Reply #40: I'm surprised you haven't heard of the term "new atheism" before!

[ralph m]

Okay, this might take awhile, but if you go on atheist forums or atheist meetup groups like Atheist Nexus, you'll get a different definition from everyone who offers to explain the term. And the same thing with the critics of new atheism -- they aren't exactly consistent either.

What is generally accepted, is that a change occurred in the way atheism was presented when a group of four prominent atheist spokesmen -- often referred to as the Four Horsemen: Rickard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, started writing books and giving interviews and lectures a few years back. Their books became the 'atheist bestsellers' -- a completely new phenomena, since previous books by atheist philosophers and writers of counter-apologetics never appeared on bestseller lists or in most book stores.

There are two key factors generally recognized in the success of their books and why they are the go-to guys when the media wants to talk to an atheist:

1. The aggressive, often over-the-top rhetoric in these books. With the exception of Dennett, most of the new atheist bestsellers got immediate MSM attention for statements that shocked the public: Dawkins equating teaching religion with child abuse, Harris and Hitchens supporting U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (Hitchens still supports the Iraq Invasion, Harris climbed down from that one), but Harris gave a defense of the use of torture in some desperate circumstances (aren't they all!) in the End Of Faith - maybe he was watching too many episodes of 24!

2. Every action creates a reaction. The overreach by fundamentalist Christians in America....briefly, the evangelical takeover of the Republican Party, combined with the installation of religious fanatic president who did more than pay the usual lip service to the Religious Right. The rise of fundamentalism has driven more more secular-minded people out of church, or to liberal non-judgmental churches like the Unitarian/Universalists - who have seen substantial growth in most areas of the U.S. and Canada since the evangelicals decided that they should establish "Christian" principles in government. Besides the falloff in church attendance over the last ten years, the recovery of some declining liberal churches is a trend that should be examined also

The difference between new atheism and the previous atheist positions is usually considered to be that new atheists are bolder and more confrontational. But the reasons why they are more out front and in-your-face should be given a look. I would say it stems from how they view theists and whether they believe theism is a valid belief position for other people.

New atheists, like Dawkins in particular, have written extensively about whether some people need religion, or need to believe in God. Traditionally, most atheists were willing to accept that theists can have valid reasons for maintaining belief in God or other supernatural phenomena such as souls. Many atheist scientists have an opinion that it doesn't matter if people hold these beliefs as long as they don't interfere with how they conduct themselves in the natural world where we all have to live and work. This is probably an unworkable situation, since someone who believes they have a soul will allow that belief to influence decisions they make on issues like stem cell research or euthanasia. So it's impossible to completely compartmentalize religious beliefs from affecting views on science or social issues.

For example, there are some atheists who object to late term abortion, since higher brain functioning areas are developing and establishing connections with other regions of the brain, but the very few self-proclaimed "pro life atheists" cannot make reasonable or logical arguments for taking a "life begins at conception" stand. Unless someone believes that a soul has been dropped into a fertilized egg, they have no valid reason for considering it to be a person. Long story short, this is one topic I debated recently that divides opinion over whether or not people believe in souls, and how adamant they are regarding that belief.

This problem where a relatively innocuous belief can create irrational stands on important social issues is one of the reasons why the New Atheists take on an evangelical fervor about deconverting theists of all stripes, whether they are fundamentalists or moderates. They take an unfriendly approach to liberal Christians just the same as they would to the fundamentalist Christian. Sam Harris has even declared that he has more respect for fundamentalists than the liberals, because they have more straightforward and coherrent beliefs. The problem with the position that everyone will be better and happier as an atheist, is that most theists consider a belief in personal immortality to be crucial, and a belief in God to be important to provide a sense of purpose for living. Those two points are the first objections I hear when I tell people I'm an atheist. They can't understand how I can find a sense of purpose, and why I don't feel despair that I am past the halfway point of life. These are fundamental ways we make sense of the world and deal with life, and I don't think someone else can wade into the world of personal subjective experience, and tell them how they should find purpose and meaning. I've talked to at least one atheist blogger who became a reluctant atheist, and is having problems dealing with these issues. He looks back at his religious past with fondness and wishes he could still believe it.

The hostile attitude new atheists have towards religious liberals might be because the evangelical atheists share more in common with a religious fundamentalist than they do with the more mystical, undefined beliefs of the liberals. The fundamentalists and the new atheists both take a literalist approach to religion and beliefs, so they can argue over the meaning of a biblical verse, without the frustration of having a liberal Christian reinterpret or reformulate their approach by saying it should be viewed allegorically rather than literally. In a way I think Harris hates the liberal Christians because it is more difficult to convert someone to atheism if they have do not have a straightforward, literal interpretation of God and the supernatural. The liberal might say something like:"I feel God's presence" or something like that, and that's a hard thing to try to argue against! I think Dawkins complained about this sort of argument as being like trying to nail jello to a wall. The difference between my POV and the New Atheist, is that I don't want to bother trying to "nail jello to a wall" in the first place. And that's the key difference between New Atheism and atheists who are starting to take on the Humanist label to distinguish themselves from the followers of the Four Horsemen.