace science.

I’m an atheist, and I just don’t get this new breed that say they’re atheists, but treat non-belief as almost a religion. I don’t mind Christmas, Easter, etc, I think they are quaint holidays that do no harm to anyone. I don’t care what people say they they believe, or what building the visit on Sunday (or whatever); what a person does is all that counts IMO.
 
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MaeZe

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I am very familiar with New Atheism, it's my community and it's BS. It's one of those labels of folks wishing to discredit people by labeling them as extremist when they aren't.

Find me a source (link) where Richard Dawkins calls himself a New Atheist and you'll have a debate.

I'm tired, lacking the energy to address this at the moment. Tomorrow.
 
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